Video SEO – Ways to Drive Traffic from YouTube
Online video marketing is increasingly becoming an important part of Search Engine Optimisation or Video SEO – Search Engine Optimisation (VSEO). YouTube is the second largest Search Engine after Google and the rise and rise of Susan Boyle, runner-up of Britain’s Got Talent showed the power of viral marketing via video. Here are some important steps for optimising your online videos and increasing traffic to your website … lights, camera, action …
Creating the video: The video should be short – not less than 1 minute but not greater than 3 minutes. Include your website URL and branding (logo) on the video. Make sure that your video is informative, helpful, funny or interesting and appeals to your target demographic or otherwise people will hit the back button. Two tools for video creation include:
- Camtasia – great for creating screen captures for short ‘how to’ videos.
- Animoto – free or paid version available – make a video slideshow with photos.
Alternatively, you can record a DIY video using a video recorder or your phone. For a professional look and feel, outsource the video creation to a video production company.
Channels: Channels create a richer connection with viewers and encourage interaction. They allow you to create a profile, add subscriptions, friends and respond to video comments.
Video title: As with web pages, it is important to have a good keyword rich title. Place the keyword at the start of the title if possible. A good tip is to search for that particular keyword and look at the titles of similar videos.
Description text: Include a link to your website at the very top of the description. This will be a no follow link but you want people to click on the link once they have finished watching the video.
Video tags: Tags play an important role in vidoeo SEO and help people to find your video. For example, if people are looking for videos about health and fitness, your video might be tagged with the keywords ‘health’, ‘fitness’ and ‘exercise’.
File URLs: Use a keyword in the filename URL which also reflects the content of the video. Thus, if the video is about a new wedding venue launched at your hotel, a good file name might be http://www.mysite.com/wedding-venue-name-of-venue.mp4.
Allow embed code: Allowing the embed code on your videos means that people can copy and paste the code directly to their own website. This will enable other users to share and embed your video code onto their own blogs and websites and create backlinks to your video which can help increase Video SEO – Search Engine Optimisation.
Encourage ratings and reviews: When you encourage users to rate your video, the Video Search Engines will pay attention to videos that have higher ratings. In addition, videos which get high ratings from users tend to be the same videos that users often mark as favourites and share with other users.
Post your video as a video response to someone else’s video: This is a great way to attract more views to your video. You only get one chance per video to post as a video response so use it wisely. In order to make this work to your best advantage, you should consider the following:
- Is their video popular – look at the You Tube insight data (an important tool for video SEO).
- Is their video trending upwards?
- Do they accept video responses?
- Is your video related – are they likely to accept your video response?
Subscribe to other channels: Subscribing to other related channels to drive traffic to your website is a good video marketing strategy. Leave a comment that provides value to the channel owner and mention your website address. This will drive traffic and interest to your channel, building your profile on YouTube and increase subscribers to your channel.
Upload the video to your own website: Upload the video onto your own website and introduce a video sitemap for Search Engines. You have a choice here in either embedding the video code from YouTube to increase the ‘views’ tally on YouTube or upload the video directly to your website and encourage links back.
In its simplest form, Google says that the Video Sitemap must link to a landing page for a video as well as some essential information required for indexing the video. Once you have created your Video Sitemap, you can submit it to Google using Webmaster Tools.
Link bait: Use the video as link bait in your link building strategies. Provide great content in your video to encourage other relevant, credible and quality websites to link back to your video. Link to your video in a new blog post, promote your video on social networks like Twitter and Facebook and add your video to your Google Local Business Listing.
Internal linking also has link value so make sure you remember to link to the video within your own website as well.
Submit your video to YouTube video sites: Submit the link of your YouTube video to the following Web 2.0 sites and social networks to drive traffic to your video:
Video Syndication: Manually submitting your video to all of the video sites can be time consuming so it may be more cost effective to use a syndication service even if you have to pay a subscription fee. When syndicating your video, don’t forget to fill in a profile on each video site. You can obtain a back link to your site from each of these profiles for your link building strategy. There are two main distribution services that you can use to do this for you:
- Tube Mogul (free)
- Traffic Geyser (paid – $97 / month)
When uploading to the video sites, only choose the sites that will fit with your video’s topic and target audience. For instance, How Cast only supports ‘how to’ videos and likewise, Stupid Videos might not always be an appropriate site for your ‘how to’ video.
