YouTube is the second most visited website according to Alexa. With 2 billion active users, the platform uploads more than 500 hours of video content per minute.

• YouTube as a Marketing Channel
• YouTube SEO in a nutshell
• FAQ: How can I optimize my YouTube marketing strategy to boost visibility and rank in Google search results?

Most popular social networks worldwide as of April 2020, per Statista

YouTube as a Marketing Channel

It’s safe to say that YouTube is a marketing channel worth exploring, but for more reasons than just being found on YouTube. Google also integrates YouTube videos into its search results. Quite often, actually.

As you can see with this snapshot of the SERP Features Monitor, videos show up more than most other features on the search results page:

And you can bet that those videos will be YouTube videos. Google owns YouTube, and videos from the platform tend to find favor in the search results.

This data is five years old now but shows that even back then, YouTube videos accounted for more than 80% of videos displayed in the search results.

Of course, videos show up more for some queries than others. Searches for how-to instructions, tutorials and reviews can often trigger videos as part of the search results. If your website contains this type of content, then YouTube SEO is especially important.

In some cases, these videos will claim a featured snippet at the top of the page, aka “Position 0” — like this one on how to tie a shoe:

In 2018, Google began showing video carousels for desktop searches. With a video carousel, searchers are presented with a video box that prompts them to scroll horizontally in order to view all the results.

You’ll first see the top three video results without having to scroll. This is like the top three organic blue links on a page — the coveted positions.

YouTube SEO in a Nutshell

You may think that ranking well within the YouTube platform means that you will automatically rank well in the Google search results for the same query. Not so. In fact, there has been a lot of research on this, which you can view here and here.

So how do you increase the chances of your YouTube videos showing up for a Google search?

It starts with understanding that you should research and optimize a YouTube video as well as you would a webpage. Here are some basic steps:

1. Target the queries that most often show video results and then make videos for them.

The success of your video marketing first relies on your targeted keywords. In a conversation a few years back at PubCon, Google’s Gary Illyes suggested that if you see video results for a target query, you should consider making your own video for it. Do thorough research to identify keywords and trends.

2. Use optimization techniques that signal to the search engine that the video is relevant to the search.

YouTube SEO includes things like:

• Using your targeted keyword(s) in your video file name
• Optimizing the video’s title with targeted keywords
• Creating a detailed video description and optimizing it with targeted keywords
• Using the “tags” feature in YouTube to categorize the video with targeted keywords in it

If you’re not making videos for YouTube as part of your marketing strategy, you’re certainly missing out on the chance to be found on YouTube. But perhaps more importantly, you’re missing out on another chance to rank in the Google search results.

For more details, see our article on optimizing videos for SEO. If you found this post helpful, please share it! You can also subscribe to our blog to receive all our posts.

FAQ: How can I optimize my YouTube marketing strategy to boost visibility and rank in Google search results?

YouTube has become a powerful tool for marketers aiming to expand their online presence and reach a wider audience. However, with millions of videos vying for attention, it’s crucial to employ a strategic approach that not only enhances your visibility on YouTube itself but also secures a coveted spot in Google search results. These six tactics can help you build your YouTube marketing strategy: 

1. Content is King:

Your YouTube marketing strategy should begin by producing engaging, high-quality content. Make an effort to understand the needs, wants, and interests of your target audience before creating engaging video ads for YouTube. Craft videos that resonate with your viewers and provide value.

2. SEO Optimization:

Keyword research is pivotal. Identify relevant keywords and phrases that potential viewers might use to find content similar to yours. Integrate these keywords naturally into your video titles, descriptions, and tags to improve your video’s search ranking.

3. Compelling Thumbnails:

Design eye-catching thumbnails that entice viewers to click on your video. A visually appealing thumbnail can significantly boost click-through rates, increasing your video’s visibility.

4. Video Length and Engagement:

Strike a balance between video length and engagement. Longer videos should be engaging throughout, while shorter ones should quickly capture the viewer’s attention. Encourage likes, comments, and shares to boost engagement, as this can signal video quality to YouTube’s algorithm.

5. Consistency Matters:

Consistency is key to building a loyal subscriber base. Stick to a regular uploading schedule, whether it’s daily, weekly, or monthly. This helps establish trust with your audience and keeps them coming back for more.

6. Leverage Analytics:

Utilize YouTube’s analytics tools to gain insights into your audience’s behavior. Monitor metrics such as watch time, audience retention, and traffic sources. Adjust your strategy based on this data to continually improve your content.

The post A CMO’s Guide to YouTube SEO in Less Than 5 Minutes appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Thinking about the future of SEO is a habit of mine. I like to anticipate where things are going, and no doubt this has helped me keep my SEO consulting business headed in the right direction over the past 22 years. Thought leadership is fun!

In an industry like organic search engine optimization, the pieces never stop moving for long.

Example #1: AI

We’ve just begun to see the impact of artificial intelligence on marketing and the world.

AI is ramping up with businesses in general, but surveys vary widely on how many organizations have implemented AI in their operations so far. Statista found 5 percent while Narrative Science reported a whopping 61 percent of survey respondents saying that they were using AI in 2017.

AI is impacting search much faster.

Search engines have been driving AI at full throttle for years. Google’s complex algorithms can now improve on their own, thanks to machine learning powered by artificial intelligence.

With AI, the search engines — and eventually businesses in general — can evolve at a superhuman pace.

Only by keeping our eyes on the horizon can SEOs keep up. The horizon gives you the long-range view, the big picture. To see that, I look through two lenses:

• What’s good for the user.
• What’s good for Google.

To See the Future of SEO, Follow the Money

When I try to anticipate where SEO is going, the most important question I ask is: How will Google make money?

Remember when we saw Google move ads out of the sidebar? Well, as a result, organic SEO was affected. That was in February 2016, and Bing followed suit in March 2018.

Organic listings felt the pinch as the space at the top of a SERP opened up to allow up to four paid ads.

But the disappearance of organic results above the fold had just begun.

Example #2: Local Listings

A “local pack” complete with map entered the SERP picture. It gave local businesses a chance to show up organically on Page 1 when the searcher was physically nearby.

The local pack did push other top organic results (such as national brands) farther down the page for certain queries. On the upside, it also created a whole new field of competition that many SEOs welcomed.

But Google needed to make money … enter local search ads. These ads often appear above organic listings in the Local Pack and map results, especially for mobile users.

More ads directed at local businesses arrived. Google Home Services, now expanded and rebranded as Local Services ads, feature many types of local businesses vetted by Google.

LSAs play to both priorities, helping users and profiting Google. And they appear right at the top of the SERP — filling the above-the-fold space with non-organic listings.

For many queries, the space given to local listings is now dominated by ads.

The Disappearing Organic Space

A slew of other changes have arisen in the same way … first as an organic feature, and then converted to a space for revenue-producing ads for Google.

