SEO Terms Explained
New to the world of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Search Engine Optimization as its spelt in different regions? Confused by all the jargon and acronyms? Here is a cheat sheet of the more common SEO terms and their meanings to make you an SEO expert in no time at all.
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 explain everything in layman’s terms.
A-E | F-J | K-O | P-T | U-Z |
301 code status: A 301 redirect is the most efficient and Search Engine Friendly method for Web page redirection. The code 301 is interpreted as moved permanently.
302 code status: A 302 code means that the file has been found, but is temporarily located at another URL. In the context of SEO, it is typically best to avoid using 302 redirects.
404 code status: A 404 code means that the file has not been found. This occurs is a broken link on your website when a page has been moved on your website or someone has typed in the wrong URL to find the page.
Algorithm: A set of programming rules which determine how a Search Engine displays the results of a search.
Alt tags: Stands for 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 but also used to optimise your website as Search Engines cannot read images. 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 Optimisation is the anchor text, which in this case links to the home page of this site.
Auto-generated pages: Using a script or software program to create thousands of keyword-stuffed pages with content of no value to human readers. This is a black hat SEO strategy and Search Engines will take action against websites who are creating auto-generated pages.
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.
Bad link neighbourhood: This is when questionable sites are linked back to your website in an attempt to increase your link equity/authority. The links usually include pharmacy, casinos, porn sites and so on.
Bing: This is a Search Engine owned by Microsoft and is one of the top three Search Engines including Google and Yahoo!
Black hat SEO: Search Engines like Google have guidelines which you must adhere to if you want your website indexed. Black hat SEO comprises of techniques and strategies which do not comply with these guidelines. Read more about black hat SEO.
Blogs: A blog can be part of your website or hosted on an external website. In the context of SEO, a blog is a series of articles that provide original and updated copy for your website and should be a key component of your SEO strategy. Read why you should have a company blog.
Bounce rate: Web surfers leaving a website within a few seconds (approx less than 10 seconds). 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 spider last visited. To see the cache of your page in Google type cache: followed by your page URL into a Google search box.
Call to action: A call to action is copy within text or an image used to encourage a person to complete an action defined by the company. This might be asking customers to fill in an online form, read more information about their products or directly book a hotel room on the website.
Citation: A reference to your site which isn’t necessarily a link, such as your company (hotel) name, telephone number etc.
Cloaking: This is a black hat SEO technique in which the content presented to the Search Engine spider is different to that presented to the user. This practice is used to manipulate the Search Engines and will likely to get your site banned or penalised.
Content: In the context of SEO, content is generally considered to be the readable text within the body of a page underneath the H1 heading as distinguished from headlines, subheadings, coupons, captions or illustrations and the like; also called body text or text.
Conversion: A conversion is when a desired action (goal/objective) has been completed. This could be a direct sale, a sales enquiry, subscription to your newsletter, downloading a brochure and so on.
CMS: Stands for Content Management System. This is a system that is inbuilt into a website that allows people to create, edit and delete content without needing any knowledge of HTML. Find out how to choose a SEO friendly CMS.
Crawl: When a Search Engine spider 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.
Dofollow link: A link has the no follow attribute removed. This type of link will pass link juice/equity to another website or page on a website. Typically, this encourages visitor participation.
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 and considered to be a black hat SEO technique.
Duplicate content: Content that is identical to other content on your site or anywhere else on the Web. It should be avoided when possible but where legitimate reasons for it exist, measures need to be put in place to instruct the Search Engines which pages should be indexed and which pages should not be indexed.
External link: An outgoing link from your website to another website/or: to a location on another website/domain.
Facebook: This is one of the biggest social networking websites, owned by Facebook, Inc. You can share photos, notes, groups, events and posted items with your network. It also offers advertising opportunities.
Feed: A common feature of blogs. This allows readers to subscribe to frequently updated content by adding the feed to their reader software or email client (e.g. Outlook). Feeds are typically created in a format called RSS (see below).
Flash: A technology developed by MacroMedia Corp. that allows a Web designer to embed interactive multimedia into Web pages.
Footer: Footer navigation is often displayed on every webpage at the bottom of the page and as such is global navigation. Footer navigation typically links to administrative content; about pages, contact us pages, legal disclaimers, website feedback links, Social Media networks etc.
Google: Currently the Web’s largest and most influential Search Engine, accounting for the great majority of searches performed.