With comScore reporting in 2009 that YouTube alone has surpassed 100,000 million users watching videos, can you afford to ignore this online video marketing strategy any longer? Contact us to find out how we can help you leverage the benefits that Video SEO – Search Engine Optimisation or VSEO provides. We can grow your video channel and brand, drive traffic to your website, increase your Search Engine ranking and add to your bottom line.
What is Link Building? Why are links important for a website and rankings?
When a search string is entered into a Search Engine, the Search Engine needs to determine how to return the most relevant results. This is achieved by compiling different on- and off-page elements, such as
- SEO attributes
- On page content and
- incoming links for each page; to name the most important factors.
By applying its algorithm calculation to the various pages in their index, the Search Engine then figures out which ones are related in any way to the query and which of those are the most important, or the most relevant to that query.
SEO elements and content both have their own challenges; but link building is often seen as one of the most complicated aspects. What is a good link? Why would certain links bring your website more attention than others? How can you manage this and obtain the best possible results from your link building campaign?
In the eyes of a Search Engine, each link to a web page is seen as a vote for that web page. If there are two pages that are equally relevant to a given search query, the page with the better inbound link profile will rank higher than the other page. That’s exactly why a good link building strategy will definitely help bringing your website to a higher position in results pages… where the traffic meets your goals.
What is a bad link?
A link for an obscure directory, based in another country an covering a completely different topic. This is the worst link ever! A link having only one of the above attributes won’t be very useful to your campaign.
What is a good link?
A natural link. What is it?
A good link process is to try obtaining high and quality relevant links to your website. Everybody prefers natural links, even if it’s harder to build a natural link building campaign… because you need to use your creativity more than your wallet! But this will bring long term results.
Basic tips to help you getting good inbound links
- Create a Google Local Listing and add relevant information about your business
- Find your local Chamber of Commerce website and check if possible to add your business website
- While you are at it, post your business profile where accepted (your old University or High School, for example)
- Ask your suppliers or clients if they accept to display your website URL or, even better, to write an article about your company and services
- Write press releases, submit them online or send them to your local paper
- Check your Yellow pages listing and ask to mention your website
- Submit your website to the most influential online directories – using the right category
- Post your job opportunities on online job boards
- Charity & Donation; we all give money for a good reason…
- Write articles on your business topic and submit them to relevant websites or blogs; everyone webmaster loves good content and they will probably agree to mention your website URL, when asked
But remember: the most important thing to keep in mind is to find link from websites who discuss the same topic. Stay in your field, build your online profile and be seen as someone who masters what he preaches.
Oh… and don’t forget the anchor text. This is the text string where your link will be posted upon and is an important factor for Search Engines as well.
A good advice would be to ease this linking process by providing a page where link samples are displayed. After all, if you want others to link to your website, mention what you like them to use as code or link attributes. Something they could copy-paste on their own website.
Information about <a title=”Link Building Strategies” href=”http://www.seoglobalnetwork.com/seo-news/link-building/” target=”_blank”>Link Building Strategies</a> from SEO Global Network.
Our last tip – but not the least – is to write great content. Something completely new that has never been said or expressed before. Something so interesting that people will read and talk about. Something that will attract links by dozens, natural links, in a constant flow… Start by what you know best: what you do. You are running a specific business; so talk specific!
As we always say, imagination and creativity are the limit when it comes to link building strategy!
SEO Global Network is a platform for sharing the latest SEO news, SEO tools and SEO tips from around the world as well as a resource for finding the SEO company or professional SEO services you need as well as a general SEO directory.
8 SEO Services You Should Be Offering Your Clients
The world of Search Engine Optimisation is competitive. So, in order to give your SEO company the edge and to get the results that your clients expect, what SEO services should your firm offer?
Well, there are a number of SEO services that you should be considering for you SEO company. Let’s take a look at each one.
SEO packages
Clients operate in various industries, with websites that might be new or old, and ultimately they expect different results for their investment in SEO. So, it is important for your SEO company to offer SEO packages that suit different budgets and objectives. Commonly inolving meta data & page tweaking, basic link building and keyword researchyour SEO packages should be scalable, to allow for websites with a large amount of pages.
SEO Consulting
SEO consulting is the process of making specific SEO recommendations to a client, based on their current situation. As part of the consulting process you should ascertain what your client’s objective is and any problems with their website which will make it difficult to achieve good rankings in Google.
On-page content
Optimising the current web pages needs to be an essential offering amongst your SEO services. Your on-page content optimisation service needs to ensure that your desired keywords are in the Title tag, Meta Data, Headings and content on the page.
