SEM Worldwide - Video Search Engine Optimization, Video SEO - semworldwide.com

Video Search Engine Optimization

Video search engine optimization is a valuable and often untapped marketing tool for business. With the rise of video sharing sites such as YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video and MySpace, video on the Internet is rapidly becoming a major component of Internet usage. With Google and other major search engines implementing video search results into general result pages it is possible to see significant amounts of quality traffic from a well optimized video or presentation.

SEM Worldwide has been working on video SEO for as long as it has been a factor in search engine optimization and we can get you to the top of the video results in the major video sharing sites and search engines.

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Major Video Sites

YouTube.com - YouTube is actually more of a video sharing site than a video search engine, but it does allow you to search videos hosted by YouTube. It is widely given credit for popularizing Internet video and has the largest share of the online video market. YouTube was purchased by Google in October of 2006.

Google Video - Google does not seem to be giving video search its full attention at this point in time. To specifically search video in Google, one must click on the “more” tab at the top of the page. However, often times if video results are available Google will add a video link to the results. Google often includes videos in the general results as well when they feel such results are appropriate. Google Video searches videos from across the web and is not merely limited to videos hosted on Google, although there is an option to search only Google hosted videos.

Yahoo Video - Yahoo Video is very similar to YouTube, with the exception that it has a fraction of the amount of video content that YouTube has. This can be advantageous if you are submitting in a competitive area. Your video will have less competition to get to the top in Yahoo Video than it would in Google or YouTube, but this is also a disadvantage to users who are looking for as much relevant content as possible and will be likely to go to other sources if they can not find what they want in Yahoo.

Other Video Sites – Other video sharing and video search sites include AOL, MSN, MySpace, Veoh, MetaCafe, Blinkx and many more. The majority of these are responsible for very little direct traffic. They do have the benefit however of showing up in search results for video search in Google. An example is shown below related to a search for ‘San Diego Search Engine Optimization Meetup’. In this case two of the top three results bring back our test video.

Ranking Factors and Tips

1. Video Content - Very similar to general search engine optimization, you should make sure that the content provided in your videos is of interest to the viewers and relevant to the keywords that you are targeting with your optimization efforts.
2. Submission Data - Each video submission service typically allows you to post such things as Video title, video description, tags, categories, etc. Within this submission data you should focus on your primary target key phrases and keywords.
3. Target the right keywords - This also is very similar to general search engine optimization. It is important to be able to think like your target audience when selecting keywords and phrases to target. If you target keywords that nobody is searching for, being #1 is going to be of little benefit. At the same time, if you target too competitive of keywords you may never rank high enough to attract traffic.
4. Optimize your own pages for video search - By embedding your video on pages within your own site you can control title and meta data and page content and you can be sure that there are links from your site to the relevant pages. Not only will this increase the popularity of the embedded video, but it will also give the page a chance to show up when people search for relevant videos. (Be sure to include the word video in your title tag in such cases).
5. Encourage Comments and Ratings - The more people that comment upon or rate your video the more popular they seem and more keywords become associated with your video page.
6. Encourage RSS Feeds - If you have a popular site you can increase your repeat visitors with rss feeds informing your visitors when new videos or content is uploaded to your site.
7. Embed your Video Everywhere - The more places that your YouTube, Google or other video is embedded around the web, the more popular these engines are going to think your video is. The more popular your video is, the higher they are going to rank it in their results.