Nothing hits the spot like a kitten masseuse! These two are named Chloe and Bugsy, filmed when they were orphans at the Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue Association (VOKRA).
It is so interesting to recollect old memories. This time let's look at the photos from Middle School dances and laugh at these most awkward moments in life.
A member of European Parliament Licia Ronzulli took her 1-month-old baby to the Parliament session in Strasbourg. She wanted to make a point about the difficulties women face in trying to juggle careers and child care.
With more and more people text messaging, it's not wonder phone usage to make a voice call has been on the decline. When someone picks up their phone it's far more likely they are going to text rather than make a call. And because of this, we've grown accustomed to a whole new language text messaging has created. Here are some more facts about text messaging.
Video SEO isn't something we always think about when optimizing, but we really should. In this week's Whiteboard Friday, Danny Dover reviews some of the video SEO basics that every SEO should know about. After all, it's a largely untapped market, unlike the Canadian maple tree market. Which is very tapped. (The Canadian maple tree video market, however, is quite untapped, but based on my scientific and extremely boring research in YouTube, I don't recommend you pursue that market at all).
Anyways, we have a very special visitor this week, what with all of Danny's meta discussions this month. Great Scott! That's what happens when you get all meta and self-referential on us, Danny.
Hello, everybody. My name is Danny Dover. I work here at SEOmoz doing SEO. For today's Whiteboard Friday we're going to be talking about video SEO. Now, last week I mentioned that was the most meta video we'd ever done. It was optimizing SEO resources, right? Now, this one is a video on video SEO. So this one, this one is the new champion of the most meta video that we have ever done here, and possibly the most meta video that you have ever seen. If there is some kind of disruption in the space-time continuum, totally my fault. I apologize.
--1.21 Gigawatts!?!--
That was unexpected. That was Doc from Back to the Future. A poor impression of it. Totally derailing my Whiteboard Friday. You're killing me.
All right. Now, video SEO, huge opportunity here. This is more of a serious thing. Video SEO has low competition. You see in the universal results that video thumbnails show up about a third of the way from the top, right. You're seeing little thumbnails. A lot of times it's YouTube, but you also see Vimeo and lots of other video providers showing up. You are seeing those in lots and lots of SERPs, and increasing so actually. There is a huge demand from people because, you know, Google is doing A/B testing or multivariate testing. They're seeing people are clicking on those. But, at the same time, you'll have low competition. You'll see a lot of times for very high competition keywords that have video results that the video results will just be kind of mediocre. They just kind of showed up there. Part of that is because it is new. Not a lot of people are optimizing for video, which is becoming extremely important. So, a lot of opportunity there.
The other part of this, I guess I can only talk for the United States, where I live, but the way that people are starting to consume media is changing drastically. We've all seen YouTube. We've all seen Vimeo. Now the devices people are using and the places they are watching video are different. You have things like the iPhone, the iPad, and the iPayWayTooMuchForGadgets and I am an Apple fanboy, kind of thing. You're seeing these all over the place. There is the Android model, the operating system that is running lots and lots of things. system. You're seeing the way that people are consuming media very differently. The market is growing. Based on that, the demand is high but the competition is really low. Lots of opportunity. This smells like money to me. This is huge. This is a big deal.
How do you take advantage of this? Well, there are different metrics the search engines use to look at video content. When the search engines crawl normal content, they can get some kind of idea of what text is trying to say by using their natural language processing algorithms. They can get some idea of what this text says just simply because they put so much time and so much energy into developing these algorithms to get some kind of semantic feeling for what text means. Now, this doesn't translate directly into video because, part of the reason at least, is video is much bigger files. It takes a lot more processing to get an understanding of it. It is a lot more zeros and ones. With these Google and the search engines have provided Meta information that you can do about a video.
The two most important ones here are the title of the video -- what do you title your video. That's probably what people are going to search for, right. If it is the shoes video on YouTube or whatever it may be on YouTube. Those are a lot of times what people are searching for. That information turns out to be very important for video SEO.
Likewise, the description is also very important because it gives you more than whatever may be the character limit, probably around 140, I would guess for the title. But it gives you more text to describe it in more depth. This helps the search engines understand the video without having to go through all the intensive video processing.
Now, as video SEO is maturing, we're starting to see more and more metrics start to affect the algorithm. So, let me be totally straightforward with this. This is just my speculation. I have not done tests on these ones. But they seem very likely to be impacting the video search results. My guess would be that they'll be more impactful going forward. So, they are something to start paying attention to now.
The first one I see here is engagement stats. The most obvious one here is views. How many times is a video viewed? I know that when I go to YouTube and I search for something, after I look at the text, the title and the description, I then look at the views. Has this been watched 30 times or has it been watched 10 million times? It seems very, very likely to me that click-through rates are going to correlate with high view rates also. So, I think views are becoming increasingly important and are something that you should keep an eye on.