Website Audits
Undertaking a website audit allows you to identify problems with the website’s structure, current pages and keyword targeting that can be fixed in order to make your client’s website soar up the search engine rankings. Common problems include orphan pages, duplicate content and poor navigational structures.
SEO Copy Writing
An essential part of any SEO campaign, SEO copywriting is the task of writing search engine optimised content for your client’s website. Adding new content not only increases customer engagement and conversion numbers, but allows you to target new keywords.
SEO training
Training your clients to undertake basic SEO tasks themselves not only improves the chances of the client’s website ranking well for its targeted keywords, but you can also save time by empowering them to do basic SEO, so that you don’t have to!
Link building
One of the most important and challenging aspects of search engine optimisation, link building can be the difference between showing your client their new number one ranking for an important keyword, or apologising for taking their money to begin with!
When link building for your client’s website, you should obtain links from websites which are considered authority websites in their niche. The anchor text should contain some keywords, but do not go overboard. Whatever you do, do not buy links.
Website technical analysis
The process of analysing the structure of a website and identifying any structural limitations which will inhibit your client’s ability to rank well in the major search engines is known as website technical analysis. Common technical issues that you should be on the look out for include dynamic URLs, broken links and duplicate content.
As you can see, the SEO services that your SEO company should offer are numerous and varied. Some clients may need multiple services, whilst other clients are catered for by a SEO Package – some page tweaking, basic link building and keyword research.
SEO Terms Explained
New to the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Confused by all the jargon and acronyms? Here is a list of some of the more common SEO terms and their meanings…
This is by no means an extensive or exhaustive list, but represents most of the common SEO expressions you will hear discussed. We’ve tried to stick to the basics and keep it newbie-friendly.
Algorithm
A set of programming rules which determine how a search engine displays the results of a search.
Alt Tags
Alternative text to be shown in a web browser when images are not shown. Alt tags are provided for the benefit of vision impaired users and are no longer considered to have high SEO value. An alt tag should describe the image and not simply comprise a list of keywords.
Anchor Text
A link created from a string of text. The “anchor” is the linked section of text. Effective use of anchor text involves linking targeted keyword phrases. For example, in this sentence Search Engine Optimization is the anchor text, which in this case links to the home page of this site.
Backlinks (or Back Links)
External links, or links from other websites to your website. Google’s Webmaster Tools can give you information on your backlinks but doesn’t always report all the links Google knows about. Yahoo’s Site Explorer can often give you a more complete picture.
Black Hat SEO
A type of Search Engine Optimisation where the techniques and strategies used do not generally comply with the search engines’ webmaster guidelines. Black Hat SEO can be effective, but is risky and can lead to a search engine ban or penalty.
Bounce Rate
When a visitor to your site clicks the back button on their browser, without navigating deeper into your site, they are said to “bounce”. A high bounce rate would indicate your site is not relevant to the search they performed or they judged your site to be poor quality.
Cache
A snapshot of your page taken when a search engine last visited. To see the cache of your page in Google type cache: followed by your page URL into a Google search box.
Cloaking
A technique involving the presentation of different content to search engine spiders and human visitors. Cloaking is essentially a deceptive practice which will likely get your site banned or penalized by the search engines if detected.
Content
In the context of SEO, generally considered to be the readable text within the body of a page.
Conversion
The desired objective of your site is fulfilled. This could be a sale, a subscription, a form submission etc. Generally, a visitor is converted to a customer.
Crawl
When a search engine visits your site they are said to “crawl” your site. This is the process of collecting data and returning it to the search engine. Your site logs or analytics software can tell you which search engines have crawled your site and when that last occurred.
DMOZ
Also known as The Open Directory Project. DMOZ is a free, human-edited directory run by volunteers. A listing is considered beneficial for SEO, but getting listed can be a real challenge.
Doorway Page
Not to be confused with a targeted landing page, a doorway page typically has no useful content and exists only to redirect visitors to another area of the site. Generally frowned upon by search engines.
Duplicate Content
Content that is identical to other content on your site or anywhere else on the Web. As a rule, search engines do not want to present multiple versions of the same content in their search results. Duplicate content should be avoided where possible, but where legitimate reasons for it exist e.g. printer friendly pages, measures need to be put in place to instruct the engines on which pages to index and which pages should not be indexed.
External Link
An in-bound link to your site from another site on the Web.