Today, organic web listings may be crowded down the page by many features:

• PPC ads (paid)
• Shopping ads (paid)
• Local Services ads (paid)
• Local pack entries (may be paid)
• Featured snippets (may be paid in the future — expect it)
• News
• Images
• Videos

Folks, organic listings will soon disappear above the fold.

What’s an SEO to Do?

Sites need to take advantage of the organic SEO opportunities that do exist today, among them:

• Use structured data elements and structured data markup. Doing so will help you grab featured snippets. In turn, your content becomes more likely to come up in text and voice search results.
• Answer questions in your content. This can help you rank for long-tail queries and show up as the answer under “People also ask” questions.
• Be optimized for local search, if applicable to your business.
• Serve site visitors well, with great content and a positive experience. Give visitors what they want pain-free, and they may come back on their own.
• Don’t forget any of the normal SEO to-dos, from optimizing on-page content to making sure your site is crawlable. (See our SEO Checklist for the essentials.)

Looking at the future of SEO, I have one more piece of advice to add to this list.

Videos Are Crucial for Winning Back the SERP

Videos appear prominently in Google search results, especially for queries with a “how to” intent.

Videos can even take the featured snippet (aka Position 0). Take a look at the examples below:

All these video links fill the space above the fold. They count as “organic” results. However, when you click a YouTube video result, what do you see first? You see an ad.

Since video results create ad revenue for Google/YouTube/Alphabet, organic has ads!

Videos are crucial for winning back the SERP and preparing for the near-future of SEO.
Click To Tweet

“How To” Will Rule Organic Results

Videos often answer questions more efficiently than any other format.

From how to use a staple gun to how to grow your business, you’d probably rather watch someone tell you how, in living color, than read an article looking for the answer. And you’re not alone.

In one year, YouTube viewers spent over a billion hours watching just videos with “how-to” in the title. That’s according to YouTube executive Malik Ducard.

YouTube sees more than an ad opportunity here. It’s launching a new YouTube Learning channel with a $20 million investment. In addition to supporting independent content by “Edu Tubers,” the channel plans to showcase original educational programs made by YouTube, as well.

Why Video Is a Best Play for SEO

Video search results can make the Google family of companies more money than ever. Recently, YouTube started counting an ad “view” at only 10 seconds, not 30.

With Google making money indirectly through “organic” video results, I predict that videos will rank more and more prominently in search results. That’s especially true for how-to types of queries.

Any business or organization would be wise to invest in video. I recommend that you collect your niche’s most-asked questions and start filming answers. 

One of an SEO’s best plays today is to create videos that answer how-to questions.
Click To Tweet

Case in point: We produce our Ask Us Anything series as a playlist on our YouTube channel. Each video answers a specific question about SEO, PPC, content, or social in a short video.

Our Ask Us Anything playlist is growing, now at 64 videos and counting.

Last Thoughts

At what point does Google become all ads, and “free” organic results become a billable premium service?

With voice search, AI will make the spoken results better — and Google will need to charge for answers since nobody will see the SERP ads.

The way Google implements changes over time is seen as evolutionary, not revolutionary. The result? People will not know that all that appears above the fold is ads.

Ads will always be needed for search engine revenue. Organic results will be pushed down, or become something people pay for.

This means organic results will disappear above the fold.

The post Organic Results Disappear? What To Do in the Near Future of SEO appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

As a marketer or business owner, you have to make about a zillion decisions for your website along the way to prominence and profitability.

Naturally, questions come up that you need help answering. And you might not have the luxury of an expert at your beck and call.

Since articles and experts abound in digital marketing, it’s hard to know what answers to trust. That’s especially true with SEO questions.

Advice you find around the web may be conflicting, outdated, or just plain impractical.

So for marketers who are trying to figure out how to do search engine optimization, content marketing, PPC, search engine marketing, or social media marketing on their own, we would like to help clear up the confusion.

Announcing our new “Ask Us Anything” video series on YouTube!

To answer your digital marketing questions, we’re launching a new video series.

Do you have a question about SEO, PPC, content, social marketing, or the intersections between them?

We invite you to submit your question here: BruceClay.com/Ask

Answers You Can Watch

To prime the pump so to speak, we filmed answers to some of the questions that we hear from blog readers, clients, and students in our SEO training courses.

Visit the Bruce Clay, Inc. YouTube channel and you’ll find many videos already queued up in our Ask Us Anything playlist!

Samples of Q&A topics that are ready to watch include:

• How to Appear in Google Search Featured Snippets
• How Do I Get Rid of Extra Pages in Google’s Index?
• What’s the ROI for a Social Media Campaign?
• How Many Words Per Page for SEO?

Everyone Appreciates Answers that Get to the Point

Brief is best when it comes to video answers.

You might be struggling to decide a particular optimization issue. For example, should you use heading tags in your navigation menus? Yes or no?

When you’re unsure what to do, it can hold up your projects. At times like these, you just need a best-practice answer.

That’s why we keep the “Ask Us Anything” videos focused and brief. (Here’s that answer, in case you’re curious.)

Each video answers a specific SEO or digital marketing question in about two minutes. According to one commenter, the short length is the best part:

“I’ve watched every one of your AUA vids. I like that you keep them short and have multiple people answering Q’s. Keep ’em coming…”
–InternetDude

When you submit a question, we will:

1. Quickly determine whether it’s something we can answer. (We don’t guarantee we’ll answer every question.)
2. Choose the best person to answer it — from Bruce Clay himself to the many experienced, knowledgeable members of our team.
3. Film away!
4. Notify you by email if we post a video that answers your question.

The main goal of our “Ask Us Anything” videos is to provide reliable answers to SEO questions and other issues facing digital marketers.

Helping you understand the best practices better means that you can do your job more efficiently — with better results.

We hope you enjoy watching, learning, and getting your questions answered in our new video series!

Please subscribe to Bruce Clay Inc.’s channel and watch all of our video answers. And go ahead: Ask us anything!

The post Ask Us Anything! New Bruce Clay Video Series Answers Your Digital Marketing Questions appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

For example, sites that have put off mobile readiness — thinking that most of their traffic comes from desktop, so why bother with mobile? — will find themselves in crisis this year.

Marketing teams across the board will face receding budgets as the C-suite becomes increasingly unwilling to dole out money without solid proof that it delivers results (per Gartner’s Oct. 2017 CMO survey).

As a result, I expect to see a focus on attribution tools and better data reporting as the industry scrambles to connect the dots of customer journeys and justify marketing spend.

Predictions for digital marketing in 2018 are fairly easy to make — at least compared to the last 13 years of annual prediction posts I’ve written. I am sure that most in the SEO industry who follow Google see these trends already progressing.

In a nutshell, the hot buttons SEOs know now will stay hot.

Here are my predictions for mobile first, voice search, content, linking, speed, SEO, ecommerce, machine learning, virtual reality and video, to help you make more informed decisions this year.