Google AdWords: This is one of Google’s most popular products and offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads.
Google Analytics: A popular analytics tool created by Google to monitor your Web statistics. Find out more about Google Analytics’ popular reports and tools.
Googlebot: Google’s Search Engine program which visits your site and returns data to Google. Also known as web robots, web crawlers, bots and internet bots.
Google Buzz: Google Buzz is Google’s push into Social Media and integrates with your existing Gmail account. Buzz appears as an extra tab in your Gmail inbox and allows you to post content and share files from Twitter, Picasa, Flickr and Google Reader. Find out more about Google Buzz.
Google keyword tool: A popular tool used to find keywords based on actual Google search enquiries. Read more about other popular keyword research tools..
Google Local Business Listings: See Google Places.
Google Places: Formally known as Google Local Business Listings, Google Places are different to organic or pay-per-click listings. They typically only show up when the user types a service oriented business followed by the city for their search. Find out more about Google Places and how this can enhance your local search strategy.
Google sitemap: A file placed on your Web server and submitted to Google indicating which pages on your site need to be indexed. See XML sitemap.
Google sitelinks: In some search results Google lists multiple deep links rather than a single link. See example below.
Google Social Search: When you are logged into your Gmail account, it combines Search Engines results with your Social Media networks such as Twitter, Digg and blogs. Find out more about Google Social Search.
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.
HTML: Stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and is a commonly used programming language to develop websites.
Image SEO: Stands for image Search Engine Optimisation and is the process of optimising your images for Search Engines. Find out more about image SEO.
Inbound links: An external link from another site to your site. Inbound links are an important asset that will improve your site’s link authority/equity.
Index: A Search Engine’s database in which it stores textual content from every web page that its spider visits.
Internal links: Links from a page on your site to another internal page on your site. Optimising your internal linking structure will benefit how Search Engines can crawl and index the pages within your website.
International SEO: Sometimes referred to as global SEO or multilingual SEO. This is a specialised SEO strategy to capture traffic in foreign markets. Find out more about international SEO strategies and how to attract a global audience.
Internet Explorer (IE): This is one of the most widely known Web browsers but not necessarily considered the most secure or the best browser to use.
Invisible text: This is a ‘keyword cloaking technique’ and involves putting keyword-stuffed text in the same colour as the background so it is invisible to human readers but not to Search Engines. This is a Black hat SEO technique.
JavaScripts: Programs written in the JavaScript programming language. JavaScripts run on the Internet user’s computer rather than the web server’s computer. Search Engines find it harder to read JavaScript code than HTML code.
Keywords: Sometimes called Search Engine keywords. This is a word or phrase (long tail keyword) which potential customers may use in a search for content relevant to your site. Read more about how to find the right keywords for your SEO strategy.
Keyword density: This is a measure of how often a keyword or keyword phrase is within the content of a page.
Keyword stuffing: Using multiple keyword repetition on a web page HTML in such a way that it detracts from the readability and usability of a given page for the purpose of artificially boosting the page’s rankings in Search Engines. Search Engines prefer keyword usage that is more natural and used within context of the Web page.
Keyword research: This is a process to find the right keywords and monitor your ongoing keyword strategy. Find out more about keyword research tools.
Keyword rich: This is what you are aiming for in SEO copywriting – using keywords in an intelligent, seamless and natural way within the text.
KPI: Stands for key performance indicators. These are quantifiable measurements that reflect the critical success factors of an organisation, campaign or project.
Landing page: This is 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. Find out how to optimise landing pages to increase your conversion rates.
Links: In SEO terms, this is 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 its ranking algorithm.
Link authority: ‘Authority’ gained by a webpage through quality incoming links. This is for instance expressed in the PageRank given by Google. Also referred to as link authority or equity.
Link bait: Content which is useful, interesting or entertaining and encourages other websites to link to it and improve your link profile.
Link building: Having an ongoing link building campaign is an important part of your SEO strategy. It is the process of acquiring inbound links to your site. Read more about link building strategies.
Link Equity: See link authority above.
LinkedIn: One of the biggest professional networking Social Media sites.
Link juice: The value a Search Engine places on a link to your site. Links from a high authority and trustworthy site will have a significant effect on your rankings while other links will have no value at all.
Link farm: This is the practice of buying links or participating in linking schemes in the hope of increasing your Search Engine ranking. This is known as a black hat SEO strategy.