Number two is ratings. So, on YouTube they offer a five-point scale. On things like Vimeo and other things, they use a thumb up and a thumb down. That's more similar to the Reddit system. These are actual humans who are giving their opinions and their expertise on video content. This is very helpful because search engines are designed to provide results for humans. Any imput you can get from humans is helpful for getting output for humans. This is something that Google figured out very early and is something that is very important.
Number three, comments. What could be more human than commenting on videos? In YouTube's case, it is some of the lowest thresholds of intelligence we've ever seen on the Internet, which is really saying something. You have floor chant, below that you have YouTube comments. It is kind of rough, right. But this is a metric of actual human beings engaging with content and with the author or producer of the video. This seems like a very important metric to me. I don't think it is the content of the comments, because they are awful. But I think it is the volume of it and the kind of themes that people are talking about. Are they saying, "this is awesome" or "this sucks?" I think that does have some kind of impact on it.
The last one is social metrics. Really, I think this is universal. It is not just the video vertical; I think it is the other verticals as well. By social metrics, I mean things like the amount of tweets or what people are saying in tweets, Delicious popular saves, or submissions to Reddit or Digg or any of those other things. How are people talking about this with their friends? So, you have things like the QDF algorithm, which is Google's Query Deserves Freshness algorithm. What this does is it will artificially inflate the ability for something to rank based on temporal metrics. So, if lots and lots of people are linking to something or tweeting about it, then it can artificially rank higher than things that normally wouldn't just because it is very important. You see this a lot of times with natural disasters. Things will just rise to the top when normally they wouldn't. Michael Jackson stuff. We saw lots and lots of QDF stuff really blowing, making things rank when normally there was no way they would. This is something to keep in mind also. These social metrics.
Now, duration. I think is the last one. This one is more about the extremes, finding the outlier. If a video is three seconds long, it is probably not something that Google, Bing, or Yahoo will want to rank highly. At the same time, if it is something that is multiple hours long, they might want to rank it, but it is probably not what people are going to look for when they are doing video. One of the things about video and content on the Internet in general is that people want to consume it quickly. They like bulleted lists. They like quick pictures, inforgraphic types of things, and they like short videos. I should probably take my own advice and get to the end here. So, I'll try to do that.
The last one we have for you is tactics. I have expressed that there is a huge opportunity here. I have talked about some of the metrics that are important. Now, tactics, the search engines have given you several tools on how to do this. Video sitemaps is, not new, because video sitemaps have existed for a while, but the protocol was recently revamped by the major search engines and the people who are involved with that protocol. They've added a couple of things that are interested. They've added the location of the thumbnail of the video. They've added things like if it is family friendly or not. They've added the URL of where the video is embedded. So, from an SEO perspective, this is really interesting. We don't want links going to YouTube anymore because YouTube has plenty of links. Instead, with the new video sitemap, you can provide the URL of where it is embedded and then when the search engines index that content they'll link back to you. So, it's not so much that you get a link from it per se, but you get the click-through. So, someone clicking on the SERP, clicking that thumbnail, is going to go to your blog, where you embedded the video, rather than to the hosting provider. This is a big win for us SEOs and for us content producers.
The other one is transcriptions. So, what could be easier than just going back and using the old tactics you already have for creating content? With transcriptions, you take video, you take the audio from the video, and you turn it into plain text. This is something that the search engines can then use and interpret just like they do a normal web page. This is important for search engines, but it is also important for human beings as well. People with hearing impairments who can't hear this video right now can then go through and read it. They can understand it that way. International people who are speaking different languages can then go through the content and read at their own pace. They can do whatever tools they need to translate it. It helps spread it more. It is both good for humans and for users, which is a win-win and that's always the situation I try to get when I do SEO.
I recommend that you always try to go for those win-wins, because ultimately what the search engines are doing is chasing after the idea of getting the best information to human beings. I think that's what it really comes down to, crafting your content for human beings. It is harder to do with video SEO, but it is becoming more and more possible to do it.
I appreciate your time today. I will see you next week.
If you have any tips or advice that you've learned along the way, or if you came back from the future, we'd love to hear about it in the comments below. Post your comment and be heard!
One of the problems that website owners and bloggers encounter on a regular basis is coming up with ideas for posts. One of the tactics that I like to employ is creating a regular ongoing post series.
So let’s tackle the big questions first: what’s an example of post series? How about “Sandwich Mondays” from NPR. The basic premise is every monday they publish a post about sandwhiches. Sometimes these are reviews as in the case of the Denny’s Fried Cheese post. Sometimes there’s a travel/tourism theme as in the case of the Pop Tarts Restaurant in Times Square. Other times it could be a flashback pop-culture reference like the Pixy Stix and Cap’n Crunch Cereal sandwich from The Breakfast Club.