My Digital Marketing Predictions for 2018

Mobile First: Google’s mobile-first index will become a bigger player starting around February. I expect that there will be a significant “disturbance in the force” when companies that have rested on their brand realize that the indexed content has changed enough to disturb their rankings.

For sites that are not mobile friendly, Google may continue to index the desktop version and hold off moving it to the mobile-first index. However, I don’t expect their rankings to hold since mobile user experience is the search engine’s top priority.

I anticipate Google will roll out mobile-first faster than expected. But even the preparation for it is changing the search engine’s index — which impacts rankings.

For instance, businesses trying to speed up their sites may remove large images, eliminate non-essential content, and modify other elements including links. Just altering the navigation menu to simplify it for mobile users changes a lot. All of this fluctuating content will affect the index and (combined with other changes) potentially create a flurry of lost-traffic panic.

Sites that have put off mobile readiness — thinking that most of their traffic comes from desktop, so why bother with mobile? — will find themselves in crisis this year.
Click To Tweet

Voice Search: Right behind mobile, I predict voice search will be a major SEO focus in 2018. This is not because it impacts ecommerce so much as it impacts information and news sites.

Video: Why voice search will be big in 2018

Users will ask questions, and many sites are not well optimized to provide answers to questions. The traditional phrase-centric search will become archaic, and optimization will need to be about spoken Q&A instead of who used the keyword best.

Virtual assistants (such as Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant) and smart devices (such as Amazon Echo, Google Home) will continue improving their ability to interpret spoken language through machine learning. That’s a given.

But voice searches are still imprecise in many cases, and users often have to restate questions in different ways to get useful information. For example, try this:

• Can you find your product with a voice search if you don’t mention your brand name?
• When you do a voice search for your business or products by name, are they correctly understood or mistaken for something else?

Businesses should test voice searches and make sure their online information is sufficient to give people multiple ways to find them (by name, by type of business, by location, by specialty, etc.). In addition to all the local SEO factors, local businesses in particular need to consider how to be found for various descriptive terms through voice search while the technology is maturing. (See more on how to optimize for voice search.)

Businesses should test voice searches and make sure their online info is sufficient to give people multiple ways to find them.
Click To Tweet

Content Focus: Content is next in line for a major 2018 emphasis, but now more of the same. The creation of intelligent content that answers people’s needs is the role of the content writer (more so than the SEO), so empowered content teams with SEO tools will dominate this area.

This will be a period of significant growth in the development of content teams with tools and training, enabling an army of writers many times larger than the SEO team to start doing SEO themselves as the content is created.

As a sidebar, I expect the usage of WordPress, which currently runs 29.3% of all websites, to multiply this year, with a massive number of sites redesigned using WordPress. There will soon be a new era of Active WordPress Plugins (AWPPs, to coin a term), which actively give guidance while you’re working in WordPress (like a digital assistant for WP). They will empower content writers to do more SEO themselves, leading to better-optimized content on WordPress sites.

This improvement will be countered by the possible late-2018 release of WP Gutenberg, a new editor interface for WordPress that’s currently in the testing phase. In my opinion, it will be difficult for Gutenberg to gain favorable recommendations for use if it takes away plugin-derived revenue from the web design and hosting companies.

Linking: Links have always been a headache for Google — they empower the search results, but they are also heavily spammed.

As good as the Penguin filter is, which has been running within Google’s core algorithm for over a year now, we see that unnatural links still work way too often in the search results. There’s room for improvement.

Unnatural links still work way too often in the search results. There’s room for improvement.
Click To Tweet

I predict Google will issue a major update to the algorithm sections that deal with links to better filter spammy, off-topic links.

Search engines will also be adjusting to a diminished number of links from and within mobile sites (due to sites becoming more efficient for mobile, as discussed under Mobile-First, above) as well as other undisclosed mobile-first algorithmic factors. I predict Google will examine the speed and popularity of the linking page to determine the probability of the link’s being seen and clicked. Eliminating any link unlikely to be clicked because of poor performance will become critical as the link patterns are reviewed. All of this certainly should change how we acquire links in 2018.

Speed: Another factor for digital marketing in 2018 will be the increased adoption of Progressive Web App (PWA) technology to achieve faster site speed. Both app and website developers will embrace this hybrid approach that is easier to maintain and promote while delivering impressive speed for users. There’s a lot of resources out there for details on PWAs; this recent post by Cindy Krum is one of my favorites.

Coupled with a rise in PWA usage will be a diminishing regard for Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), certainly wherever bandwidth is acceptable. If pages are fast enough and fully responsive, then AMP is not needed (a point Google’s Gary Illyes made during a keynote in June).

By the holiday season a year from now, I predict AMP will be a non-issue for most websites. The AMP project was all about speed anyhow, and as internet speed in general increases, the need for AMP will diminish — even if, as Google has promised, the odious problem of masking the publisher’s URL in search results gets fixed in the second half of the year.

Coupled with a rise in PWA usage will be a diminishing regard for Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
Click To Tweet

I expect speed to be seen as a cloud issue this year, as well.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and similar cloud-based platforms will expand. Meanwhile, Content Delivery Network (CDN) usage will decrease. Serving up a website’s static resources from the cloud provides greater speed and efficiency than doing it from nodes, as CDNs do, except for sites with a significant quantity of large files (such as high resolution images). CDNs are certainly becoming less important, and by year end, CDNs will be seldom used. While CDNs solved a significant conversion issue in the past, with higher speed networks and server technology changes, they will be unnecessary by the end of the year.

SEO: So what about traditional technical SEO?

It continues and actually becomes more important. As easy links stop working, companies will increasingly turn to other parts of the algorithms — specifically content as well as on-page structure, navigation, internal linking, and better compliance with SEO practices.

Building a site’s experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) will dominate this focus and become more critical across the board. The winning companies will be the ones with the best trained staff already working on an SEO-aligned content-based strategy aggressively. Between equally helpful content, the tie-breaker will be E-E-A-T, and we’ll see fewer sites ranking without it. This is likely to benefit established brands in the rankings.

As cited above, there will be considerable activity impacting the content in the Google index. A great amount of the algorithm is based upon the index’s having a reasonably large and steady population of content pages. The advent of the mobile-first index, query changes towards questions, a massive SEO content change (in kinds, volume and number of competitors), the diminishing access to links both internally and inbound (backlinks), and other easily identified factors all add up to a massive index change this year — and that will destabilize rankings.

Factors all add up to a massive index change this year — and that will destabilize rankings.
Click To Tweet

Ecommerce: Google will step up as a major competitor in ecommerce this year. Google’s ecommerce site Express.Google.com has a network of manufacturers and resellers already in place. I believe it is poised to rival Amazon.

I order a lot of products online, and I think there is room for a second major service. Consider that as Amazon gains usage, people are going straight to Amazon.com. That threatens Google’s search business.

Machine Learning: Due to machine learning, Google’s ability to figure out what the user wants is advancing at lightning speed.

