Tag Archives: SEO

YouTube? You Should!

Uncategorized, Video As Content, , , , ,

Every January, Las Vegas hosts the Consumer Electronics. Show. The CES is where new and just thought of gadgets make their debut. It is also a lively conversation on current trends. Here are some facts about YouTube that came out of a session at this year’s CES.

>>YouTube now reaches more adults than any network. ANY network. So says Neilsen whose job it is to measure things like that.

>>100 hours of new content is uploaded to YouTube every minute. That’s more than four days every sixty seconds.

And the most watched videos? Authentic. Content that is about something very specific. If you have a niche, you should be telling your story with video. And you should also put that video on YouTube.

It’s watchable, it’s searchable, and its shareable.

Yes you should YouTube. Because if you don’t, your competition will.

–that’s a wrap.

Three Deadly Mistakes Videos Make When Selling A Service

DIY ?, Uncategorized, Video As Content, , ,

I’m in marketing and advertising. I’ve been doing it for the past thirty years. And I’m a sucker for a good headline.

Yeah, I’ll click on your blog post and skim it to see if there’s any new information. I’ve kept track, and actually only 8% of the time will I find something new, compelling or share-worthy. And when there’s a great headline that announces “More To Come – just click on the video”… my itchy trigger finger goes to work on my mouse. Unfortunately, I usually soon run into a roadblock or two.

It’s always a video for someone selling a service. They’re usually so passionate about what they do (and for the most part, that’s a good thing) but in reaching for that compelling factor and trying to build suspense for the point where they turn you from a viewer into a customer, you’re going to find one or all of the following deadly mistakes:

1. Poor Audio – What part of **Don’t stand across the room and think your camera’s microphone is sufficient** do they not understand? It’s hard to listen to someone trying to convince me of something when they’re talking from the bottom of an echo-y barrel.

2. Too Long – After I click on a video, I watch the timeline to see how long the thing is. THIRTY MINUTES?? Nope, I won’t be staying around. Why not break it up into manageable chunks? With three or four videos, you can break them into chapters and provide a description of each chapter. That will help not only your viewers decide what to watch, but also your search engine optimization for those videos.

3. Death By Powerpoint – I’m watching a video. I don’t necessarily want to read. Honestly – is there really anything THAT compelling on those slides? Why not strip the audio out of it, make it downloadable to someone’s iPod, and offer to send them a link to the slides. Hey! And now you’ve harvested email addresses for future marketing!

Marketers and business coaches are especially guilty of these. Watch for these deadly mistakes next time you click on a How To or an explainer video. And if you find anything like that on your own site, give me a shout and I’ll show you hot to fix it.

–that’s a wrap.

How To Make You Tube Work For You

Behind The Scenes, DIY ?, Uncategorized, , , ,

Many businesses who use videos don’t have the time or the tools to host their videos on their own server, so they opt for loading their productions on You Tube and using the embed code. If you really don’t have any other options, it’s still better to have something on You Tube than nothing at all. So here’s a list of tips and tricks. The more of them you can accomplish, the better off you will be in placing your content where the search engines will find and display it.

GIVE YOUR VIDEO A GOOD TITLE. Use keywords. Make it compelling. No one will watch, nor will they search for “October video.mp4” But they will watch “How I Saved Money and Solved My ——- Problem In Three Steps.” Get the picture?

PAY ATTENTION TO THE DESCRIPTION FIELD. The very first thing should be http:// and your website. Not just your homepage, but a page that gets the viewer closer to doing business with you.

UPLOAD A TRANSCRIPT / CREATE CAPTIONS This is a relatively new feature, but it is possible now to upload a transcript of your video to You Tube. There is also a feature that will let you create captions so the video can be watched, instead of heard. There is an entire list of best practices for these actions themselves, so ask for help, or search for tutorials. Big hint: don’t use WORD to create your files. Use WORDPAD so you can save them as .txt files without all the format encoding. Or, if you understand video time code, create a .srt file and you’re able to more precisely control your captions. The ability for the search engines to read videos due to transcripts is really a game changer.