You can take this concept and use it on lots of different sites. For example, on a real estate blog, how about writing an in depth post about a school district in a neighborhood you work. On a clothing site do a series that features, each week, one pair of fashionable shoes under $25. This is a pretty easy concept to run with. All it takes a little imagination.
To get the most out of this approach you should try using an editorial calendar. Now this doesn’t mean you have to eat a sandwich every Monday. You can get 3-4 weeks or more ahead of yourself and schedule the posts in advance. You can also have multiple series. In the example of the real estate website, maybe you’ll also have a series about local libraries and programs they offer. If you keep each of the posts narrowly focused, you can tie it all together with the head and tail content approach. These types of posts are something that will benefit from having a bit of personality and opinion to them because it’s what makes them interesting. Additionally, the more opinion you use, the less you are going to be able to outsource. Lastly use tags and maximize internal anchor text to get the most SEO value, silo your content, and better target your ads.
What are the takeaways here:
Choose 1-3 series of weekly, biweekly, or monthly posts
Use an editorial calendar to help you plan and publish your content
Keep each of the posts narrow and focused
Interlink the series with other series using the “head and tail” concept
Maximize your internal anchor text by interlinking to other related posts
Tag your posts to help you serve the most effective advertisements
Economy and Jobs Agenda Friday, September 24, 2010
The Week In Economy and Jobs
Yesterday afternoon, the House passed the Small Business Jobs Bill. After months of partisan obstruction and delays, this much-needed legislation will help provide relief to millions of small businesses across the country without adding to the deficit.
Earlier in the day, Congressional Republicans announced their “Pledge to America” -- their plan to take America back to the same failed economic policies that caused this recession in the first place. Their plan would cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires (adding trillions to the deficit) while raising taxes for 110 million working families, put health care back in the hands of the big health insurance companies, and return us to era or recklessness and irresponsibility on Wall Street.
Spurring Innovation and Anchoring Jobs in America September 22, 2010 Jason Furman, Deputy Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, discusses the importance of Regional Innovation Clusters - an important element of the President’s innovation agenda and a good example of how federal agencies can collaborate to maximize the impact of existing federal investments in key areas like energy and agriculture.
Transforming Distressed Neighborhoods into Neighborhoods of Opportunity September 21, 2010 A look at Promise Neighborhoods, a piece of a broader White House Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative that focuses and coordinates federal resources in order to build communities that promote cradle to career success.
Building a New Foundation September 21. 2010 Secretary Donovan describes Administration efforts to make communities more livable, sustainable and prosperous.
No Excuse for Holding Middle Class Tax Cuts Hostage September 20, 2010 Deputy Communications Director Jen Psaki debunks the House Republican's bogus attempt to hide behind small businesses as they pledge to block middle class tax cuts.
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Your Daily Snapshot for Friday, September 24, 2010
West Wing Week: Immeasurable Courage and Uncommon Valor
West Wing Week is your guide to everything that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. This week, walk step by step with the President as he announces that Elizabeth Warren will lead the effort to get the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau off the ground, participates in a live CNBC town hall, awards Chief Master Sergeant Richard L. Etchberger, U.S. Air Force, the Medal of Honor posthumously for the immeasurable courage and uncommon valor he displayed in combat, and much more.
11:15 AM: The President holds a bilateral meeting with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan
12:00 PM: The Vice President attends an event for Senatorial candidate Chris Coons
12:15 PM: The President holds a bilateral meeting with President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón of Colombia
1:00 PM: The President attends working luncheon with ASEAN leaders
3:00 PM: The Vice President delivers remarks at an event for the Florida Democratic Party with Florida’s Democratic candidates
3:15 PM: The President attends Ministerial Meeting on Sudan 5:00 PM: The President holds bilateral meeting with President Roza Otunbayeva of Krygyzstan
6:55 PM: The President departs New York en route Andrews Air Force Base
7:45 PM: The President arrives at Andrews Air Force Base
If you sell at the top of the market (luxury travel, services to Fortune 500 companies, financial services for the wealthy...) you might be tempted to figure out ways to cut costs and become more efficient.
After all, if you save a dollar, you make a dollar, without even getting a new customer.
Resist.
The goal shouldn't be to reduce costs. It should be to increase them.
That voice mail service that saves you $30,000 a year in receptionist costs--it also makes you much more similar to a competitor that is more efficiently serving the middle of the market.
Go through all the ways you serve your customers and make them more expensive to execute, not less. Your loyalty and your market share will both grow. People who can afford to pay for service often choose to pay for service.
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