Long tail keywords: This is the strategy of targeting less competitive niche keywords rather than the hugely competitive broad keywords. An example of long tail keyword is ‘4wd rental perth’ while a short tail keyword is ‘car rentals’. Long tail keywords usually have a lower search volume but a higher conversion rate. Read more about how to optimise pages for long tail keywords.
Metatags (Meta Tags): HTML code which Search Engines read and use in various ways such as meta description tags and meta keywords tags.
Meta description: This provides a summary of the page content. Search Engines often use the meta description to display in their search results just below the title tag. Google says that they do not use the meta description tag but it should always be provided as a guide for Search Engines.
Meta Keywords: A list of keywords relevant to the page which has become less relevant over the years. Google has openly said they do not use the “keywords” meta tag in their web search ranking.
Mozilla Firefox: Mozilla Firefox is a Web browser that has steadily grown in popularity over the last few years.
Nofollowed link: A link which carries the rel=”nofollow” attribute. A link with the rel=”nofollow” attribute, doesn’t carry any weight, and doesn’t count towards your overall link authority/equity (also knows as PageRank in Google Web searches).
Organic Search Results: These are the unpaid search results delivered by Search Engines. This is a long term strategy to improve brand visibility and rankings in Search Engines. Find out more about organic search or organic SEO.
PageRank (PR): This is 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.
PPC (Pay per click): Pay Per click also known as paid search is where an advertiser bids on keywords associated with an advertisement in order to achieve higher position on Search Engine results pages (sponsored links section) for searches on that keyword. Find out how PPC can work with SEO campaigns.
Penalty: A drop in your Search Engine ranking when you have broken the Search Engine’s guidelines with black hat SEO – trying to manipulate the Search Engines or artificially boost your ranking. Find out what to do is your website is penalised or banned by Google.
Ranking: A keyword position on a Search Engine.
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.
Robots.txt: A robots.txt is a permissions file that can be used to control which Web pages of a website you want a Search Engine to index. The text file must be placed in a websites root directory.
ROI (return on investment): The benefit gained in return for the cost of investing budget into advertising or a project ROI is expressed as a percentage or ratio, and is calculated with the following formula: “Total Revenues (generated from campaign or project) minus cost of investment divided by cost of investment.”
RSS feed: This stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS feed uses an XML document to publish blog articles.
Search Engines: A Search Engine is a Web portal to find information on the Internet through using keyword searches. Major Search Engines include Google, Yahoo and Bing.
Search Engine banning: This is when your website has been removed from a Search Engine indexes. Do a site search by typing in ‘site:yoursite.com’ and see if Google return any results.
Search Engine Optimisation (also spelled optimization): In basic terms, the process of optimising a page through its on-page content, structure and link profile to rank highly for specific search queries. In broader terms, this is the process of increasing revenues and profits for businesses marketing their products or services online.
SEM: This stands for Search Engine Marketing. This encompasses all aspects of building traffic through search, including natural (organic) Search Engine Optimisation and PPC (pay per click) Search Engine advertising.
SEO: Stands for Search Engine Optimisation (Optimization). This focuses on natural (organic) Search Engine ranking (see below).
SEO audit: An SEO Audit is like a health check for your website. It looks at the technical infrastructure of your website, the on-page elements and off-page essentials to maximise any Search Engine Optimisation activities.
SEO copywriting: SEO copywriting is writing copy for a website that is keyword rich and designed to attract Search Engines spiders but still be compelling and interesting for readers. Find out more about SEO copywriting.
SEO consultants: Act as a business consultant and partner with you to reach your Search Engine Optimisation goals. Also known as SEO experts. Read more about what really makes an SEO expert.
SEO toolbars: Toolbars that can be downloaded and integrated seamlessly with your Web browser to give you important SEO resources at your fingertips to optimise your website and analyse your competitors’ websites. Read more about SEO Toolbars.
SERP: This stands for Search Engine Result Page. This is the list of links and descriptions listed on a Search Engine when a keyword search is performed.
Social bookmarking: A sub-category to Social Media that allows you to share, organise and manage your bookmarks, or favourite websites, with other users that use the same social bookmarking tool, such as Delicious, Stumbleupon and Digg.
Social Media: This is sometimes called Web 2.0 and used to describe user generated websites and blogs that encourage engagement and allow interaction. Popular sites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs.
