Online video update – The next wave - SES London 2009

Before joining The Kelsey Group, Michael was editor of Innovation World's TechAlert, a monthly journal of emerging technology companies. He had previously been a San Francisco-based freelance writer for business and technology magazines, such as Red Herring, Business 2.0, Mobile and Digitalife. Michael began his career in business analysis and journalism as a staff reporter for Forbes magazine, where he covered technology, online media and telecommunications.

Michael graduated from Santa Clara University, in the heart of Silicon Valley, with a B.S. in Commerce.

Shari Thurow, Founder and SEO Director, Omni Marketing Interactive

Shari Thurow is the Founder and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Director at Omni Marketing Interactive, a full-service search engine optimization, Web design, and Web site usability firm.

Shari has designed and promoted Web sites since 1995, and is outsourced to many firms worldwide. Clients include Yahoo, Microsoft, America Online, ABC News, HSBC, Expedia, Deloitte and Touche, National Cancer Institute, and WebMD.

As a pioneer in the area of search-engine friendly Web site design, she has a 100% success rate for getting client sites ranked at the top of search engines. She is the author of Search Engine Visibility (www.searchenginesbook.com), which has been translated into French, Japanese, Korean and Polish. Her forthcoming book When Search Meets Web Usability, is due to be released in the spring of 2009.

Omni Marketing Interactive has been featured in many publications, including The New York Times, USA Today, Fortune, Internet Retailer, and Crain's Chicago Business.

Thurow opened the session by explaining the importance of a strong foundation.
According to her, you need 3 building blocks to built such a strong foundation to become successful in online video:

1.    Keyword-rich text
2.    Information architecture and interface
3.    Link development.

It’s not a surprise that these are the same key factors which are essential in SEO optimization.

Keyword-rich (and focused) text

Thurow pointed out it all starts with a detailed keyword research for which we have to use multiple tools:  Google Adwords, Microsoft ad tool, Trellian Keyword Discovery, etc...
The more tools we use, the better our insights will be.

Furthermore, she strongly recommended to perform an extensive keyword research for the tags we might use for our videos. Exploring sites like del.icio.us could certainly help us to pick the right tags.

Site architecture

The second factor Thurow discussed was the site architecture.

These were her tips:

• Built a keyword-rich URL. Don’t forget that the extension of the video is often used as a keyword (mpg, swf).
• Use relavant captions and labels to tag your videos.
• Last but nog least, make sure the landing page contains relevant information.

Link development

In the last part of Thurows session, she pointed out that we have to put various clips on different video sharing sites. This will automatically lead to more viewers and more potential customers.

Furthermore usability counts, make sure there’s consistency. By adding relevant videos on the same landing page, your page will gain more weight.

Liana Evans, Director of Internet Marketing, KeyRelevance
Liana Evans was the second speaker in this session. Liana Evans is Director of Internet Marketing of KeyRelevance. Se is also founder of Searchmarketinggurus.

Since 1999 Liana "Li" Evans has been active in the search marketing arena, becoming well-versed in all avenues of search marketing, with a particular focus on natural search optimization, vertical search, social media, and word-of-mouth marketing. She has also become very familiar with areas of the retail industry that are regulated by the FTC. She helped to design, plan, and implement an Internet Retailer 500 company's efforts into natural search optimization, completely revamping out-of-date navigation and site architecture, with very successful results. As a programmer and database programmer/designer since 1992, Liana has developed technical expertise in dealing with large-scale retail sites and their dynamic natures.

According to Evans online video is mainly related to YouTube. She pointed out that YouTube is one of the largest  search engines. Everyone uses it.

How do we use video in our marketing strategy?

Evans explained that we should all try to make money out of our videos. It doesn’t matter whether it are commercials or personal videos.

To make money with your personal videos she referred to sites like Revver.

Distribute your videos
According to Evans it doesn’t always have to be YouTube. For specific markets it’s better to post the videos on niche video sharing sites: For instance, imBroadcast, zoomandgo for travel videos, etc...

The audience you reach on these sites could have much more potential.

Summary:
•    Video marketing is effective
•    Who’s your audience
•    Small niche video share can be effect
•    YouTube isn’t always n°1
•    Transcribe your video. Tell the viewers what they will see on the video.
•    Don’t forget local (Google maps)
•    Optimize your video’s. Use a good title, add a relevant description, add tags and add links to related videos.

Greg Jarboe is the president and co-founder of SEO-PR, a search engine optimization firm, public relations agency and video production company. Founded in 2003, SEO-PR has won a Golden Ruler Award from the Institute for Public Relations and PR News, and was a finalist for SES Awards in three categories: Best Social Media Marketing Campaign, Best Business-to-Business Search Marketing Campaign, and Best Integration of Search with Other Media.

Greg is a frequent speaker at Search Engine Strategies and is the news search, blog search, and PR correspondent for the Search Engine Watch Blog. He is regarded as a pioneer and leading authority on online publicity and is a member of the Market Motive faculty, which has been called the "Internet marketing dream team." Greg is also one of the 25 successful online marketing gurus interviewed by Michael Miller for the book, Online Marketing Heroes.

Greg Jarboe, the last speaker of the sessions started with the question: “Why should we start with video?”

These were the main raisons (all related to the UK):

•    27.4 million watch video online.
•    There are 3.2 billion online videos in the UK.
•    Internet user s in the UK watch 117.7 videos per month.
•    19.7 million viewers watch 1.4 billions videos per month on YouTube (44%).

According to Jarboe, matching user interest to video content isn’t exact science.

For instance, people are less likely to look for something to buy on YouTube than they do on a search engine. Furthermore, think about trends in online video. Hot topics will have much more viewers (politics, etc...)

Just like the other panellists, Jarboe ended his session with some general optimization tips and tips to optimize videos for YouTube. For instance, relevant text, hits(views) and ratings could help YouTube search result rankings. Try using YouTube’s query suggestions for search and discover the important keywords.
 
General conclusion of this session: Online video is hot!

All our stories on Search Engine Strategies London:

• Measuring Success in a 2.0 World
• Universal & Blended Search
• SEO : Where to next?
• Online video update – The next wave
• Link Building Basics
• SEO through Blogs & Feeds
• Organics Listings Forum
• Brand & Reputation Management
• Landing Page Testing & Tuning
• Social Media Optimization
• Local Search Marketing Tactics
• SES London Day 1 in pictures
• SES London Day 2 in pictures