Blast Analytics and Marketing

What is Video SEO?

Supporting Leaders to EVOLVE

According to comScore Video Metrix, more than 124 million unique viewers in the U.S. – 78% of the country’s total online population – viewed 9.5 billion online videos during December 2007. More than 19 million unique viewers in Canada – 89% of the country’s total online population – watched more than 2.1 billion online videos that month. This makes Video SEO an essential part of any online marketing campaign.

Video SEO Best Practices

According to Shari Thurow, author of Search Engine Visibility, there are “12 steps to successful video SEO.” They are:

  1. Research video-related keyword phrases before optimizing and categorizing video files.
  2. Always include user-friendly, keyword-focused meta data in all video files.
  3. Name the video with appropriate keywords, when applicable.
  4. Give video search engines easy access to your videos and video clips.
  5. Organize video content by file format.
  6. Robots exclude redundant video content.
  7. Optimize the Web pages that contain videos.
  8. Cross-link to other Web pages containing similar video content.
  9. Create a video library or catalog.
  10. Improve video quality.
  11. Watermark and/or brand your video content.
  12. Submit and distribute your video files to video search engines and video-sharing Web sites.

The seven pages in the second edition of Search Engine Visibility about optimizing videos do not offer a “secret recipe” for video SEO. As Shari writes in her introduction, “This book is about building a strong foundation.” She adds, “As long as video creators and video editors keep usability principles and the building blocks of successful search engine optimization in mind, videos can deliver a great return on investment (ROI).”

That’s why Blast Advanced Media along with partner SEO-PR are building upon this strong foundation by using the video SEO best practices listed above as well as the video SEO services described below.

Video SEO Services

According to comScore Video Metrix, 84.8 million viewers in the U.S. watched 4.3 billion videos on YouTube.com in March 2008. This not only makes YouTube the leader in online video, it also gives it a market share that is more than two times larger than the next seven online video properties put together. This means optimizing video for YouTube is more than twice as important as optimizing video for other top video search engines and video sharing sites.

According to Wikipedia, a YouTube search returned about 83.4 million videos as of April 9, 2008. This means the typical video on YouTube.com got about 61 views in North America in March. To achieve higher viewing figures for multiple YouTube videos, our partner SEO-PR invented a new and useful process and then we co-developed this useful suite of video search engine optimization (VSEO) tools with SEO-PR for two clients, STACK Media and Search Engine Strategies (SES). This new suite of Video SEO tools powered by Adobe Flex, Adobe Air, and Microsoft ASP.NET is called the Video SEO Producer.

Video SEO Producer Features

  • The Program Director is a video SEO tool, an upload scheduler and a YouTube batch uploader that enables users to optimize and upload videos all at once or at staggered days and times.
  • The Online Publicist is an automated email notifier that lets users individually contact lists of friends and colleagues and direct them to a customized micro-site featuring a user’s newest videos. It is also a video widget that encourages online publishers and popular bloggers to embed new videos on their sites and offers them the option of upgrading to a video feed widget that can be tailored for their viewers.

Video SEO Tool Benefits

  • Optimizing Video for YouTube – The Program Director lays out multiple videos on a grid so users can organize their best keywords and structure their video optimization program.
  • Saving Time – The Program Director also saves time by letting users test the days and times of day to maximize success, just as with other online marketing efforts.
  • Promoting YouTube Videos – The Online Publicist uses email marketing best practices to help users send a truly personal note to someone they’ve interacted with notifying them that a new video specifically of interest to them has just been posted.
  • Increasing YouTube Views – The Online Publicist increases YouTube views by encouraging online publishers and popular bloggers to give greater visibility to your online video content, or to make you one of their ongoing video content providers.

Related Search Engine Optimization Information