VIDEO + SEO
Not Smoke and Mirrors, Just Best
Practices for E-Commerce Video
Publishing

Who is this Guy and Why is he Here?
Mark Robertson - ME
• ReelSEO.com Founder, Webmaster, Customer Service
Author, etc…
• Expertise
– Search engine optimization
– Online video publishing
– Search, search, & more search
– SMBs & media companies
– Musician/drummer
• Not so much
– Video production - dabbling
– Ecommerce
– Conference speaking ;-)
Internet Retailer Survey – January 2009

What is ReelSEO.com?
Focused on Video Visibility
News, tips, reviews, and observations about
online video
• Video marketing
• Video advertising
• Video search & sharing
• Video optimization (Video SEO)
• Online video technology
• Online video publishing
• Online video market research
• Video industry news

Video Discovery – BACKGROUND
Does search matter for video?

How do Consumers Discover Video Content?
Where do viewers discover
video online?
44% - discover randomly
43% - via sharing
43% - via video websites
39% - via search engines
27% - via marketing email
4% - via RSS & MRSS feeds

Video Search Traffic Trends
Video discovery via
search is on the rise
• 29% of video discovered on
social video sharing sites in
2008
– vs. 36% in 2007
• 29% of videos discovered via
search engines in 2008
– vs. 22% in 2007

Why the Shift to Search?
1. People are used to using search engines to locate online content
2. Consumers append the word “video” to their search queries.
3. Universal/Blended/Federated Search proliferation

Google Universal Search
May 2007 – Google Launches
Universal Search initiative to
integrate listings from its news,
video, images, local and book
search engines into Google SERPS

Videos Dominate Universal Search
Videos Dominate Universal
Search
38% of users who searched
Google were served video in
Universal search engine
results pages
Source – “Google Universal Search Results Searcher
Penetration by Result Type” – ComScore – Jan 2008

Why is this important – Thumbnail Power!
Regular SERPS Universal SERPS

YOUTUBE – Video Sharing + Video Search
YouTube is more than just a place to upload & share videos
Did you know?
• December 2008 - YouTube became the 2nd largest search engine & 4th
largest web property overall
• How much video is uploaded to YouTube every minute?
• 15 hours worth of video - equivalent to 86,000 new full length movies/week
• More content is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than all 3 major U.S.
networks generated in the last 60 years

Video + SEO – Overview & Strategy

What is Video SEO?
Simply put, video SEO is the application of SEO best practices to
ensure that your video content achieves maximum visibility
among your target audience
Video SEO IS
•About best practices for online video publishing
•To be used in conjunction with overall best practices for general SEO
•Something that plays an important role in an overall video strategy
Video SEO IS NOT
•Only about syndicating your videos to multiple sites
•Smoke and mirrors
•An end in-and-of itself

Types of Video SEO
2 Main Strategies for Video Search Optimization
1) Hosted - Website video + SEO
– Optimization of video content that is on your website
2) Posted - Video syndication + SEO
– Optimization of video content uploaded or syndicated to video sharing
sites, social media websites, etc…
My Recommendation
– Take advantage of both

Benefits of Website Video SEO (hosted)
When your goal is to generate traffic to your website & your
video content
Benefits:
• Control:
– on-page text
– user-experience, etc...
– action/conversions
– brand experience
• Better measurement capabilities
• Generate traffic directly
• Exposure to related content
• Can strengthen overall website SEO

Benefits of Posted Video SEO
When your goal is to generate video views, brand recognition,
and social interaction/buzz
Benefits:
• Take advantage of a large audience
and viral social nature
• Take advantage of pre-established
authority and rankings
• Easy way to get into organic &
universal search - thumbnails
• Show up multiple times in SERPS
• Works with or w/o a strong website
presence

SEO TIPS & RECOMMENDATIONS
Hosted – Website Video + SEO

How Does Video Affect Overall Site SEO?
+ On the positive side…
• Videos generate interest, buzz, inbound links, and website traffic
• Videos can help a site achieve better rankings overall
• Universal search – extra opportunity to drive traffic
- On the negative side…
• Search engines are not YET able to “read” actual video content
• Search engines need to be told what a video is about
• Optimization is crucial to discovery = extra work for videophiles

Benchmarking - Before you Begin
Benchmarking - Measure Current State
Check Video Referrals - Analytics
• Where do visitors to your video pages arrive from?
• What % of video traffic comes from search engines?
Test Searches
• Do your products appear in the search engines?
• How about your videos?
Monitor Behavior
• What % of visitors are linking to your videos or sharing?