CREATE A NEW PAGE FOR JUST THE VIDEO If you can whip up a single page on your site, and embed the video, surrounded by keywords and phrases that would be great. Then you can put THAT URL into the You Tube description field. If you have one video optimized for a key phrase, and a different video optimized for a different key phrase, you have increased your chances of being on top of a search and having that search lead back to you.

TELL EVERYONE. Put the You Tube Share code on every social network you can. Your promotion needs to run like a good ad campaign. Maybe not everywhere all at once, and maybe some places more than once. But get it out there and create some talk. Ask folks to share. Ask for comments. Ask for subscribers.

BRANDING. FYI, as part of it’s newly launched “In Video Programming”, you can upload an image that You Tube will use as a “bug” in the corner of your videos. You can also pick which corner of the video it appears in, and for how long. There is also a seldom used workaround for the You Tube embed code that removes You Tube branding.

Some folks don’t want to be associated with You Tube because of its “pedestrian” image. But You Tube is the second largest search engine. It’s a great place to put your videos. And by following some simple steps, it can be another tool in your arsenal for getting noticed.
–That’s a wrap.

Would You Feel Better If I Called It A Commercial?

Uncategorized, Video As Content, Who Uses Video, ,

After decades in advertising, I can tell you that business people LOVE commercials. It’s their opportunity to get “face time” with their customers and prospects and talk about their wonderful products.

Guess who doesn’t love commercials?
Answer: customers and prospects.

When is the only time customers love commercials?
During that football game each February.

But this is the online world. And people don’t search for commercials.

And yet, I’m surrounded by materials from video producers trying to sell businesses a :30 second commercial, or an Infomercial, or even, heaven forbid, a Webmercial. And so it bears repeating:

People. Don’t. Search. For. Commercials.

They’re looking for content. If you’re a plumber, it might be: Five Things You Should Never Put Down Your Garbage Disposal. If you’re a dentist, it might be: Meet Our Staff. If you run a pet grooming service, maybe it’s a couple of testimonials from satisfied customers.

That way, when folks search for a plumber, and that video shows up in search, that plumber has a certain amount of expertise in the eyes of that prospect. When someone is searching for a dentist, all of a sudden this one seems nicer and more trustworthy. When my friends tell me to check out the pet grooming service, I see a couple of folks like me talking about what a pleasure it was working with them.

Content like that will keep me on a web page longer. Content like that will build trust in the eyes of a customer or prospect. It’s closer to showing and telling than it is to selling. But it is not a commercial.

It’s better.

–that’s a wrap.

What To Do When The Competition Starts Using Video

DIY ?, Who Uses Video, , , ,

Hopefully, you do some sort of competitive intelligence on companies that are in the same business as you. . That means among other things, checking their website with about the same frequency as you look at yours.   So what happens if one day you go to the competition’s website, and they have a video?

A marketing and SEO expert commented in an article just last month: “If the competition is using video and you’re not, the competition wins”  That’s pretty straightforward. That video will start showing up in searches in a matter of hours.  Probably before that even happens, they will blog, and Twitter and do whatever else they can to spread the word and get it watched.

Ok, so what if the competition starts to use video, and you’ve had one for awhile?What then? First – take a really critical look.

  • Who’s message is more clear?
  • How’s the sound quality and the lighting of the video?
  • Is it just a self-shot talking head, or Are there compelling images that move the story along?

Production values do count. But what it really comes down to is: Who is telling the better story? Who is more likely to be found in the search engines? With the proper keyword tagging and placement, even if your competitors rank higher in a Google Search, YOU CAN STILL HAVE THE UPPER HAND WITH VIDEO.

Now the score is one and one. You each have a video. Here’s where you step up the game: Do more. Really communicate. Put your customers, your staff even your vendors on video and post them everywhere.  Once you start building that library strategically, the competition won’t know what hit them.

 

That’s a wrap.

