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luni, 3 decembrie 2012

Building a Video SEO Strategy

Posted: 02 Dec 2012 06:41 PM PST

The core tactics of technical Video SEO are pretty easy to pick up. You can read through the bulk of what there is to know about getting rich snippets, optimizing for YouTube, and driving links back to your site within a couple of hours. While advice on these tactics will adjust and evolve as new technologies and iterations of the algorithm are released, there is an evergreen side to video marketing; one that both SEOs and creative marketers consistently fail to comprehend. And that is...

Defining and implementing a goal-driven strategy.

Creative agencies often fail at this, simply because they don’t know how SEO works. Most creatives don’t understand the full consequence of embeds or pointing to YouTube and Vimeo rather than to a company’s site. Typically they don't understand how to get rich snippets, and so typically fail to get companies the SEO benefit due to them for the content they invest in.

SEOs fail because most have no say in the creative process for video, and are typically invited to do “video optimization” after the video has been shot, cut, and edited. Such a process ends up looking a little like this:

Take a look at the existing content.
Work out what goal best suits that content.
Implement the appropriate technical optimization.

And this is the consequence...

Thus follows the often observed, awkward disconnect of marketers attempting to make promotional product videos “go viral.”

As with copywriting, content creation, and development, success in the video space looks like "integrating the creative and the technical aspects of SEO."

For video, this means taking a goal driven strategy from inception to launch:

Define the business goals.
Define the appropriate audience, hosting, and promotional strategy for the goal.
Create content that matches the business goals and the audience demographic.

In this post, I want to take a step back and outline the core goals I believe video can provide for SEO, the kind of content required for each goal, and the common mistakes made by companies both big and small in this field.

Consider this post a prequel to my last SEOmoz post which has more explicit tactical details on how to match the creative ideas to the technical implementation required.

Possible Goals for Video SEO

Rich Snippets

Video rich snippets have a higher click through rate than normal organic results, and so are an incredibly valuable asset for the kind of pages you want to drive a lot of search traffic to, directly from the search results. In the vast majority of instances, these pages are typically “product” or “category” pages in some form.

In the simplest terms, you can get rich snippets by self hosting your videos and submitting a video sitemap. Google is currently unable to read the “quality” of content outside of YouTube, so it actually doesn’t matter what kind of content you have if you’re trying to get a rich snippet. Indeed, for the more grey-hat minded...it's even possible to get rich snippets for images that are just encapsulated in a video container format.

Common objection: can I not get Rich Snippets for YouTube videos?.

It’s not impossible to get a rich snippet back to your own site with a YouTube video. Yoast’s Video SEO Wordpress plugin (which is excellent, by the way) offers a method of doing it. However, this and other methods only work with a hack and when the video isn't performing particularly well on YouTube, making it strategically redundant. If a video is not returning many views or generating engagement on YouTube, then it’s doing nothing except devalue the overall quality of a channel and restrict the ability of that channel to rank. Especially when you can get secure hosting for free, there is no reason to do that.

Conversions

Video can be a fantastic way to improve conversion rate, again, particularly for commercial landing pages. Appliances Online have created videos that are a fantastic example of undertaking this goal driven strategy with immense success.

A user who watches an Appliances Online video is twice as likely to convert and spends 9.1% more money on average. When considering the average price of white goods, it’s not difficult to work out how quickly those videos will pay for themselves.

These videos work because they carefully take into account the context of their target audience, which is “on the cusp of buying a washing machine.” The videos bridge the gap between interest and conversion, by engaging on a personal level with the likely questions and concerns of the interested party. Conversion videos should be informational, rather than promotional; more “shopping channel” than “TV ad.” However, these videos do not need to be "product" focussed, and can just as easily be created for service sector businesses.

Earlier this year, Kurtz and Blum, a Law firm in Raleigh, North Carolina - created 53 videos for $4000 ($75 per video) - each of which describes, on a very personal level, a specific service that they offer their clients in need of legal advice. Through this work alone, Kurtz and Blum saw a 14% month on month increase in traffic.

Videos for conversion should also almost always be self-hosted or hosted with a secure third-party solution, rather than put on YouTube. Why? Because these videos should invariably also be used to get rich snippets and drive additional traffic to the "money pages" of a website.

Common objection: can I put this “conversion focussed” content on YouTube as well as securely hosting?

