Smart vidEO - Video SEO Service - Video SEO Company

Video in universal SERPS Whitepaper by aimClear is a useful guide to getting your videos found.

Minnesota-based online marketing agency aimClear   undertook a study in Q1 2011 to perform keyword research for video optimization and recently published a Whitepaper with their results. (see link to Whitepaper below.)

The study, conceived by aimClear account manager Manny Rivas, looked at 978 keywords in 24 categories, selected by YouTube search frequency. Categories included Business, Games, Home & Garden, Sports and Travel. The keywords were tested by data extraction in Google and Bing to see which ones triggered the inclusion of video results.

The same keywords were also tested on Google Video, Bing Video, Yahoo Video, YouTube, Daily Motion, Vimeo and Blip.tv to see where the videos included in the Google and Bing universal search results ranked on each video site.

Some of the goals of the study were to find out which video sites were worth submitting and optimizing videos for, to see if rankings on video sites had any correlation with inclusion of a video in Google and Bing universal SERPs, and to see how keyword intent would affect inclusion of video in universal search results, according to Marty Weintraub, CEO of aimClear.

They found that successfully ranking a video in Google or Bing’s universal search results comes down to 3 main factors: platform distribution and ranking, video site-specific optimization, and keyword query intent.

What the study didn't explore was the use of video platforms (such as Smart -Video) that enable the indexing of videos in unversal SERPS for 'in-site videos' -i.e. Videos that are embeded in your own website's pages with your URL appearing in the results.  The findings of our studies conducted along similar lines as the aimClear study -  for our cleints - and our observations of organizations that are successful in getting their 'in-site' videos found will be released in a blog post here shortly. Our initial findings are simlar to those of aimClear with some interesting variations. Follow this blog to be sure not to miss our report.

Here is the download link to the aimClear Whitepaper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bloomberg global web chief Kevin Krim, says that search optimization around their 13,000 video clips is essential.

At Beet TV's  recent Video Strategy Summit one of the panel sessions discussed:

The Trouble with Video Apps; They are Not Indexed or Searchable

While many publishers have been building video apps in response to the dramatic rise of video consumption via the iPad, iPhone and Android, it's not a very effective environment for discovery, according Ross Rubin, top technology analyst at the NPD Group.

He notes that there is no content index of video Apps at the present time.

His comments were echoed by Bloomberg global web chief Kevin Krim who says that search optimization around their 13,000 video clips is essential.  He thinks apps can create loyal relationships, but they depend on home runs. He prefers to play short ball and get “good search exposure.” Bloomberg currently has 13,000 videos archived online and adds 50 to 100 every weekday. “I want that to all be in Google search results and get traffic from that,” he says, “you can’t do that in apps. Every time someone watches our video, that’s a single. I can pile those up all day long.”

You can watch a video of the session here.

It's refreshing to see a major global media player placing value on the power of getting videos indexed in Google and wanting that traffic to back to their site. If you Google 'UBS's Wang on China Rates' - you'll see what I mean!

The pros and cons of using YouTube embeds on your company website

Grant Crowell - The founder of the highly respected Grantastic Designs, recently wrote an informative article on the the pros and cons of using YouTube embeds on your company website. One of the most compelling points he makes is that while YouTube may have lots excellent benefits - it lacks several important requirements for the professional online marketer - in particular:

If you use a YouTube embed code to stream video to your company website then consider that if you want  'Google indexing – there is no way to rely on any YouTube videos and their thumbnail images showing up in Google’s universal search results for your own domain (or Google’s video search engine). YouTube videos from your own channel that appear in Google’s search results will not take people directly to your own Website.'

At Smart Video we have developed a unique online video SEO tool that instantly provides everything a professional marketer needs to get:

• A high speed, high quality online video hosting and streaming service
• A simple to implement video embed code
• Online video indexing with a thumbnail in Google's unviversal and video search results with..
• All the search traffic linking diectly back to YOUR website.

Go to REELSEO to read the whole of Grant's excellent article that gives a full list of YouTube pros and cons.

 

 

 

Have your indexed videos been affected by Google's recent 'Farmer' update?

If the answer is YES - then you should let them know via the Google Forum thread they  have set up to listen to your concerns, especially if you’re convinced your site is legitimate and your video relevant.

Here is what Google has to say in the forum:

“According to our metrics, this update improves overall search quality. However, we are interested in hearing feedback from site owners and the community as we continue to refine our algorithms. If you know of a high quality site that has been negatively affected by this change, please bring it to our attention in this thread. Note that as this is an algorithmic change we are unable to make manual exceptions, but in cases of high quality content we can pass the examples along to the engineers who will look at them as they work on future iterations and improvements to the algorithm. So even if you don’t see us responding, know that we’re doing a lot of listening."