 

30 Days To Success With Website Videos

Behind The Scenes, Who Uses Video, , , , , , , , ,

I am very pleased when one of my clients tells me about something that’s happened as a direct result of putting videos on their website. Consistently, something positive always happens in the first 30 days.

I produced a video for an executive recruiting firm. They had recently doubled their staff, and wanted to share their unique point of view, as well as getting more quality leads. They were thrilled with their video, and it went up immediately on their website, blog, Facebook page, and about a half dozen other social sites.

Within two weeks, they were contacted by a local TV news crew who wanted to do a story on them. They were perceived as a leader in their field, which is exactly where they wanted to be.

I did another video for a company who was already showing well in the search engines for “expert” in their specialized niche. In the first month, their website traffic had increased by 60%. To top it off, not only were they showing up on the first page of results for their keywords, but so was their video. And the views on their YouTube channel skyrocketed.

I started working with a new company just three months after it had been founded. We began producing a series of video blog posts. I have just learned that as a direct result of the videos, they landed $8000 in new business within the first 30 days.

These stories are not extraordinary. Not only does video jumpstart search engine results, but it also gives your prospects a reason to remember you.

In the future having videos on your website will be as commonplace as having buttons for navigation. Right now is the perfect time to start. By jumping in with both feet and using compelling, engaging video messages, you can lead the way in your category. It will garner results now, and the equity you build as an innovator, will pay off in the future.

–That’s a wrap.

Put Cool Linkable Transcripts on Videos

Who Uses Video, , , , , , , ,

I have watched Search Engine Optimization experts try and explain what they do to a room full of non-technical folks.  Many small businesses who have websites can tell you why SEO is important, and maybe a handful can tell you a little bit about how it’s done.

Now that using videos on your website is exploding across all small business categories, I’m getting asked: “Is there such a thing as SEO for video?”  Yes, there most definitely is.

Although Video SEO is still in its infancy, here’s something that’s going to help a lot.

Take a look at this video of Cincinnati Internet Marketing Czar Rob Bunting.  Notice anything?

Pretty cool, huh? Transcribing text from video is just one of the new tools that are starting to pop up on the digital landscape.  There are tools for adding captions to YouTube videos and your OWN videos. That’s the good news.  The better news is that captions are searchable by Google.  That will give you an added dimension to your video library and one more thing to worry your competition.

–That’s A Wrap

How Video Helps Your Website SEO

Who Uses Video, , , , , , ,

Everytime I talk with someone about using Videos On Your Website, the conversation invariably turns to Search Engine Optimization.  A lot of folks hear the term SEO, and they know it has something to do with keywords, but after that, they’re lost.

SEO is kind of like trying to put a bowtie on a fish.

The guys who do this for a living twist and pull and tweak their websites so they can in some measure figure out what the search engines are looking for.  Nobody’s supposed to know for sure.  But we do know that titles, headlines, and what you write on the page all get the attention of the search engine robots. We also know that a few of the right tweaks will get your ranking up, but with time, that ranking begins to fade as something newer takes its place.

There’s another fish analogy – if you turn your back and forget about it, it will start to smell.

That’s why constantly updating your website makes those search engine robots very happy.  Because a changing site is a fresh site.  And a fresh site must be more relevant. That means content.

If content is King, then having videos on your website should at least be Prime Minister. Videos can, and should be optimized with keywords.  They should not only be on your website, but distributed to as many of the video sharing sites as you can with a URL pointing back to your main page.  Everytime you do this, even if it’s the same video, it is fresh content in the hearts and minds of the search engines.

Ultimately, a visitor might share your video with a link, or a recommendation to a friend. That builds credibility, and that’s the other thing that feeds the search engine’s ranking machine.

To put it another way: having videos on your website can make you up to eight times more likely to land on the first page of Google results than if you just have text.

How are folks finding YOU?  What are they doing when they get to your site?  How long would you like to keep them there?

I’d be more than happy to talk to you about it.

–That’s A Wrap