Usually not, for the following reasons:

1. It’s very difficult to target specific, product focused videos to a different keyword

If you put content on YouTube as well as self hosting and embedding the content on your site, one of the ways of ensuring YouTube doesn’t outrank you for your site is to target this version to a different keyword. However, as with the Appliances Online example, if you have a video about the "Bosch Classixx Washing Machine," it’s very difficult to find more than a couple of variations of relevant keywords.

2. Potential cannibalization of shares and links

If potential customers/influencers share your YouTube video rather than your product page, you miss out on the link equity. This can also affect sales and word of mouth marketing, as product videos invariably make little sense outside of the context of the supporting page. Especially if you want to retarget visitors with PPC ads, driving customers to your site has to be the goal; and duplicating content on YouTube can hinder this.

3. Devaluing your YouTube channel for SEO through lowering the average quality of content

From some tests I’ve run at Distilled, I think there’s reasonable grounds to believe that YouTube algorithmically rate channels based on the cumulative and average “quality” of the content uploaded. Practically speaking, if your videos have all been very popular, your channel and new uploads will tend to rank very well. Conversely, if your channel has lots and lots of videos on it, few of which get much traction, then the SEO consequence is negative. Therefore, adding a whole bank of product videos (most of which probably won't do very well) can serve to dramatically devalue your channel. It’s possible to mitigate against this by creating a new channel for your product videos (as Zappos have done), but you run the risk of setting this channel up for failure to a greater or lesser extent.

4. Generating negative brand awareness.

YouTube is a community platform, as much a social network as a search engine. For users discovering your brand, you want the first touch to be a positive demonstration of your identity and quality, which video can both help and hinder. Attempting to sell users a product before they’ve visited your site often isn’t going to work very well and you can turn off those who would otherwise have been positively disposed to your presence on YouTube. Product videos aren’t created with the intention of building brand awareness and as such, and they normally do a pretty bad job of it.

Brand Awareness

Video is a fantastic form factor to improve brand awareness, as it's an easy way to display the ‘faces” of a company, either through actually filming the people who work there or by explaining the “character” of the company through the integration of story, imagery, and sound.

There are fundamentally two different methods of improving brand awareness through video: you can either pay for it, or generate it organically.

In both instances, the best place to host such video is on YouTube, the world’s second biggest search engine and absolutely best place to put video that you want to be “seen.” (You should also put branding video on other platforms too, such as Vimeo).

To generate that awareness organically, you need to create “a creative story, attached to your brand.”

If you’re willing to pay for the awareness, either through YouTube/Google Display Network Advertising or viral seeding services (I recommend Unruly Media), then you can alternatively create content in the traditional, promotional “Tv Ad” model. However, to get the most bang for your buck from CPV advertising, you should make sure any video you plan to seed is under 30 seconds in length.

Common objection: I don’t have the money to build anything that good, but want to have a YouTube presence. Why can’t I put my product videos up there?

While YouTube channels featuring a large number of product videos can be ROI positive, especially when combined with a paid video advertising campaign, my experience is that they are far less ROI positive than seeding a targeting ad campaign through YouTube advertising and having rich snippets point back to the product videos on the business’s own domain.

As well as creative stories, tutorials are also a great way to build up your brand identity as experts in a specific field. These can be extremely simple, easy to make either through filming physical products and providing advice...

...or for software/services businesses, this can be done very simply using screencasts or by recording lectures/conferences e.g. SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday.

Links and Social Shares

Typically, the best way to get links back to your site with video is to create valuable and useful video content that simply does not make sense in isolation from a wider mixed-media page type. A perfect example of this technique is the Simply Business guide to WordPress that currently has 137 linking root domains according to Open Site Explorer.

Alternatively, another way to build links and shares back to your site is to take the kind of video you should create for organic brand awareness, but securely host the content on your own site, rather than putting it on YouTube and Vimeo.

Under this model, you'll also need to ensure you provide an embed code that features a text link at the bottom back to your site. I've built a tool to help you do this quickly, which can be found here.

Summary of Goals and Content Type

Common objection: can I target more than one goal with the same bit of content?

Yes. But, you probably shouldn't. That’s not to say you can’t use the same piece of content for two different goals, but when you do, you typically dilute the return you’re going to get, either because your content will not be particularly well suited for the goal, or because the technical implementation will cause compromise.