As Google’s algorithm learns to map user intent to each search query more and more accurately, sites must match that intent in order to rank.

Consider this – as Google figures out that a query requires purely information, your ecommerce site will lose rankings for that keyword. Sites that used to perform well for head terms need to pay attention to what is being ranked and forget what used to rank, including themselves. Getting an ecommerce site to rank for an information keyword is much harder now.

As a result of Google’s machine learning, rankings lost may be next to impossible to regain. In a competitive keyword field, the profile of the website silo (associated themed pages), and not just the ranking page, must match user intent.

As a result of Google's machine learning, rankings lost may be next to impossible to regain.
Click To Tweet

I’ll give a personal illustration. Google recently upended its search rankings for the query [search engine optimization]. This query is popular with do it yourself (DIY)-minded searchers, rather than people looking to consume SEO services. The algorithm detected this in 2017 and rapidly shifted rankings to favor news and information sites, not just the most in-depth answer to the query. As a result, our SEO Tutorial hub page fell from the middle of Page 1 to #15 in just a few months for this specific query.

Marketers will need to take user-intent cues from Google by watching what results are shown as the SERPs fluctuate this year. Doing so will help you avoid futile keyword targets and find new search queries to optimize for in order to match your site content to the right user intent.

VR: Virtual reality (VR) and especially EEG controls will continue to grow throughout 2018. The technology enables remote conversations to feel like everyone’s in the same room.

Beyond chat rooms (e.g., Facebook’s experimenting with a VR hangout app), imagine business meetings leveraging VR to pull remote workers together in one place. Conversations and examples would jump to life better; collaboration could be virtually face-to-face, all without travel expenses. It will be the business applications that monetize VR and propel it forward, so watch for opportunities there. We are considering it for our classroom SEO Training course.

Video: It’s about time for Google to seriously leverage the revenue opportunity of YouTube (which it owns). I expect to see many more video results co-mingled with organic listings this year.

I expect to see many more video results co-mingled with organic listings this year.
Click To Tweet

Video production for marketing purposes will grow exponentially. Video has been expanding as a marketing tool for years now, ever since Google first started blending results in Universal Search.

But companies in every niche are now investing in video production at record levels. A mid-2017 HubSpot survey found that the top two content distribution channels that respondents planned to add during the next year were both for video: YouTube and Facebook Video. We’re considering this as an option for our training materials, too.

Last thoughts as we launch into 2018

Google is in the business of making money, and they are banking on/assuming that search advertising is primarily how that happens. On a mobile device, that could mean less exposure for organic results. I expect PPC to be taking budget from SEO when this occurs.

As for how marketing is going to do in a year of shrinking budgets, that is a tough situation. Digital marketing is getting more complex, and ROI is still difficult to measure. Social media is a big cause of the current wariness, since companies have tired of throwing money across various social sites without seeing tangible results. The attribution problem is still not solved, and companies will require more proof that marketing is working.

If results can be measured, then digital marketing will get more buy-in and more investment.

That is enough new for now. If you would like a hand with your digital marketing strategy for 2018, let’s talk.

If you like this post, please share it with your friends or colleagues. For more like this, subscribe to our blog.

The post Bruce Clay’s Predictions for Digital Marketing in 2018 appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Here’s the lineup:

Moderator: Amy Gesenhues, General Assignment Correspondent, Search Engine Land (@amygesenhues)

Speakers:

• Yevgeniy Skazovski, Chief Marketing Strategist, FairSquare Inc. (@gene_seomachine)
• Jeff Martin, Vice President, YouTube Audience Development, Touchstorm (@Jeff_Martin)
• Dan Piech, Shareablee (@DanPiech)

Opening the session, Amy Gesenhues observes, “Even though TV and YouTube are video, YouTube is its own medium and it has its own rules and norms.”

Gene Skazovski: Be a YouTube Star! 10 Tips for YouTube Video Optimization

YouTube is a wonderland where new brands are born every day. Why be on YouTube?

• More than 1 billion users worldwide
• Second most popular search engine
• Mobile revenue is up 100 percent YOY
• 60 percent growth in Q2 YOY
• 70 percent increase in how-to videos

More statistics that will sell YouTube to your organization: http:/expandedramblings.com/index.php/youtube-statistics/ 

YouTube is an untapped market for small businesses.

YouTube as a Brand Platform

These are stars who were launched by YouTube:

• Justin Bieber
• PewDiePie
• JennaMarbles
• WHZHUD2

The top 100 YouTubers make $100 million a year on YouTube.

SEO Tips for YouTube

How can you be found in the YouTube wonderland?

1. Video title – Give your video a good name. Like any other page on the web, include up to 70 characters with a call to action (CTA). Use “official,” “new” or similar words to bring more attention to videos — DIY, Tips, Video, How-To, For More Info Call, Testimonials, Case Study, Tutorial, Reviews, Free, 60 second video.
2. Video description – Tell me more. Include 300 words or more with sprinkled keywords. Summarize the content, emphasize important comments or “quotes” from the video, link to pages and resources in the video using absolute URLs. The more detail you put in your video description, the better.
3. Video tags – Tags communicate that “this video is relevant to __”. Be generous (up to 20 tags is okay). Suggestions: brand name, position/title, competitor’s name.
4. Closed captioning – It’s more than 508 (compliance). If you’re not doing captioning, then don’t bother to do YouTube (more reasons you need to closed caption your videos: http://youtube.com/watch?v=WmTMiWGiP6Y).
5. Backlink to videos – Yes, backlinks. Use relevant anchor text. Allow video embedding, if possible. Expand referring sources (share). Link to video from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogs. Promote videos through SEM (see this YouTube Help article for more ways to promote your videos: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/141808).
6. Content quality – That old song again. Create non-boring content up to 203 mintes in length. Understand your customer’s attention span. Slice lengthy videos into multi-part videos. Get to the point quickly. Use :29 and :15 durations for successful video advertising.
7. Playlists – Don’t miss out! If you already have videos, building a playlist is not creating content — you’re making it more engaging and usable.
8. Natural content – Have you read your comments lately? This builds content on the YouTube page. Suggestions for new content come from comments.
9. Advertise – Hello! Can anyone see/hear you? Probably not. Give your videos a paid push. Try YouTube Sponsored Search, pre-roll video ads, in-stream ads videos. Use companion banners. Use video remarketing. Bid on competitor names and videos.
10. Call to Action – Engage videos! Include your phone number or web address. Don’t forget overlays to resources mentioned in videos. Don’t leave out branding!!!

Jeff Martin: Millions of Organic Views in 20 Minutes or Less!

Touchstorm is a certified YouTube partner, and they know all the guidelines of YouTube.

For a video to maximize its visibility, two factors have to be looked at — meta data and video performance.

Video Meta Data

Meta data optimization starts with keyword research.

