Subscribe to Shama.TV by:

Shama.TV Videos

  • Ask Shama
  • Business Advice
  • Web Marketing
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Shama’s Travels
  • CW33 Tech Zen Segments
  • Featured Guests
  • Book Reviews

My Book

  •   

Work with Shama

Shama and her fantastic team at The Marketing Zen Group, a full service web marketing company, help clients around the world with their web marketing needs. Contact them today to see how they can help you and your organization succeed in the digital world.

  • Website Development
  • Social Media Marketing
  • SEO and PPC
  • Public Relation
  • Consulting, Training & so much more

Shama on Portfolio.com

How to Optimize Video For Search Engines (SEO for Video)

How to Optimize Video For Search Engines (SEO for Video) Download (36)


Transcript of the How to Optimize Video For Search Engines (SEO for Video) Video

Hey guys! Welcome back to ShamaTV. I'm so sorry if in this video I'm not as animated... I just started working out again, and my shoulders and arms and everything else is pretty much killing me! For those of your guys who work out or have taken a long break and come back to working out, you know what that feels like!

Anyway, today's video is to answer a question from a viewer about SEO: Search Engine Optimization for videos. They wanted to know how that works. When you do videos, how do you get in Google. So here's the thing you have to keep in mind: Google doesn't have a mechanism to get content from the videos as it does from, let's just say, word. It's a different mechanism, and it doesn't have the ability to spider into videos yet. It may someday, but not yet. So what does that really mean, and why should you use videos?

Well the whole purpose of videos and such is to drive traffic to your site, and at the end of the day you'll have more customers or clients. Videos are a great way to drive traffic. So using something like Tube Mobile, for example, to take your videos and distribute them across different channels, and getting that viewership is excellent.

You can also use social media to drive traffic. Again, an excellent idea. Your meta tags become really, really important when you're using video. You want to use it for search engines, and you want search engines to catch them.

The other thing that you can do, it's a nifty little trick that we started to do here, is to actually transcribe your videos and provide the transcript of the video as well as the actual video itself. That's something your going to start seeing on the ShamaTV videos. Right under the video, you'll see a transcript where you can click and see that. Again, you can have the video for the interactivity and for Google's sake you can have it transcribed.

So there's a couple tips for you in terms of how to use videos and optimize them.

April 6, 2009
10 Comments

Tags: , , ,

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing, Online Video, SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

10 Responses to “How to Optimize Video For Search Engines (SEO for Video)”

  1. CoCreatr says:
    April 6, 2009 at 6:22 pm

    Thank you, Shama.

    While watching, I was looking for the transcript – and then you said it right there. Transcribing may be tedious but is a courtesy to the viewer’s time and attention. You can speak/listen about 150 words per minute. Most people can read 200 WPM, some much faster.

    See video examples at http://whatmatters.mckinseydigital.com/

  2. Bob Sommers says:
    April 6, 2009 at 7:18 pm

    Hi Shama:
    I love the graphic on the back of your laptop. Great idea for video. Thank you.
    Aloha, Bob Sommers

  3. Leslie Kohler says:
    April 6, 2009 at 8:13 pm

    Hi Shama,

    Great tips. I’ll stay tuned for more! When are you starting your transcription phase? I’ve been rebranding my biz and am looking into different ways of promoting my seminar copywriting services.

    Leslie

  4. Shama says:
    April 6, 2009 at 9:32 pm

    Thanks Bob!

    CoCreatr: I am the same way personally. I like to read much more. This way, we cater to all!

  5. Amish Keshwani says:
    April 7, 2009 at 12:02 am

    Hey Shama,

    Wow, another great video. You always come up with such a great thoughts & ideas :)

    Its like, I always been waiting to see another great thought/idea on your site & I must say this, “SHAMA.TV” rocks… :-)

    Btw, I would like to know your opinion about Video Sitemap. I heard that, We can also submit Video Sitemap to search engines as well. Can you please share your opinion about the same ?

    Thanks

    Amish

  6. Sandie Barrie says:
    April 7, 2009 at 11:18 am

    Great tip! I like your videos and probably would continue to watch them but may think about transcribing my videos to gain benefits as you describe. Now need to figure out how that would look on screen, look forward to seeing you demonstrate. Thanks Shama

  7. Shama says:
    April 8, 2009 at 12:09 pm

    Hi Amish,

    Thanks so much. I haven’t done much with video sitemaps so hard to say for sure!

  8. Shama says:
    April 8, 2009 at 12:09 pm

    Hi Leslie,

    We are transcribing as we go. There is some back log-but that is being worked on.

  9. Dave Kaminski says:
    April 10, 2009 at 10:54 am

    Hey Shama,

    Excellent advice. Just to expand/clarify a bit for the benefit of everyone…

    Like you said, search engines pretty much ignore videos. That’s because most videos are Flash files, which are basically invisible to search engines.

    That means your actual video isn’t getting ranked…rather it’s the web page your video is on that is getting ranked. So everything you do SEO-wise for that web page (titles, tags, keywords, links, etc.) is critical.

    Some search engines have started producing transcripts of videos (not for the public to see), but for their own algorithms. And like you said, Meta Tags can be used too (these are like tags in HTML pages, but for video). But as of yet, neither of these are big factors in rankings…text-based on page stuff still rules.

    On the video sharing site side of things, sharing sites have started to consider more than just video titles in their rankings. Now, things like the number of times the video has been embedded elsewhere, the number of comments it has, etc. are being considered in ranking formulas.

    But one of the key things to remember with sharing sites is that viewers on those sites have serious ADD. Statistically (again, this is on video sharing sites), 50% of viewers have clicked away to something else before 10 seconds of a video has even played. And by the one minute mark, over 90% are long gone.

    What you’re doing here at Shama.TV is a much better approach.

    One, because you own the traffic (as opposed to sharing sites, where your videos are sending traffic to that site…and not necessarily your own).

    Two, because you own the traffic, you can monetize it however you want. That’s something you can’t do on sharing sites.

    And three, Google tends to love WordPress blogs…and WordPress is the ideal platform for video sites like this one.

    For transcriptions (excellent tip by the way), I’ve used iDictate.com for a long time.

    You upload an .mp3 file to them and about a day later they email you back the written transcript. By the way, most video editing software allows you to create .mp3 files of your videos.

    The cost is a little over 1 penny per word transcribed. So for a 3 minute video, maybe around $12.

    Not exactly cheap if you do a lot of videos, but it’s actually more of an investment for SEO and audience benefit. Or in other words, an investment in your business.

  10. Shama says:
    April 10, 2009 at 6:30 pm

    Hi Dave,

    LOVE this! Well, you are the guru of web video after all. You provided some excellent tips!

    I didn’t know this:

    “But one of the key things to remember with sharing sites is that viewers on those sites have serious ADD. Statistically (again, this is on video sharing sites), 50% of viewers have clicked away to something else before 10 seconds of a video has even played. And by the one minute mark, over 90% are long gone.”

    For transcription-I use my intern. = )

Leave a Reply

Shama's Sizzle Reel

Free Online Marketing Guide & Tips

Get your FREE 22 page Online Marketing Plan, plus direct updates from Shama!

View the Photo Gallery

Shama Recommends