In most instances, it’s much more effective to directly and exclusively target one of the goals, rather than attempt to do everything with one piece of content. However, do remember that conversions and rich snippets should always be treated as conjunctive goals; as essentially two facets of the same strategic approach.

So what does a fully comprehensive Video SEO strategy look like?

With some variance dependent on vertical and business model, companies looking to achieve all of the above should look into creating four different kinds of content: one to target each marketing specific goal and audience demographic :

Video created to improve conversions (with video sitemap submitted to get rich snippets)
Video created to increase brand awareness through inbound channels
Video created to increase brand awareness through paid advertising
Video created to drive links and social shares back to the company’s site

I hope you found this post a useful resource. If you're interested to read more about the ideas and approaches suggested, then I've written a very large (but pretty comprehensive!) guide to online video marketing which can be found here.

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Seth's Blog : Would you consider pre-ordering?

Would you consider pre-ordering?

At the end of the year, I'm bringing out three new books at the same time.

Copies of the books recently arrived at my office. Paging through them, I'm thrilled at how they came out, and together, they might represent my best ever effort at communicating the revolution we're living through. I hope you'll take the time to give them a read.

Three books at once might be crazy, but with your help, it might turn out to be a great idea. This is about making books for my readers, as opposed to finding readers for my books--and it all depends on whether you choose to read the books and to spread the word.

The first, the core book of the three, is The Icarus Deception. (BN) (5 pack) It's about the death of the industrial economy, the need for art and the chance of a lifetime. You can read a free sample here.

(PS the first 1,000 copies of Icarus are hand-signed, and if you find one with a colored autograph, let me know, as I have a gift for you.)

The second is called V is for Vulnerable, (BN) It was created with Hugh Macleod, and it takes the last chapter of Icarus and turns it into a 26-spread illustrated book. I've been so delighted with the reaction this book has caused among the people who have actually touched it--changing the format turns out to be an effective way to get the message out. And it's fun.

The third is a big book, a high-value (plenty of pages per dollar!) collection of the best of the last six years of this blog. We named it Whatcha Gonna Do With That Duck. (BN) For those of you that didn't get a chance to get the limited edition behemoth, here's a smaller, abridged black and white edition that sits right next to Small is the New Big. I'm incredibly proud (and a bit amazed) to experience a volume that took this long to write.

Of course, you can wait until January and wait until your friends have copies and wait until it's already being discussed, but I'm hoping you'll do me a favor and show your favorite bookseller your support and order a copy now before the holiday craziness distracts us all.

Thanks, as always, not just for reading, but for doing something important with the ideas. I appreciate your support more than I can say.

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duminică, 2 decembrie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Trends in College Tuition vs. Bachelor’s Degree Wages; Interesting Demographics of Student Loan Debt History

Posted: 02 Dec 2012 09:48 PM PST

According to the New York Fed, Student loan debt is the only form of consumer debt that has grown since the peak of consumer debt in 2008. Moreover, student loans balances have eclipsed both auto loans and credit cards, making student loan debt the largest form of consumer debt outside of mortgages.

The Fed has some interesting charts on Student Loan Debt History through first quarter of 2012.

Debt levels are higher now, with student debt at $956 billion through third quarter. What caught my eye however, is skyrocketing debt in the age group 30-39.

First Quarter Overall Debt

Student Debt Under Age 30

Student Debt Age 30-39

Even if it took someone age 18, eight to ten years to finish college, they would still be 28 years old at most when they finished their education.

Yet, student debt in the 30-39 demographic group now exceeds that of the under 30 age group. Moreover, the under age 30 group accounts for less than a third of the overall student debt.

Points to Consider

Over-two thirds of student debt is held by those well outside the normal student demographic!
This trend is not entirely recession-related given that it has been steady since 2005.
Someone exiting military service would be covered for 36 months of in-state education by the GI Bill.
Someone working for a major employer for any significant length of time would likely have some or all education expenses paid for by the company.
Those aged 30-39 would be far more likely to have steady income than someone 18-24, thereby avoiding the need to rack up as much debt.

Have a Story to Share?

If you are 30 years or older, sitting on a pile of student debt, and are willing to tell your story how and why that happened, Please Email Mish.

If I get any interesting letters, I may share some of the stories.