Social networking: A sub-category to Social Media encompassing ‘networking’ activities and includes social networks such as Facebook
Spider: Sometimes called Search Engine spiders. These are programs written to scour the web automatically for various reasons (to index Web pages, for spamming purposes, etc.) Also known as web robots, web crawlers, bots, Internet bots.
Technorati: Technorati is one of the biggest blog Search Engines.
Title Tag: This is also known as the meta title or page title. It is shown at the top of a browser window and is considered to be very important in on-page SEO.
Traffic: This refers to the number of visitors to your website.
Twitter: Twitter is a Social Media networking site that works like a micro-blog and lets you write and read messages of up to 140 characters.
URL: This stands for Uniform Resource Locator. This is the Web address of a document and an important on-page element.
XML Sitemap: A list of pages you want the Search Engines to find which is created in XML format and submitted to the Search Engines.
VSEO: This stands for Video Search Engine Optimisation and is the process of optimising your videos. Find out more about VSEO.
Web 2.0: This refers to Social Media websites which encourage user generated content and social interaction online. Popular sites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs.
White hat SEO: This is a process of boosting your Search Engine ranking by using methods approved by Search Engines. Read more about white hat SEO.
WordPress: WordPress is an excellent open source web publishing system or content management system (CMS). Find out more about how WordPress SEO .
Yahoo!: One of the oldest and established Search Engines. It is one of the best Search Engines along with Google and Bing.
YouTube: YouTube is an online video community and one of the biggest user generated content websites owned by Google. Find out more about how to optimise your YouTube videos.
Find out more about our SEO Packages and SEO Services and how our SEO experts can partner with you in your business to increase your Search Engine visibility and improve your bottom line. Contact us if any SEO terms need clarification or you would like any SEO terms to be added to the list.
SEO Marketing – Ten SEO Mistakes and How to Fix Them
With well over 90 million searches performed on the net every day – can you afford not to focus on your SEO marketing?
SEO marketing is an important part of promoting your website – SEO can make quite a lot of money for your business – there are well over 90 million searches performed on the net every day. SEO is a cost effective way of marketing your product or service and should be seen as an investment and an important part of your internet marketing strategy. Before hiring an SEO company to optimise your website or starting the SEO process yourself, read this article about the most common SEO mistakes made.
Neeeiigh! Putting the cart before the horse
In this case, putting the cart before the horse means getting your website developed before you start thinking about the marketing. SEO and keyword selection is intimately linked to aspects of your website like your domain name and your navigation structure. This is one of the major SEO mistakes, and is incredibly frustrating because you’ll find that you’ve just completed a long, hard slog on a site and invested a lot of money only to be told that it all needs to change if you want good search results.
SEO marketing tips: When developing your website, it’s better to get an SEO expert or SEO company to help you create a Search Engine-friendly website infrastructure and do the necessary keyword research to develop your navigation structure for your website.
Shooting blind
Your keywords need to be chosen with your eyes wide open, and looking at the prize. The key thing to remember is not that you just want the top Google spot … but that you want lots of quality traffic. So, your keywords need to reflect the language that your customers use when searching for your services, various basic facts about your business, and also take into account the keywords that your competitors are using. Keyword research is the gold standard … simply putting down whatever comes into your head is like shooting blind.
SEO marketing tips: Keyword research tools may involve brainstorming initially but using keyword research tools like keyword tools, holding focus groups, looking at your own analytics, competitor analysis and so forth will help develop a strong keyword strategy.
Can the keyword spam!
One of the most common SEO mistakes, keyword spamming can melt your dollars away despite a top spot on Google. If you use your keywords unnaturally, excessively, or out of context your visitors will leave after viewing a couple of pages, because your site copy sounds like a demented, skipping CD! Some site owners grossly overestimate the keyword density needed for Google to rank the site highly. In reality, keyword density is but one of many factors that go into your ranking. It’s important to use keywords but don’t overdo it!
SEO marketing tips: Correct keyword placement is essential so Search Engine spiders crawling over the page can rank the page for relevant keywords. However, keywords need to be inserted seamlessly and naturally into your SEO copywriting and never out of context.
If you build it, they will come. Won’t they??
So many site owners believe that great content will be enough to create a successful website but people need to find your website first. You don’t only need great content – you need to grab a megaphone and drive down the street telling people about it! However, as we just mentioned … keywords, and the content containing them, is only one factor in several that go into creating your Search Engine ranking. You need to optimise the entire site, not just create great content.