Look at the YouTube Instant suggestions when you start typing in a YouTube search bar. You can see new ideas and roots that you hadn’t thought of based on what people have been searching.

Keywordtool.io is a more efficient way to do keyword research. There’s a small fee for using it.

As you refine the keywords, search for those keywords in YouTube. Take a look at the results: Is that what your content would be like, or is it different and unrelated? That’s a good indicator of whether a keyword fits your video.

Once you’re confident in your keywords, look those keywords up in Google Trends YouTube to get a priority for creating the videos.

Optimization – Titles

Use full keyword phrases to optimize early on for channels without a significant subscriber base. If a video’s performance takes off, there is flexibility to adjust later to try to capture more. Optimize the most popular keywords from left to right.

Example of possible titles for the same video. Start with the first one and if the video does well, you can advance to options 2 and 3.

Optimization – Description

What to avoid — or risk having your video removed:

• Don’t stuff keywords (i.e., overuse them).
• Don’t reference metadata.
• Don’t violate community guidelines.

Videos removed seldom, if ever, come back. You’ll have to start over again.

Optimization – Tags

YouTube says to begin tags with long-tail phrases and work down to single-word phrases including the brand. You can include adjectives like “quick,” “simple” and “easy,” but it should be a red flag to you if there are more adjectives as tags for your video than other types.

Video Performance Metrics

Traditional SEO has two sides: on-page and off-page. YouTube’s two sides of SEO are on-page and performance. Views are valuable, but not for the number they add up to.

Engagement always lags behind views, so when a user pauses and takes an action, it’s valuable. Video watch time is paramount. It’s the total minutes spent watching a video! It’s not a measure of how much a video was watched, and it’s not a reason why videos need to be shorter.

Session Watch Time

Session watch time is the total minutes a user watches your content AND any other content during a session. You want your content to be part of a very long session. Currently, there’s no effective way to monitor this as it can span into third-party videos.

Watch time takeaways:

• When completion rates are equal, a shorter video needs more views than a longer video to compete.
• The longer a video is, the more challenging it is to retain the audience.
• Review rankings of competing videos in SERPs to understand the length of videos in use and their success.
• Adhere to YouTube production best practices to maximize watch time. (BCI tip: Check out the YouTube Creator Academy at https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2854319?hl=en)

Session watch time takeaways:

Analyzing YouTube Performance

What software is good for studying your videos’ performance? VideoAmigo.com is a video marketing suite that provides competitive intelligence, an automated YouTube search ranking monitor, in-depth channel analysis and recommendations. He says it’s free!

Dan Piech: YouTube and Branding Stats

Dan Piech opens with some statistics:

That’s a lot of videos, views and engagement (likes, dislikes and comments)! People engage on a per view or per post measure much higher on YouTube than they do on Facebook or Twitter.

Overall, brand view counts increased only 1 percent last year. However, likes increased by 26 percent, dislikes increased 29 percent, and comments increased 6 percent. Average views per video have declined because the number of videos is growing.

Industry-Specific YouTube Statistics

The automotive industry has seen more YouTube views and engagement growth in the past year than other industries. Sports and recreation videos are doing incredibly well in the last year. Their view counts grew 37 percent, but engagements nearly doubled! And yet, the number of videos posted is smaller than the year previous.

Look at these numbers (shown in the slide above) as they relate to your industry.

How frequently should you be posting? It depends on your industry. And quantity is not more important than quality.

Looking at a specific industry: fashion, you can see that there’s a big difference in the amount of actions these publishers are getting, despite posting approximately the same number of videos.

Vogue is huge on YouTube compared to the other fashion magazines. Look at the Vogue in your own industry to see what you can do similarly.

Case study: Video less than 3 minutes drove 60 percent of actions for publishers. TV saw 40 percent of actions from a video between 2 and 4 minutes long. For the average brand, videos 1–4 minutes long drive 50 percent of likes. Those under 3 minutes in length drive more views. Shorter videos get more views, but positive engagements happen on videos that are a little longer.

How much of your engagement consists of what you value most? Here’s the like-to-dislike ratio by industry:

Publishers capture higher likes per view, showing opportunities for co-branded ad sponsored content.

The post Being Found on YouTube – #SMX Liveblog appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

• 3 tips to get you rolling if you just make the time
• the most common mistake she sees
• an incredibly educational primer on lighting
• her favorite video examples we can take notes from, and more.

When, after this small dose, you realize your business and your brand is ready for more from Alyce and her team at Wistia, consider attending Wistiafest May 20-22 in Boston. Talks on Wednesday and hands-on workshops Thursday will cover scripting, storytelling, lighting, shooting and even A/B testing videos.

BCI: Can you tell me your top three favorite learning videos and why?

Alyce Currier: I really enjoy CodeSchool‘s videos; they’re well-scoped and offer a good balance between creating human connection and showing examples. Moz’s Whiteboard Fridays are totally classic for marketers: they’re not flashy, but they’re packed with great information that’s helped them gain a very loyal following. In a more general sense I’m a big fan of videos in documentation; I can watch it whenever I want to instead of having to get in touch with a support person for something they’d just be repeating anyway.

Can you give me three actionable tips for video content that brands small and large can use for 2014?

1. Start small: don’t make your front page video first. Instead, practice with smaller videos about your audience’s pain points.
2. If you’re going to invest in equipment, get lights first. Camera isn’t as important: you can even use an iPhone to shoot acceptable videos these days. We made a video about building out your first lighting kit: http://wistia.com/learning/down-dirty-lighting-kit
3. Try worrying less about view count and more about how you’re scaling communication and how engaging your content is to your core audience.

Editor’s note: Here’s the down and dirty lighting instructional video, an educational must-watch that will come in handy in that toolbox of a brain of yours.

Down & Dirty Lighting Kit

What social network is the best for our readers to connect and follow you?

Our Twitter at @wistia!

When is better to upload to YouTube versus on a website?

We usually recommend treating YouTube like you would any other social network. There’s a type of video content that works well on YouTube, and you can make content specifically for that channel just like you would for Facebook or Twitter.

Can you share 2 or three of your favorite industry blogs?

I’m a big fan of the Moz blog and Harvard Business Review. STET is a recent favorite for longer pieces about writing, culture, and technology.

Biggest video content mistake in 2014?

Not getting started! The best way to learn is to start small and give it a try, then iterate your strategy based on analytics and feedback.

Thanks, Alyce. Pick up Content Marketing Strategies for Professionals and give chapter 6, “Video: It’s Time to Shine” a read to learn how to create great interview content, how to use Google Hangouts and live-streamed videos for your brand, what to keep in mind for SEO and visibility, what makes videos work on YouTube, and of course, Alyce’s “6 Tips to Help You Get Started Creating Great Video Consistently.”

The post The Biggest Video Mistake? Not Getting Started! Alyce Currier, Wistia’s Video Queen, Tells Us How appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

In “The Twelve Days of Google Gifts” we present a wish list of things Google would deliver in our SEO dreams. Can anyone out there relate?