At Smart Video we have developed an automated online video SEO tool that fulfills all the requirements that Google needs to find video content on your website, index it and present it along side your link in Google Universal Search. We constantly monitor any changes or fluctuations in the way Google selects videos for your trophy search terms, to ensure they appear as often as possible. In fact we find that videos indexed using our tool often receive significant increases in impressions and consequently click-throughs to the video owner's site.

Contact Us for more information on how you can test our service with a 30 day  FREE TRIAL

Video in SEO Factors and Trends Report 2011 from Bruce Clay Inc.

The Bruce Clay Inc.  SEO Factors & Trends Report for 2011 covers the key search engine optimization (SEO) factors that changed in the search engine marketplace in 2010 and the key potential SEO trends in 2011. Chapter 5 of the report discusses video content and highlights four important recommended actions. In summary:

'Video content has long been a difficult medium for search engines to understand, however during 2010 Google introduced several new services and standards to help Webmasters provide valuable metadata to search engines about their video content. In doing so Google now has the ability to understand video content in ways never possible before.

Glam Media Launches UK Video Player

I just read over at NMA that Glam Media is to launch a UK video player with content in partnership with the Press Association.

The new player will be made available to Glam’s UK publisher partners allowing them to embed video into their websites in a customised player.

It’s an interesting move which will allow their publishers access to quality video content that can be used to bring more visitors to their sites, increase traffic and therefore potentially generate more revenue from advertising – so it would appear to be a win win situation for Glam and its partner sites.

 I really think this will be the year that we see video really start to gain momentum outside of the main video sites.

There is already a lot more content out there beyond YouTube, and with the video sitemaps protocol allowing third party sites to submit their videos to Google for indexing so they can be found direct in Google searches there will likely be more and more niche sites popping up offering video for a specific niche audience.

Maybe we should start a channel dedicated to video seo?

Getting thumbs in Google blended searches - whats news?

Now, maybe it’s just me, but I’m pretty certain there is something going on at Google towers at the moment – specifically with the way they blend video results.

Let me set the scene – for the last 18 months or so we have been beavering away tweaking our Smart-Video tool so as to ensure that we can consistently deliver video thumbs in Google’s search results for both new and existing pages.  As a result we have a large number of client videos from a large number of domains that have been ranking more or less in the same positions in both universal and video results for a reasonable amount of time. As they have been indexed and ranking pretty well for a while they make for a useful ‘control’ - that is they can be used to keep an eye on what’s happening with the video results in Google at any time.

Video viewing will exceed more than 50% of all mobile data trafic in 2011 - Cisco® Visual Networking Index.

The Cisco® Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast was released
this month and one of the compelling statistics they revealed is that Mobile video traffic will  exceed 50 percent for the first time in 2011. Mobile video traffic was 49.8 percent of  total mobile data traffic at the end of 2010, and will account for 52.8 percent of  traffic by the end of 2011.

While iphone and ipads have lead the way, Android fast approaches iPhone levels of data
use. At the beginning of the year, iPhone consumption was at least 4 times higher than
that of any other smartphone platform. Toward the end of the year, iPhone consumption was
only 1.75 times higher than that of the second-highest platform, Android.

How to track video in search engine results pages.

Just a quick post to update you on some  changes to Webmaster Tools that you may or may not be aware of. Over the last few months Google have quietly been tweaking the Webmaster Tools interface to include a number of nice features that allow you to keep track of what is going on with your various search phrases in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP).

The one of most interest to us is the option to filter the result by vertical - so for example you can see how many impressions are being generated by Google's Video search vertical - i.e how much search exposure is coming specifically from Video content.

This is really useful for anyone who is using video as a means of driving traffic to their site and allows you to clearly see the differences in traffic received from different Google search verticals.

Its also possible to drill down results on a page by page basis - so you can see which specific pages are ranking and for which key phrase, handy if you want to know what phrases a video is showing up for.

Its important to remember that these impressions are "pre-click" so its showing impressions in Google as apposed to people actually visiting your site for these phrases (as shown in analytics). You do get an indication of CTR and of whether your pages are on the rise or fall. This is handy to measure the difference in CTR between Video pages and normal text pages. We are finding that video CTRs are significantly higher across the board so video is a great way to get more traffic to your site - particularly when combined with an existing high ranking page.

All in all its a useful tool to use and I get the feeling that there may well be some more changes to come in the next few months.

Video SEO - the missing link - Smart-vidEO.tv - Episode 2

Professor Hans Schmart introduces the second episode of Smart-vidEOs Video SEO tutorial series - for more information on Video SEO check back soon for the next episode in the series. Why not follow the Professor on Twitter or become a Fan on Facebook?