35 Ways to Improve Your Online Video Performance

There was an interesting session on online video at Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East, which WebProNews attended. The session was called "Video Search Marketing Beyond YouTube". The following tips come from a combination of presentations from that session from speakers: William Leake of Apogee Search, John McWeeny of TurnHere, and Eric Papczun of Performics.

Do you have trouble getting the performance you want out of your video efforts? Discuss here.

The tips are all aimed at making your online video efforts more successful by optimizing them for search engine performance and ultimately driving more views and traffic back to your site. So, here they are in no particular order:

1. Encode video files with good metadata like titles, dates, authors, descriptions and keywords.

2. Offer multiple formats (e.g. mov, mpeg, mp4, flv).

3. Include keywords (and the word "video") in the filename.

4. On the page, follow general SEO principles for optimizing (title, meta, H1, etc. tags and URLs).

5. Include contextually related links to articles and other videos on the page.

6. Post captions and/or abstracts as additional relevant on-page content.

7. Use Unique URLs.

8. Use one video per URL.

9. Use embedded players rather than pop-ups or links to files.

10. Create nav links to the video content.

11. Place video files in one central directory called "videos" off the root of your folder structure.

12. Enable comments.

13. Include social bookmarking tools.

14. Allow visitors to subscribe to your videos.

15. Let viewers grab your embed code – easily (with a link).

16. Remember internal linking (consider site-wide links in your page footer).

17. Distribute your video to the top video search sharing sites.

18. Include titles, descriptions & keywords on YouTube, etc.

19. Create a video site map with a mRSS feed.

20. Control associated page text to optimize for search engines.

21. Control the player (which may drive future video SEO).

22. Shorter videos are better.

23. Don’t spend a fortune.

24. Include end slates with URLs.

25. Drive people back to your site.

26. Thumbnail images matter.

27. Look for new opportunities for video placement (think about things like Google’s product search).

28. Figure out what keyword phrase is most relevant (and winnable) for your video.

29. Look into including videos in Google Place Pages.

30. Set up a Google video XML sitemap.

31. Use tools like Tubemogul’s to optimize metadata across the major video sharing sites.

32. Track viewership.

33. Advertise with video via rich search ads with Google/Yahoo and YouTube promoted videos.

34. Make sure your videos live on your domain and use 3rd parties for distribution purposes.

35. Stay on top of technology changes and new standards.

Do you have additional tips for increasing your online video success? Share them with WebProNews readers.

There are 20 Comments. Add Yours.

Restaurant Design
October 8, 2009 at 2:50 am

Great information on ways to increase the video exposures on search engines. Many owners in the restaurant industry can use the help.
adsense alternatives
October 8, 2009 at 12:15 pm

Thanks for sharing, these are great tips. I agree about shorter videos doing better. Viewers get bored so easy it’s better to get to the point quickly.
Drop Ship Websites
October 8, 2009 at 2:29 pm

Thanks for the solid ideas. Some I knew but others I didn’t!
Britt
October 8, 2009 at 2:43 pm

Fantastic tips! We frequently see clients come to us with concerns of not driving enough traffic to their YouTube channels. Many times, after analyzing their keywords and video content, the answer is quite apparent. It’s all wrong! These are some great tips though and I hope to share them with as many people as possible.
Goutam Sathia
October 8, 2009 at 4:35 pm

As a marketing consultant I see these tips a perfect guide for Social Media Practioners
Mouse
October 8, 2009 at 6:31 pm

Wow there is some fantastic info here Chris. Thanks
Aboriginal art
October 8, 2009 at 6:57 pm

I webmaster an aboriginal art website, we are about to get into more video and this article talks about having a video folder on our domain. I thought I was ok just using vimeo or youtube for hosting and streaming all our videos? Should all my video be local??
- Income From Home Network
  October 11, 2009 at 11:30 pm
  
  On one hand, hosting your videos on YouTube & streaming it from there will give your video extra credibility on YouTube. On the other hand, by streaming videos from YouTube through your site you run the risk of a reader clicking onto the YouTube logo and getting distracted. You’ll just have to weigh your options based on what your overall goals are for your videos and your site.
- Daniel Drouillard
  October 12, 2009 at 10:48 am
  
  You should consider the use of links within a video or a video that, when it ends, automatically redirects the viewer to another webpage.
  
  For example, you might want some people to go to a sales page to support aboriginal artists by purchasing aboriginal art. You could put a clickable link into the video for users to click on to go to the sales page. However, you can best do this on your own site.
  
  You could also make the video automatically change webpages when the video ends, so that the viewer will go to the sales page to buy the artwork automatically. Such an automatic redirect is not available on most video sharing sites such as YouTube.
  
  Also consider not using the entire video on sites like YouTube. Instead use only part of the video and include a link to your own site (that has an automatically redirecting video) to drive sales for aboriginal support.
Paul (from Panic Attacks Treatment Blog)
October 9, 2009 at 5:54 pm

I tell you what, Brian: these are awesome tips. It’s like a complete mini-manual.

I’ve started recently to seek guidance online on how to do video marketing in an effective way. Thanks a lot for this.

Paul
Cary W. White
October 9, 2009 at 6:27 pm

We have just shot our second video and are now putting them up on our sites. This could not be more timely.
Heidar
October 11, 2009 at 10:38 am

Thank you for sharing these tips . Lovely ideas
ron
October 11, 2009 at 11:40 am

You appear to have missed out something on your list. If you have the technical know how always embed your site URL to run through the video.when it is just at the end and a derivative is made from the video you lose advertising to your site.A very simple to use program for this is Ease123 Video Watermarker which comes with a free trial. I have no connection or affiliation to this company.
Albert Grande
October 11, 2009 at 1:52 pm

This is an incredible srticle to assist with video marketing. I currently have a video with over 200,000 views on YouTube. These tips just boosted my views even more. I never thought about using video in the title, but that makes so much sense! Thanks.
albert grande
pizzatherapy.com
Videos to Watch and Video Publishing
October 12, 2009 at 1:30 pm

Lots of sites and lots of video’s. Users love watching videos but they can take a lot of watching before any Return on Investment is made.

Remember Google’s Universal Search will help improve results.
seo
October 14, 2009 at 2:22 pm

Chris,thank you very much for sharing these.
John
October 27, 2009 at 11:18 pm

Well done Chris… Great efforts.. Now, if WebPro news wants to do something else, what about Googles ’200 factors’ they say they use when ranking a website? We often (and only) hear about Keywords & phrases and Links.. but what about the other 198??

Someone must have an idea about these but you hardly ever read about them?
What about a collective effort by webmasters to go through some of these? We have all learnt a few more, we could share/contribute etc

Leave it with you.. keep up the good work

John

Australia.
CashcrateReview
November 12, 2009 at 5:03 pm

Being new to this video promoting..I understood most of the points, but sure would appreciate a little more info on this part of your posting..19. Create a video site map with a mRSS feed.

Thanks
jimi@health-articles
February 27, 2010 at 10:23 pm

This is a great topic about improving video performances. Video is definitely an important tool for Internet Marketing which can drive loads of traffics. Thanks for sharing these valuable tips.
Michael
February 18, 2012 at 3:17 pm

Perfect check list!