The Twelve Days of Google Gifts

On the first day of Christmas Google gave to me
No manual or algorithmic penalties

On the second day of Christmas Google gave to me
A free pair of Google Glass
And no manual or algorithmic penalties

On the third day of Christmas Google gave to me
+1s from influential Google+ users
A free pair of Google Glass
And no manual or algorithmic penalties

On the fourth day of Christmas Google gave to me
Traffic spikes from memes gone viral
+1s from influential Google+ users
A free pair of Google Glass
And no manual or algorithmic penalties

On the fifth day of Christmas Google gave to me
ALL MY KEYWORD DATA BACK
Traffic spikes from memes gone viral
+1s from influential Google+ users
Rich snippets and authorship photos on my listings
And no manual or algorithmic penalties

On the sixth day of Christmas Google gave to me
My robots directives followed (instead of taken as suggestion)
All that other stuff
And no manual or algorithmic penalties

On the seventh day of Christmas Google gave to me
Prominent placement in the local carousel
All that other stuff
And no manual or algorithmic penalties

On the eighth day of Christmas Google gave to me
Rich snippets and authorship photos on my listings
All that other stuff
And no manual or algorithmic penalties

On the ninth day of Christmas Google gave to me
Top-3 rankings on my high-traffic head terms
All that other stuff
And no manual or algorithmic penalties

On the tenth day of Christmas Google gave to me
5-star ratings on all my product reviews
All that other stuff
And no manual or algorithmic penalties

On the eleventh day of Christmas Google gave to me
A Matt Cutts retweet to increase my Klout
All that other stuff
And no manual or algorithmic penalties

On the twelfth day of Christmas
Google changed the rules on me
And made it against their guidelines to get:
a Matt Cutts retweet to increase my Klout
5-star ratings on all my product reviews
Top-3 rankings on my high-traffic head terms
A free pair of Google Glass
Prominent placement in the local carousel
My robots directives followed (instead of taken as suggestion)
ALL MY KEYWORD DATA BACK
Traffic spikes from memes gone viral
+1s from influential Google+ users
Rich snippets and authorship photos on my listings
And no manual or algorithmic penalties!

The post [VIDEO] An SEO Christmas Carol: The Twelve Days of Google Gifts appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Manny Rivas, Online Advertising Director, aimClear (@mannyrivas) is up first. His presentation is called “Tried and true tactics for becoming a YouTube Marketing Ninja.” (Note: To my surprise, this is actually the first time I’ve heard someone mention the word “ninja” in their presentation this week!)

B2B can be sexy, too says Manny!

The trick is to tell the story behind your not sexy B2B thingamagic/product/service. Dig deep to find what it engaging about your product and/or its history.

Some Factors That Can Help Your Videos Be Successful

Strategy! When approaching strategy, think:

• What’s the purpose?
• How does it fit with out marketing initiatives?
• What are your goals/KPIs?

Are you testing your landing pages? Are you creating content that allows (and enables and inspires) people to take the next steps?

Do I have….

• Great content that Entertains, Engages, Informs, Empowers
• Target audience
• A connected user base
• Video content optimized for discoverability
• A budget to seed engagement

As an example of engaging content, Manny shows us a video from the England Metropolitan Police department that shows a video that uses the “choose your own ending” annotation approach. (Check it out here if you’re interested: ___ Apparently there’s a problem with people stabbing each other with kitchen knives in England… who knew.)

Zappos has lots of good examples of informative YouTube content. In this example they even include the SKEW number in the YT title

Some Video Content Ideas

• Thought leadership
• Tutorials and How-Tos
• Infographics
• Branded yet catchy
• Consider a thematic series

The amount of time people spend watching your videos is a part of the YouTube ranking algorithm.

Keep in mind that your audience shares on lots of channels; so, they might discover it on YouTube, but they may be talking about you in forums or on Twitter (etc.) YouTube engagement can be a great way for you to increase your clout in the “social sphere,” which can help improve you success in other SEM areas.

Long-term: It’s a good idea to devote time to building relationships with active forum users, bloggers and socially connected industry figures

Identify your users by mining comments. Identify users that are committed to creating content; identify what they are interested in and where they go.

Finding comments by vertical or interest:

Organic Rollout Checklist

• Submit to blogs for write ups
• Seed with connected user base
• Share in social
• Share internally
• Embed your videos on your site or blog

Ranking Factors for YouTube

Keep in mind your optimizing for YouTube AND for Google Universal Search.

ScrapeBox – Good Keyword Research Tool (for YouTube and for SEO in general, actually)

Call To Action Overlays
Drive users back to your site with a Call To Action (CTA) Overlays (51×51 image + title and body text that leads back to your site). Create these by creating an ad in Adwords for Video, target obscure keywords (no one will ever see this ad), then pause the ad.

_____________________

The moderator tells us Purna Virji (Senior Marketing Manager, Stroll — @purnavirji) is going to tell us how to pimp our YouTube channels. (From Ninjas to Pimping… it’s that kind of morning. Everyone’s talking about hangovers and what not.. yadda yadda yadda.)

Purna tells us she is really interested in talking about how to engage your visitors once they get to you, and how to strategically use YouTube analytics. She’s broken it down into four tips.

Tip One: Set a Strong Foundation with a Strong Channel Page

1. Create a Channel Name; keep it short and memorable; the channel name doesn’t have to be the same as your URL

2. Pick a channel icon that will be used across YouTube; make sure it’s a really good quality image that is clear in a variety of sized (sometimes the channel icon is very small and text doesn’t read well. Channel icon dimensions = 800x800px – avoid text because text doesn’t read well very small.

3. Video Metadata:
Title – make it compelling; use core keywords first; keep testing and tracing CTR
Metatag – create a set of standard tags; be specific and accurate; use keywords
Description – the first few sentences really count here; make sure you put the most important lines first

4. Thumbnail – think of this like your “marketing poster” or banner ad. The thumbnail should be custom for each video; faces are usually compelling and increase CTR; Thumbnail specs: 640px by 360px minimum; 16:9 aspect ratio. Make sure your thumbnail is directly. (NOTE: To clear up any confusion, YouTube recommends that video thumbnails have a resolution of 1280 x 720, and a minimum width of 640 px. Not a resolution of 640 x 360.)

How To: When you upload the video, there is a section that will ask you if you want to upload a custom thumbnail. It’s a newer feature, but it’s pretty straightforward.

5. Featured and related channels – You can choose to disable featured and related videos so the videos of others (ie: your competitors) don’t show up next to yours, but then your videos wont show up in the right column as a related video for others either. So you gain something, and you lose something.

Tip 2: Curate content for your subscribers

You can tailor your YouTube for subscribers and nonsubscribers. In other words, you can create a custom visual experience for your subscribers, and a totally different experience to entice not-yet (but potential!) subscribers.