Trends in College Tuition vs. Bachelor's Degree Wages

Meanwhile, as student debt piles up, wage growth for college grads certainly doesn't. Please consider a Shocking Chart on Tuition vs. Earnings for College Grads on The Fiscal Times.

Student debt levels have reached a new high – rising $42 billion in the last quarter to $956 billion, according to a report this week from the New York Fed. At the same time, tuition rates have seen a staggering 72 percent increase since 2000.

As if those two upward trends weren't hitting students hard enough – the average earnings for full-time workers ages 25-34 with Bachelor's degrees has also dropped 14.7 percent since 2000. The chart below from Citi shows the striking contrast:

Howard Dvorkin, author of Credit Hell, told The Fiscal Times last month: "It's hard to predict when the student loan meltdown could occur, but if the bubble explodes, the consequences will be devastating for the economy."

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

"Wine Country" Economic Conference Hosted By Mish
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US Fiscal Cliff Blame Game Between Geithner, Boehner; UK Deficit Cut Taking Longer Than Planned

Posted: 02 Dec 2012 09:27 AM PST

Agreement that something needs to be done with soaring deficits is easy to find, in the US and abroad. Actually doing something reasonable about huge deficits has proven impossible to date.

Fiscal Deficit Blame Game

Bloomberg reports Geithner Joins Boehner in Trading Blame Over Fiscal Cliff Talks.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and House Speaker John Boehner hardened their positions over the fiscal cliff, each blaming the other for a standoff that could lead to more than $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts in January.

"There's not going to be an agreement without rates going up," Geithner said in a taped interview that aired today on CNN's "State of the Union." Republicans will "own the responsibility for the damage" if they "force higher rates on virtually all Americans because they're unwilling to let tax rates go up on 2 percent of Americans."

Republican Boehner said the White House is wasting time.

"I would say we're nowhere, period," Boehner said on the "Fox News Sunday" program. "We've put a serious offer on the table by putting revenues up there to try to get this question resolved. But the White House has responded with virtually nothing."

There's "clearly a chance" that there won't be an agreement in time to avert the fiscal cliff, Boehner said on the Fox program. "Just the threat of the fiscal cliff is already hurting the economy."

Geithner appeared on five talk shows today. In the interviews, taped Nov. 30, he challenged Republicans to make a counteroffer to the Obama administration's framework plan.

Republican Ball

Gene Sperling, Obama's top economic adviser, challenged Republican congressional leaders to put an offer on the table.

"It's for them now to come forward with their plan, with their details, so that we can start working quickly to getting an agreement," said Sperling, director of the White House National Economic Council, on "Political Capital with Al Hunt," airing this weekend.

"The ball really is with them now," said Geithner, the administration's lead negotiator on the fiscal cliff, on CNN. "They're having a tough time trying to figure out what they can do, what they can get support from their members for."

One good thing is happening in January. Tim Geithner is stepping down as US Treasury Secretary.

UK Deficit Cut Taking Longer Than Planned

The BBC reports Deficit cut is taking longer than planned

Chancellor George Osborne has admitted that curbing the UK's financial deficit is "taking longer" than planned.

But he told the BBC the government was "making progress" and that to "turn back now would be a complete disaster".

Mr Osborne, who delivers his Autumn Statement on Wednesday, said well-off people would "pay their fair share".

"The deficit is down by a quarter. There are a million more jobs in the private sector and to turn back now, to go back to the borrowing and the debt and the spending that Ed Balls represents would be a complete disaster for our country."

He added that some people were calling for more borrowing and others for more spending cuts, but the government had "got the right plan and we should stick to that plan".

As you can see, political bickering over needed budget cuts is rampant on both sides of the Atlantic.

It's important to maintain a global focus instead of looking at US problems in isolation. There is not a good fiat currency anywhere (and there cannot be by definition actually).

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Seth's Blog : Soft and hard

Soft and hard

The hard stuff is measurable, quantifiable and easy to put into a spreadsheet. This concrete stuff gives you an easy way to demand a bonus or track progress.

The soft stuff is merely essential, the real reason you do what you do.

Ironically, then, hard is easy and soft is difficult.

The question, I guess, is whether or not you and your team spend most of your time on the hard stuff, merely because it's easier to measure, to argue about and to hide behind?

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luni, 3 decembrie 2012

Building a Video SEO Strategy

Building a Video SEO Strategy

Defining and implementing a goal-driven strategy.