Feed
A common feature of Blogs. Allows readers to subscribe to frequently updated content by adding the feed to their feed-reader software or email client (e.g. Outlook). Feeds are typically created in a format called RSS (Rich Site Summary or Real Simple Syndication).
Google
Currently the Web’s largest and most important search engine, accounting for the great majority of searches performed.
Googlebot
Google’s search engine program which visits your site and returns data to Google.
Google Sitemap
A file placed on your web server and submitted to Google indicating which pages on your site need to be indexed.
Google Sitelinks
In some search results Google lists multiple deep links rather than a single link. Generally occurs when Google considers a particular site far more relevant in the search results.
Headings (Heading Tags)
Generally considered important for on-page SEO and good web design. Heading tags are constructed in HTML using a H1 to H6 tag. Styling can be modified using CSS.
Inbound Links (IBL)
An external link from another site to your site.
Internal Links
Links from a page on your site to another page on your site.
Keywords
A word or phrase which potential customers may use in a search for content relevant to your site.
Keyword Density
A measure of how prominent a keyword or keyword phrase is within the content of a page. No longer considered to be a significant ranking factor in SEO. Over-reliance on keyword density resulted in content written purely for search engines and not humans.
Landing Page
A page which targets a specific keyword phrase by including content relevant to that phrase. A landing page will typically include the keyword phrase in the title, description, headings, links and body content of the page.
Links
In SEO terms, generally considered to be inbound links to your site i.e. a surfer clicks on a link on another website and lands on your website. In basic terms, a search engine considers a link to your site as a citation or a vote, and factors this into it’s ranking algorithm.
Link Building
The process of acquiring inbound links to your site.
Link Juice
The value a search engine places on a link to your site. Some links will have a significant effect on your rankings e.g. from a high-authority, trustworthy site, while other links will have no value at all.
Metatags (Meta Tags)
HTML code which search engines read and use in various ways.
Meta Description
Provides a summary of the page content. Search engines often use the meta description to display in their search results. The meta description is considered relatively important for SEO but should also provide a compelling reason for a searcher to click through to your site.
Meta Keywords
A list of keywords relevant to the page. No longer considered to be of significant value for SEO.
PageRank (PR)
Google’s logarithmic formula for calculating the importance of a web document based on links. PR plays a pivotal role in Google’s ranking algorithm but just how much is hotly debated by SEOs. A representation of a page’s PR is shown in the Google Toolbar on a scale from 0 to 10. The toolbar PR should only be taken as a general guide and does not necessarily represent the true PR of a page.
Reciprocal Linking
The process of exchanging links i.e. where site A links to site B, and in return site B links to site A.
Search Engine Optimization (also spelled optimisation)
In basic terms, the process of optimizing a page through it’s on-page content, structure and link profile to rank highly for specific search queries. In broader terms, to increase revenues & profits for businesses marketing their products or services online.
SEM
Search Engine Marketing. Encompasses all aspects of building traffic through search, including natural (organic) search engine optimization and PPC (pay-per-click) search engine advertising.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization (Optimisation). Focuses on natural (organic) search engine ranking.
SERP
Search Engine Result Page. A list of links & descriptions produced when a search is performed.
Technorati
Technorati is a blog search engine.
Title Tag
Also known as the meta title. Shows at the top of a browser window and is considered very important in on-page SEO.
URL
Uniform Resource Locator. The web address of a document.
XML Sitemap
A list of pages you want the search engines to find, created in XML format and submitted to the search engines.
Business Profile – Platinum Tint
Sydney Window Tinting Specialist – Platinum Tint
Platinum Tint, a family owned Australian business, has completed over 1000 window tinting installations in Sydney.
With this much dependable experience, you can be assured that not only will their window tinting quote be excellent, but you will also be assured that experts have consulted with you in choosing the right film or frosting for your application. With so many films to choose from, it is imperative that you receive the right film.
Platinum Tint supplies…
There are many applications for window tinting and frosting films. They can be applied to reduce solar load, provide security and privacy, or to limit invasive lighting and reduce glare. The applications are endless and so are the choices of film. Whether it’s a residential property, unit, commercial office, business premises or a high rise, there is a superior choice in Sydney for all your tint and frosting needs. Platinum Tint.
This Business Profile is provided as a service to clients of our sister company SEO Works, a leading SEO company providing SEO Services and SEO Packages across a wide range of industry segments for their Google SEO needs. For your SEO Brisbane, SEO Sydney or SEO Melbourne requirements contact SEO Works today.