Some Tips for Engaging YouTube Subscribers

• Use 60-30-10 formula. 60% needs to be interesting, entertaining and informative. 10% should promote your brand.
• Create playlists to engage
• Be regular and consistent
• Use Strategic CTAs
• Community Management

Channel Trailer Tips

• Think elevator pitch
• Show, don’t tell
• Use CTAS
• Leverage special promotions

Annotations

Clickable text overlays; link to other videos or social media. You can also link to your own web page or offer clarification that supplements the video.

Avoid the lower third of your video because this is where ads show up (and the ad may block the readability of your annotation.)

Repeat subscribe call to action at the end.

Tip 3 : Show your personality on your Channel page

JcPenny and Head and Shoulders do a really good job with this.

Don’t forget about your channel sections, and your channel description.

Tip 4: Channel Analytics

Google Analytics tie-in. You can actually connect GA to YouTube.

Once you’re in Analytics check out…

1. Who are your users?
Do they match the target audience you want to go after?
Pull Demo and Geo location reports

2. Where are users finding your videos?
All traffic sources are not created equal. Look at average view duration, as well as subscriber-only data.

3. How much are you engaging users?
Low retention rate means low exposure in YT SERPs.

4. Why are viewers subscribing?
What are they watching? What’s engaging them?

5. How are Annotations performing?
Review CTR and close rates for all annotations. High close rates = they are not finding it useful. Use this metric to help you optimize the placement and language of your annotations.

YouTube Optimization checklist:

________________

Mat Siltala, President, Avalaunch Media (@Matt_Siltala) is up next. He says his presentation will be geared more toward tactics for smaller, local businesses. He notes that that doesn’t mean that big businesses can’t also benefit from these tips.

6 User Signals Google Likes To See

1. Likes and Dislikes
   Comments (and likes and dislikes within comments)
   Matt notes that it doesn’t have to be something that is safe; sometimes a little controversy that gets people talking is good.
2. Views (specifically, complete views)
   He emphasizes that complete views are important and recommends mentioning to people in your marketing that you want them to check out the entire video.
3. Shares
4. Replies
   Remember, it’s all about doing what you can to engage and to get people engaged with your video.
5. Subscribers

General Rules to Follow:

Keep videos as short as possible (30 seconds – 2 minutes works best)
In general, 2 minutes is the upper limit because we want those complete views to send strong YT ranking signals.

Two Short YouTube Case Studies

YouTube Case Study #1

The case study company is an exterminator; lots of people were searching for “do roaches eat toothpaste?” The company capitalized on this by dressing up like a roach and making entertaining videos where the roach goes into people’s houses and uses their toothbrushes.

YouTube Case Study #2

This is a great example of a video that can make an impact and get thousands of views without being super produced. This video was shot with an iPhone and it’s just a guy offering information (10 things you need to know before you move to Phoenix).

A lot of times it can be easy to overthink it. You don’t always have to overthink it; just do it. Pick a pointed topic that is important to your target market than dig in. Your videos don’t (necessarily) have to be produce (or overproduced!)

Other YouTube Tips

Always make sure to share your physical address and phone number as well as your business name in your video. If you say them, they will be added to the transcript, and then indexed.

Use video testimonials! People read them and make decisions based on them.

Where do I find ideas for videos?

• Local News Sites
• Facebook Groups
• Answer sits (like Quora, LinkedIn, Answers.com)
• Topsy
• Social Networks

Spotlight: Yelp Talk is great for data mining and information, says Matt!

Repurpose successful content into videos. (For an example of this watch: “Social media explained by cats”)

Make sure you’re using other social channels to drive views to your videos

The post YouTube Optimization Tips (#smx #31C) appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Ted Ives, Principal, Coconut Headphones (@tedives) is up first.

How are we thinking about getting traffic? What does it mean to try to get traffic and how do we go about it? He’s bringing us some foundational ideas, and will mostly be discussing the value of using White Papers for B2B.

Ted says its not really enabling to think “how am I going to get traffic by thinking about channels.”

We need to think about the whole system: What are we going to communicate, who are we going to communicate to, and how are we going to communicate it?

It’s all about Marketing content –> marketing channels –> marketing audience. You need to worry about all three. Not just one or two of them.

Start by designing and documenting a marketing content process. (He emphasizes marketing content and the power of process)

• Decide what documents you want to create and how
• Wire the output through social
• Make this function routine
• Set up the foundation, then use interns or digital marketers to make sure things happen.
• B2B – focus on white papers, presentations, podcasts, testimonials
• B2C – focus on surveys, promotions, contests, coupons and testimonials

Considerations while designing your process:

• “You fight with the arm you have, not the army you wish you had.”
• Expand to different channels/sources/content types
• Your companies “thought leaders” will make or break your content.
• Thought leaders are difficult to harness

Thought leaders are difficult to herd, but once they’ve said their magic you can repurpose it in 8 different ways.

White Papers Deep Dive

White papers are a great way to bring in traffic. White papers can be repurposed a ton of different ways.  (NOTE: It’s important that content is reworded and reworked to avoid duplicate content issues. Heed this warning!)

Generally: White papers should be 6-8 pages; three tables; 2 diagrams; “Really beefy.” Include lists. Lists of solving problems; pluses and minuses.  Leverage the heck out of your white paper in 50 different ways.

White papers should/can:

• Be easily repurposed (use as a download; send out in email blasts, run a webinar, etc.)
• Appeal to the ego of your market
• Transcribe information

Other tactics worth considering:

• Consider syndication (kind of like guest blogging, but more regular. This is a great option if youre producing a lot of contet; re: daily content)
• Use Paid Search data: create content around keywords you had a conversion. If you have not tested Paid Search yet – DO IT NOW!!!
• Interview an internal expert about the topic and make Q&A content about it
• Try to be a thought leader in a specific content area that resonates with your clientele

Marketing with YouTube

Matt Ballek, Director of Strategic Distribution Services, Magnet Media (@MattBallek) going to take us on a YouTube Adventure:

Some topics he’ll touch on:

• How to support the content you upload to YouTube (YT)
• Recent Algo updates to YT
• How to structure YT Content
• How to setup a process for continually creating video

Optimization and promotion are both necessary to support your video(s). Remember YT is the second largest search engine AND the second largest social network (behind Facebook). This is why you need to optimize YT as a diverse PLATFORM.

What’s the right YT KPI? Rather than considering Views we should be considering how much ENGAGEMENT each video is getting.

The YT algo factors in actual watch time, comments, likes and dislikes. So a video with less views can easily outrank a video with more views if it has better engagement metrics.

The Average Watch Time per day of subscribers is HIGH! This means your subscribers are IMPORTANT!

The people who watch your videos can be organized into a triage shape: Viewers on the bottom (the most), then fans, then super fans (the least).

Look at the networks of your superfans for new opportunities for YT collaboration. (If they like you, they like your competitors as well as the people you should be in cahoots with .)