SEO marketing tips: Great content and a high Search Engine ranking work hand-in-hand. You can’t have a high Search Engine ranking without great content because visitors will just bounce* off your page but similarly there is no point in having great content if Web searchers can’t find you.
The Perfect Match
SEO is not a ‘one size fits all’ strategy. Somewhere in the SEO landscape there exists a strategy that is the perfect match for your business. However, without extensive experience in SEO this can be difficult to identify by yourself. An SEO expert can help you identify whether your business model and goals will suit using organic Search Engine Optimisation, social media, Pay Per Click advertising (PPC), email marketing … or a combination of all of these strategies.
SEO marketing tips: SEO and PPC are two different strategies to drive traffic to a website. PPC is sometimes used to launch a website to boost traffic in a short amount of time but can be very costly. SEO is seen as a longer term strategy to drive organic traffic to your website and may be more cost effective.
Look to the Link
Link building is an integral part of your SEO campaign, and its importance can’t be underestimated. You need to actively seek out links, though. Remember that you need to get out your megaphone – don’t just expect that if you build it, they will come. That’s a huge SEO mistake to make! There are plenty of easy, simple ways to build links: participating in forums, doing guest blogging, listing in directories, putting out press releases and engaging with social networks are some of the more popular strategies.
SEO marketing tips: Link building is a simple yet effective strategy to boost your Search Engine ranking. In simple terms, a link to your web page is seen as a vote of confidence in your website by Search Engines. Focusing half an hour on link building strategies three times a week should result in an improvement in your rankings.
Myopic SEO
Don’t be short-sighted in your SEO strategy – remember what your ultimate goal for the site is. Your goal isn’t simply to get to the #1 spot on Google – that has no tangible value. You need to focus on the end goal to get customers buying from your website and sustaining your business. The way to do this is with a myriad of techniques known as conversion optimisation, all of which encourage the customer to buy from your site, or complete whatever other goals you have for your website. Looking only to Google is one of the definite myopic SEO mistakes!
SEO marketing tips: Traffic is important but driving quality traffic to your website that will enquire, purchase your product or book a hotel room is more important. Focus on conversion strategies, not merely traffic generation.
Change – The Only Constant
Change is the one thing the universe will always have. It is also the one thing your SEO strategy should always have! Search Engine’s algorithms are updated regularly to improve the integrity of Web search and people’s collective understanding and preferences will also constantly shift. Your SEO strategy needs constant revision to keep up with the times and make sure you also keep a close eye on your competitors and what keywords they are ranking for!
SEO marketing tips: Sign up to regularly blog updates such as the SEO Works blog, SEO Global Network blog, Google Webmaster Blog, Matt Cutts’ Blog, SEOmoz blog and other industry blogs to keep abreast of changes in the Search Engine Optimisation industry.
Forgetting the oil change
SEO is not a ‘set it and forget it’ activity – you need to constantly be testing, improving your content and updating your content, focusing on your link building strategies, posting on your social media pages and monitoring your Web analytics. This is one of the most costly SEO mistakes. Your analytics statistics should be checked regularly. As long as you want your website to be making money for you, that’s how long you need to be working on your SEO!
SEO marketing tips: Sign up to Google Analytics Alerts which will send you emails daily, weekly or monthly. You can customise your alerts to advise you of any anomalies on your website such as a drastic drop in traffic.
Huh? What Just Happened?
Seasoned marketers are used to the uncertainty factor that exists in advertising. John Wanamaker famously said that “Half the money I spend on advertising is completely wasted. I just don’t know which half.” That dilemma is less of an issue in the online space, now that we have web analytics. With access to current and more meaningful date, SEO allows you to more clearly focus your marketing budget on your target audience, making SEO a very cost-effective marketing method, when properly executed.
SEO marketing tips: The cost of SEO should ideally be factored in your budget when launching a new website, relaunching an old website or redesigning a new website. It should be seen as an important part of internet marketing to promote your business and draw traffic to your website.
There are plenty of guides to SEO on the internet … but you wouldn’t just read a book about white-water rafting and then jump in a boat above Niagara Falls! DIY Search Engine Optimisation is possible if you had the time, money, expertise and resources but the secret to a successful business is doing what you’re good at and outsourcing what you’re not. Contact us today to find out exactly how we can help you get real results from your SEO investment … follow these SEO marketing tips and avoid these costly SEO mistakes!
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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.
