ONLINE VIDEO STUFF Oh Yeah, and YouTube SEO and Marketing Mark Robertson - ReelSEO.com
Why Online Video? 30,317,131,000* Vs.15,500,000,000 Search Queries ** *U.S. Comscore Video Metrix - Videos Viewed April 2010 ** ComScore Core Search Report April 2010
Search Drives Video Traffic Category % of category traffic from search engines 4/09 % in share of traffic from search engines 4/08-7/09 % of category traffic from Google 4/09 % in share of traffic from Google 4/08 4/09 Health & Medical 46.29% 1% 33.88% 10% Travel 36.82% 8% 27.91% 20% Shopping & Classifieds 24.04% -5% 17.28% 4% News & Media 21.35% -2% 15.48% 6% Entertainment 26.51% 11% 18.78% 24% Business & Finance 20.91% 16% 15.01% 29% Sports 14.93% 20% 10.88% 30% Online Video** 36.04% 25% 27.24% 39% Social Networking** 17.73% 6% 11.87% 18% All figures are based on U.S. data from the Hitwise sample of 10 million Internet users 4/09. **Denotes a custom category Source: Hitwise, an Experian company
Why YouTube? 13,087,462,000** 3,705,000,000** *U.S. Comscore Video Metrix - Videos Viewed April 2010 ** ComScore Core Search Report April 2010
Why YouTube? YouTube is the most popular video platform for video engagement in the blogosphere with 81.9% of total embedded and linked videos; followed by Vimeo (8.8%), Daily Motion (4%) and MySpace (1.1%). **Sysomos.com YouTube Report
YouTube Fun Facts 2 Billion video views/day = 23,000 videos/second 24 hours uploaded/min = 2X audience of all 3 major U.S. TV networks combined More video is uploaded to YT in 60 days than the traditional TV networks created in 60 years Average length of a YouTube video is 4 min 12 sec ** Popular countries for YouTube within blogs are U.S., Brazil, Spain, U.K. and Canada.** In the U.S., most engaged bloggers with video live in CA, NY, TX, PA & FL** YouTube is Profitable? Monetizing (mostly through Google Ads) >1Billion video views per week *Comscore April Online Video Metrix **Sysomos.com YouTube Report
YouTube Marketing and Optimization Quality content SEO Basics Audience
Focus on Quality and Engagement Not TV Advertising - Lean Back vs. Lean Forward "It's got to be 30 sec?" My answer is, tell the story first Shorter is almost always sweeter Focus on first 15 sec Telling a story: Engage customers Educate customers Point of differentiation Entertain customers Be different Write with keyword in mind (if applicable) http://www.youtube.com/user/blendtec Sales increased 700%, 5X the company's old record
Success = More than Keywords & Text YouTube Ranking Factors Title Description Tags Views & frequency Likes, dislikes Playlist additions Flagging Shares Comments Age of video Video Responses Subscribers Favorites Embeds & inbound links
YouTube Ranking Factors Holistic Effort More Possible YouTube Ranking Factors Social Media Activity & Buzz Degree & frequency of community interaction Playlists Flagging Honors Insight/Trends/Analytics indicators Bulletins Authority Channel (Ex: BMW) Google & YouTube searches Channel Views Social Bookmarking Blogs News/Press/Press Release Crowd Sourcing Influencers & Media YouTube Partner Program Close Captioning/transcriptions
Uploading to YouTube Recommendations for Uploading to YouTube Take advantage of HD HD quality, multiple options 16:9 Aspect Ratio Recommended (4:3) letterboxed Resolution HD = 1280x720 or 1080p Else = 640x360 (16:9), 480x360 (4:3) Mp4 file format.h264 video compression AAC or MP3 audio compression Frames per second: 30 Maximum length: 10:59 (recommend 2-3 minutes) Maximum file size: 2 GB
Tips for Uploading to YouTube Titles are important Trade-off = Search keywords vs. enticing titles Maximize descriptive text Leverage descriptions liberally (5000 characters) Leverage tags optimize & de-optimize (no spam) Important keywords first in titles, descriptions & tags Enable interaction Embedding and sharing Commenting and rating Consider manually uploading or API More characters available for titles, descriptions, tags vs. uploading tools Geo-tagging, CC, Annotations, etc To take advantage of YouTube, you really should be an active community member anyway
Engage the Audience & Drive Interaction Add URLs to descriptions Track with tiny URLs Leverage annotations Drive viewers to other videos Engage the community Subscribe to relevant users Add video responses when appropriate Encourage linking and embedding Don t Ignore your Channel Channel URLs followed Site URL followed
YouTube Marketing - Think outside YouTube It s more than YouTube now. Competitive keywords require additional effort OUTSIDE of YouTube
Promote and Promote Again Distribute via most popular YouTube channel available to you Leverage social sharing functionalities Post to your blog Crowd source -Target/Use Key Influences Spread the word internally Encourage your company to help seed/spread the word
Track, Measure and Learn!
YOUTUBE CONVERSION TIPS Driving YouTube viewers back to you
Video Conversion - Driving Viewers Home How can you drive interested YouTube viewers back to your website? 1) URL in Description 2) In-Video Calls to Action - Must include http:// - Use URL shortener tracking, nofollow - Teasers, Coupons, Promo codes, Call tracking # s, Unique URLs, Etc
Driving Video Views YouTube Promote YouTube Promoted Videos Pay Per Click/View Keyword bidding Drives video views
Video Conversion - Driving Viewers Home WHAT YOU MAY NOT KNOW Bonus = Free call to action overlay Auto-play on channel = more views Starts at $0.01 CPC Cost per click off-site? $0.00 What you don t know? Overlay is yours regardless = FREE
EXTRA YOUTUBE OPTIMIZATION TIP
Closed Captions & Speech Recognition Apr. 2007 - Google 411 Whether or not free-411 is a profitable business unto itself is yet to be seen... The reason we really did it is because we need to build a great speech-to-text model that we can use for all kinds of different things, including video search. - Google s Marissa Mayer Sept. 2008 GAudio launches Nov. 2009 - Google Rolls out automated YouTube closed captions (limited) Mar. 2010 Automated captioning for all videos (Beta English only)
Example Search DFWSEM
What You Didn t Know YouTube & Google Index CC CC/Subtitles don t require audio Can help with longtail searches Weight =?? Not much yet
Why Closed Captions? Accessibility for hearing impaired Global Reach - Translations
How to Create YouTube Closed Captions Create and upload.srt file Did you create a script? Upload as a transcript Google automates temporal matching Use Google s machine transcription Download > fix > re-upload Web-based tools & services DotSub CaptionTube Subtitle Horse SubPly 3PlayMedia
YOUTUBE Tricks Customize The Embed Code Turn off Title & Ratings &showinfo=0 Turn off Search &showsearch=0 Turn on Related Videos &rel=1 Want a custom player? Use Chrome-less Player (YouTube API) More - http://www.reelseo.com/youtube-embed-hacks/
Please Visit ReelSEO = Video Marketing News, Trends, Tips Thank You Mark R. Robertson, Founder www.reelseo.com @reelseo Facebook.com/reelseo