Drive more viewers (bottom of the pyramid) with Evergreen videos + tutorials (IE: How to build a deck if you’re Lowes); Drive more fans by creating content that allows you to have conversations with viewers – EG: Q&A sessions, industry news, etc.; Reach Superfans with bonus videos and videos that allow you to COLLABORATE with your fans. You need to take your engagement to the next level with your superfans who love you and are more willing to take action.

YT.com/Audience is a tool that can help you get an idea for who your most engaged superfan subscribers are.
Need 5K subscribers to get access to the beta right now.

Having a consistent audience requires consistent content. Here’s Matt’s process:

Brandon Hassler, Senior Account Manager, 97th Floor (@brandonhassler) is going to talk about Social opportunity.

He says that with the up rise of Not Provided people are peeved with Google and that  maybe Google will no longer be the hub of our SEM activities in the next..say… 30 years. We all laugh.

He asks how many people are with agencies and how many are in-house. By show of hands we’re about a 50/50 crowd.

Marketing with SlideShare

Brandon’s talking SlideShare! (CA: W00t! I love this as a content marketing tool!)

First – infographics. What about slicing an infographic up into slides?? (Genius!) Every slide has a different fact from the infographic.  (CA: I know this is about getting away from Google, but SlideShare presentations are also indexed so this has good organic SEO potential.)

People who typically come to your website from SlideShare tend to stay on your website longer than people who come to your website from Facebook or other social media channels.

KEY! Make sure to end the SlideShare with a call to action! IE: “View the full graphic here.” Brandon says he’s found that buttons and arrows work really well. People are just magnetically drawn to the arrow.

SlideShare allows you to take advantage of Twitter. He puts a Twitter bird on each of his SlideShare slides to encourage viewers to Retweets facts and slide stats.

Marketing with Pinterest

Shifting gears, Brandon is now talking about Pinterst. He says people on Pinterst are looking for inspiration; to learn how to do something new or feel better. They don’t want to read infographics. He says to use “Instructographics.” IE: Graphics that explain to people how to do something.

Each instroctographic should be 500px wide x 2500 px long. Make the header big but make the actual instructions just a little hard to read so they actually have to click through to the website to see the instructographic instructions clearly.

He says 5pm and 5am Eastern are the best times to post on Pinterest. Work hours are the dead zone for pinners; the best times are right when they wake up and after work.

The post Life Beyond Google: Diversifying Your Digital Marketing to Increase Organic Traffic (#smx #12B) appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Video is powerful.

But if a video plays and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

This post covers in short-form (because I know I’ve only got your attention for four seconds) 10 video SEO tips to help you create content that gets views — from taking into consideration quality and substance, to making sure your videos are seen and indexed by search engines so that they can be seen and shared by humans.

Focus On Quality

1. Focus on people first:
Before we start listing off ways to drive people to your content, it’s important to reiterate that you need to be proud of the content you’re driving them to. If your video has poor sound quality, or a script that sounds like you just woke up with a hangover and recorded this video while you were drinking a Bloody Mary, you’re not going to keep them for 2.7 minutes. You don’t want them to stay because your video is a train wreck and they can’t look away. For better or worse, the video content you publish inevitably represents your brand, so make it better not worse.

2. Likes, Comments, and Shares matter: High-quality, benefit-driven, video content that keeps your viewer engaged means more Likes, Comments, and Shares. More engagement means more people are seeing your content, not only through direct viral sharing, but also in the SERPs as both YouTube and Google use engagement to help them identify and deliver quality content.

Use Your Words: How to Optimize the Language You Use

3. Perform keyword research: Google reads words to discern what content is about, so using exact search query phrases to describe your content will go a long way in helping to get your content ranked on page one. Learn how to research keywords, pick one keyword phrase to target per video, then put your keyword phrase in your video Title, Description, and file name (ie: keyword-rich-name.mov).

4.  Write a script and upload a transcript: Google will read the transcript of your video so make sure to write a script for your movie and actually say your keyword phrase in the movie. While there’s no rule of thumb about when to mention your phrase, earlier is always better than later.

5. Use YouTube Captions as a transcript alternative: If you don’t have the resources to create a video transcript from scratch, YouTube can generate crawlable closed captioning for your videos. If you take advantage of this tool, make sure you review the captions YouTube generates and make edits as needed.

Use YouTube to Host and Embed Your Videos

6. Host your video on YouTube: YouTube is an easy to use free space to host videos, and it also happens to be the second largest search engine. If you want your video content to rank in Bing (269 million searchers per month), it makes sense you should also want to rank in YouTube, which now sees more than 1 billion unique users every month.

7. Embed YouTube videos on your website: If you want to rank well for a video in Google or YouTube it is worth your time to create a rich-media content page on your website to support the embedded video. The content landing page should include your embedded video, as well as text and still images that describe or supplement it.

Diverse, rich-media landing pages are engaging, offer a strong user experience, and give Google a lot of context that helps improve your SERP rank. Embedded YouTube videos can also help improve your YouTube SERP rank as number of views is a YouTube ranking factor and video views received on your landing page count toward your overall YouTube video view-count.

8. Use the “old” YouTube embed code option: When you select the Embed option in YouTube you will see the formulated code, a Video Size pull-down menu, and four preference options; the last of these four preference options says “Use old embed code.” If you embed a video on your website or blog, make sure this option is selected. The old embed code gives you an <object>-based embed code that can be crawled naturally by search engine spiders (as seen right), while the new embed code puts your movie into an iframe that renders your movie uncrawlable.

Get Technical: Sitemaps and Schema

9. Create video Sitemaps: If you include a video on your website, creating and submitting an XML Sitemap for that video will make it easier for search engines to find and index your videos; return SERP results that lead people to watch the video on your website, rather than YouTube; and improve the visual presence of your SERP listing with the addition of a video thumbnail.

Creating a video Sitemap is something that anyone can do using any number of video Sitemap generators and Google Webmaster Tools. If your video is self-hosted, check out how to create a video sitemap at Google Webmaster Tools, or learn how to create a sitemap for an embedded YouTube or Vimeo video at the Moz blog.

10. Use Schema.org markup: Schema is a form of microdata HTML markup that provides additional information and context to search spiders. Google has called Schema “the recommended way to describe videos on the web,” and as such, is a recommended addition to help make your video content fully optimized and accessible to search spiders. Learn how to use Schema.org for video.

The Tip of the Iceberg …

Video marketing is a vast industry that could easily merit a few thousand words. I’ve tried to keep it brief in this article, but I would love to know what questions you have. Leave your video SEO questions in the comments section below and you may get one of my world-famous 600-word comment responses, or even a blog post dedicated to answering your question in depth.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Optimizing multimedia content is just one of 18 lessons in our free Search Engine Optimization Tutorial. We invite you to try it out!

The post 10 Video SEO Tips To Improve Rank and User Experience appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..