Free Search Engine Ranking Tools
Where does your site rank in the search engines? Find out with these handy tools…
SEOBook Rank Checker
The Rank Checker from SeoBook is a free tool shows you where your website ranks in the major search engines. It’s easy to use and install but you need to have the FireFox web browser installed on your PC before you can use it.
Digital Point Keyword Ranking Tool
The Free Search Engine Keyword Tracker & Keyword Ranking Tool from Digital Point can be used to track rankings on Google, Yahoo and MSN and includes historical data.
Mike’s Marketing Tools
The Search Engine Rankings tool from Mike’s Marketing Tools offers free online ranking reports from 8 top search engines and web directories, including Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN, AOL, AltaVista, AllTheWeb, Yahoo! Directory, and Open Directory (Dmoz).
GoogleRankings.com
The GoogleRankings free rankings tool provides a report on Google, Yahoo!, MSN & Ask. However you need to have a Google SOAP API key for Google reports.
Site Report Card
The Site Report Card tool allows you to enter 4 URLs and check your rankings in Google, Yahoo! and MSN.
Algotech
The Advanced Google Searches tool from Algotech Internet Marketing provides a comprehensive ranking check and SEO analysis of your website.
This News and Views post is provided as a service to clients of our sister company SEO Works, a leading SEO company providing SEO Services and SEO Packages across a wide range of industry segments for their Google SEO needs. For your SEO Brisbane, SEO Sydney or SEO Melbourne requirements contact SEO Works today.
Business Profile – SEO Works
SEO – Search Engine Optimisation
SEO Works are a leading Australian Search Engine Optimisation company with a range of services & packages to suit your needs…
Is your website “in tune” with Google?
SEO Works are a top Australian SEO company with a large and growing portfolio of local and international businesses who are growing their revenues through organic Search Engine Optimisation.
With their team of experienced SEO specialists delivering quality results, SEO Works know what it takes to not just rank highly in the search engines, but achieve quantifiable and measurable business results.
Services include…
- SEO consultants
- Keyword research
- Link development
- Content Management Systems
- SEO Strategy & Content Development
- Custom SEO Services
SEO Works have developed a range of SEO Packages to suit every business including…
- 15 Keyword Packages
- 10 Keyword Packages
- SEO Starter Packages
- Social Network Plans
- SEO Growth Plans
- Maintenance Plans
Whether your business is located in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide or Perth…or in fact anywhere in Australia or around the globe, your business will see increased revenues and profits when the team of search engine optimisation experts at SEO Works make your business their latest assignment.
What is SEO?
You may already know that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation (or Optimization, depending on what part of the world you hail from). But what does that mean exactly?
Many people will tell you it simply means optimising your website so it ranks highly for a particular search query. That’s true…but SEO goes way beyond that. Rankings are just that…a position on a list. It’s very nice to be at the top or near the top of a list, but you should be asking yourself this…
- Does that ranking translate into increased revenue for my business?
- Is that ranking sending more visitors to my website?
- Are the visitors arriving at my site, as a result of my SEO efforts, interested in my offer i.e. are they targeted visitors?
- Are those visitors making purchases, or fulfilling the objective of my site?
SEO might start with rankings i.e. obtaining a desired position in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), but it finishes with converting a visitor to a customer. A #1 position in the SERPS and 10,000 visitors a day mean nothing if those visitors aren’t buying!
At SEO Global Network our objective is to help you sort through the myths, misconceptions and mis-information so you can adopt an SEO strategy which will result in increased revenues and profits for your business. Even if you intend to engage an SEO professional…knowledge is power…and the knowledge you gain here will enable you to make informed decisions.
SEO is both a science and an art. There is a lot of debate among professionals…often heated. It’s quite easy to proclaim yourself as a Google SEO expert. Many do, while other SEO experts denounce them as misguided or foolhardy.
Then there’s the whole “White Hat/Black Hat” thing (and various shades of grey in between). White hats essentially follow search engine webmaster guidelines to the letter…the good guys if you will, while black hats employ techniques the search engines disapprove of and may ban or penalise you if detected.
At SEO Global Network we welcome healthy debate…no matter what shade your hat is…but essentially we are all about long term, sustainable business results…conversions, revenues and profits!
This News and Views post is provided as a service to clients of our sister company SEO Works, a leading SEO company providing SEO Services and SEO Packages across a wide range of industry segments for their Google SEO needs. For your SEO Brisbane, SEO Sydney or SEO Melbourne requirements contact SEO Works today.