Tips for Hosted / Website Video SEO
Site Structure
• 1 video per URL & use unique URLS
• Place your videos in a central root folder/directory – www.site.com/videos/
• What about domains/micro-sites?
• Create navigation links to your video content
Page Structure
• Use embedded players – not pop-ups
• Follow general SEO principles for titles, URLs, meta tags, H1, etc…
• Include contextually related links to product pages & videos
• Provide related on-page text (tags, captions, comments)

Tips for Hosted / Website Video SEO
Enable Interaction & Sharing
1. Helps to generate inbound links & buzz
2. In turn - helps search engines more
easily discover & rank your content
• Allow visitors to grab & share your videos
• Create easy links for users - Permalinks
• Enable commenting and rating
– Creates relevant text & promotes buzz
• Allow users to subscribe to your videos via
RSS/MRSS
• Include social bookmarking tools

Optimized Video Landing Page Anatomy

How Do You Get Into Search Engines?
Search engines currently do their best to crawl
the web and index video content. BUT, don’t
wait for them to find you. Help them by telling
them about your video content.
MRSS Feed Syndication
MRSS = RSS feed w/media enclosures
1.Submit RSS/MRSS feeds directly
2.Create active MRSS or link to MRSS
3.Submit MRSS or XML to Google Sitemaps
And/or – Leverage Posted Video SEO

SEO TIPS & RECOMMENDATIONS
Posted - Video syndication + SEO

Posted Video SEO - Syndication
Consider submitting videos, especially those
of a viral appeal to video sharing sites
Tips
•Use services like Tubemogul to upload your videos
to multiple sites.
•Titles are extremely important
•Try slight variations in titles across sites
•Descriptive text around video (e.g. more info section
in YouTube)
•Leverage tags – use tags liberally – optimize & de-
optimize
•Put your URL at the start of the description

Some YouTube Specific Tips
Drive Interaction & Conversion
• Add URLs to your descriptions
• Create a branded channels
• Leverage annotations to drive
viewers to your other videos
• Use watermarks, include website URL
• Include measurable calls to action
(coupons, promo codes)
• Allow commenting & rating
• Find related videos & comment with
your video, only if relevant & useful

SEO TIPS & RECOMMENDATIONS
More Thoughts & Tips

Measuring SEO – Is it Working?
Measuring Success
• Check Analytics Referrers
• Check SERP rankings
• Check YouTube Rankings
Remember
• Be patient
• Have reasonable expectations
• SEO is a balance
• SEO is a continuous effort

Future of Video Search – Production Quality
Keep in Mind the Future of Video Search
1. Speech recognition – Blinkx, Google Audio, Goog411
2. Image recognition – Google, DigitalSmiths
3. Facial recognition – VideoSurf, Google
Why is this important?
• Video Production quality
• Audio quality
• Scripts – keywords
• Perhaps dup content is not an issue now, but…
• Etc…

Focus on Quality and Engagement
Lean Back vs. Lean Forward
• \"It's got to be 30 sec\"
• My answer is always, \"Let's tell the story first.“
• You don’t have to shout at the audience, their already watching
Telling a story:
• Engage customers
• Educate customers (sit & fit experience)
• Prominent branding
• Point of differentiation
• Entertain customers
Sales increased 5X the company's old record

Other Tips for E-Commerce SEO

Keywords Research is Crucial to Success
Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and
make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.\"
(Google Guidelines)
Do your research
•Not everyone searches the same way
•Tools
– Google Search Insight
– SEOBook.com
– “Related Searches”
•Good keywords to append for products
– Review
– Demonstration
– Test
– Buy

Keyword Research – Google Search Insight

Long Tail Keyword Searches
Longer search queries are becoming
more popular YOY
Facts:
• The majority of searches are 1-3 keywords
• But, queries with 4-8 keywords grew YOY -
3% to 20%.
• Long tail keywords are:
– Easier to rank for in organic search
– Cheaper to buy for PPC
– Typically result in higher conversion %

Other – SEO tips for E-Commerce
Avoid Manufacturer Product Descriptions:
• Resist the urge. Re-write descriptions - make unique.
Allow your customers to comment and tag products with their own keywords.
• Start ranking for slang keywords that you would have never thought of..
Don’t Use “View” or “Watch”
• On your product category pages, link to the individual product videos with
good anchor text
– No - “View” or “watch video”
– Yes – “Canon HF-10 Review Video”
Links in Product Descriptions:
• Create keyword rich links in product descriptions of one product to another

Questions?
Mark R. Robertson
mark@reelseo.com
www.reelseo.com
Twitter: reelseo