Optimize your Youtube Video for the Search Engines.

We often forget that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Being a site that hosts videos, we tend to miss the fact that a lot of people also use YouTube as a search engine to find what they want and need. These are the people who like to consume content in the form of video and are usually more qualified buyers and subscribers than the visitors from search engines.

A few years back, if you posted a video on YouTube with the relevant keyword in the title, it would rank in the top 10 results easily. But nowadays there are so many videos being uploaded in YouTube that YouTube SEO has become as important as website SEO. As an added bonus, one can optimize their YouTube videos and move their rankings up in YouTube search result pages just like in Google search results.

Many marketers have talked about YouTube SEO so I will start with the most elusive concepts first and then I will cover the frequently talked about tips as well.

1. Closed Captions

While watching YouTube videos you would have noticed a button ‘CC’ in the bottom right corner. CC stands for closed captions. YouTube is becoming global now and videos created in India are being watched and shared by people in US; videos from Europe are reaching people in Sri Lanka and so on. Captions not only enable more people to consume your video but YouTube also crawls the content in the captions! This has been proved by many experiments where we include a unique text string inside the captions file and when that string is searched on Google or YouTube the video will come up!

Earlier it used to be a complicated process to add CC to a video – one would need to specify the start and end time of each line and it would take hours. But recently YouTube introduced a speech recognition technology/feature which automatically detects the start and end of each line spoken and matches it to the video’s audio. So all you need to do is upload the script of the video and the captions will appear exactly in sync with the video. It is amazing how YouTube does this – but it is also the reason they are the No.1 in this market.

So a video on a topic with CC should definitely outrank the video on the same topic with no CC provided other SEO factors have also been taken care of.

2. Adding the Script in the Description

If you are creating the script for the speech in video, then adding the same script in the description of the video shouldn’t take much time. Google indexes this as well.

3. Naming the Video File with Keywords

If you are uploading a video about the ‘Health Benefits of Organic Foods’ then the file name of the video should be something like organic-food-benefits.avi or something similar. MOV0234.AVI is not going to be meaningful. The viewer of the video does not look at this but YouTube gives a relevancy credit to the file name because if your file name is named with your keyword then there is a better chance that your video is about what it says.

4. Create a More Engaging Video

This probably sounds straight forward and simple and you may even be tempted to skip this paragrapgh – BUT WAIT. I am about to say something which will blow you away.

YouTube gives relevancy credits to videos where people watch it for a longer time. This is not just a theory but has been tested by us. We uploaded two videos with almost the same SEO factors built in but the only change was the perception by the real human visitor. One video was engaging and the other video was not engaging to the real humans. 6 months later the more engaging video was ranking much better than the other video. So yes, YouTube gives credit to videos which are more engaging because it is a good way to measure the quality of the video.

For the purposes of guarding my niche from competition, I cannot reveal the videos I tested – so if you have a hard time trusting me, you can ignore this fact at your own risk.

5. Authoritative YouTube Channel

If you are posting a video on a fresh YouTube channel it is not going to have as much SEO power as the same video uploaded on a channel with has a lot of other good videos on the same topic. This is similar to website SEO – Posting an article in a fresh blog vs. posting an article in a high PR established blog makes a difference between heaven and hell.

Not only the video would get better rankings, but it will grow faster when the subscribers of that YouTube channel like, comment and share that video.

So always try to have established youtube channels for each of your niche and avoid posting videos on fresh channels. Also avoid posting irrelevant videos in the channels – it may dilute the SEO power of all the other videos on that channel.

6. Posting HD Videos Instead of SD

It is astonishing how many marketers do not even mention about uploading HD videos. Again this has been tested by us in several occasions. HD videos out-rank standard definition videos every time.

You may think that YouTube may not prefer HD videos because it costs them a lot of storage space and bandwidth – but they have more resources that you can imagine. The reason why they limit the length of the videos is not because of lack of storage or bandwidth but to prevent people from uploading copyrighted videos. This has been confirmed by YouTube itself.

It makes sense that a HD video should be better than a standard video. If someone is investing the energy and resources in creating a HD video then the content could be equally good.

So try to upload 1080P videos whenever possible and if you are doing screen cast or presentation videos – 720P should do the job.

Some of the other commonly talked about SEO methods are

• Having a relevant headline with proper keywords
• Putting your link in the description above other content with http://
• Including tags from other videos which rank well for the keywords that you are targeting
• Giving a call to action at the end of the video for liking your video and/or subscribing to your channel.

Hope you found my insights useful. Please leave you comments.

Google + and Google + Local for the Eye Care Professional?

Does an Optometrist, Ophthalmologist, Optician or Vision Therapist need to have a presence on Google + and Google + Local?

Absolutely, and here's why.

Roughly 60% of your patients use Google to find your practice when they are in  need of Eye Care. I am willing to bet that most Eye Care Professionals do not even know that Google has done away from the Google Places page? Are you even familiar with the new Google + Local for your business?

Google + and + Local are the biggest trending topics online these days. So, what is it and why should you care about it? Simple –  Google + is a new social media site that is directly tied into the most widely-used search engine on the planet, with looming search engine optimization (SEO) implications. If you care about your company’s online reputation – what consumers are saying and where they are saying it – you need to read this post.

If you used Google’s search engine in the last year, you may have noticed a strange development – a little “+1” button that would show up in search results. Clicking on it would indicate to Google that you have endorsed that result as a solid source of information for the search term you used. Naturally, everyone speculated that the more +1 clicks that a site received, the higher that Google would esteem it for that particular search term. Google denied this at +1’s implementation but did not dismiss the possibility of +1 affecting search rankings in the future – which means it will be a reality soon enough.

With G+ using the +1 button as a way to endorse a post by a contact, the overall vision for +1 is revealed to be a bit grander. Google envisions +1 as the tool that ties together all user-endorsed content across the web. Whether you +1 something in search results or a photo that your friend took of his dog and uploaded to Google+, you’re contributing to your personal version of Google’s search algorithm, meaning that content may eventually be served to you differently based on your +1 behaviors.

This concept is very bold and presents an interesting problem for SEO management, if it does indeed create a personalized set of results which varies wildly for every user. When the SEO community reaches some sort of consensus (or if Google releases more information) then I’ll do a follow-up to this post on how +1 affects Google+ SEO performance.

Here is how to get started:

Create your profile
To create a Google+ page, an Eye Care Professional first needs to have a personal profile on Google+. You can login using your Google account if you already have one. If you don’t have a Google account, it’s very quick and easy to join. Start now.

Create a page
Google+ can help people learn about what makes your business tick -- your products, promotions, hours and anything else an Eye Care Professional wants to share. If your location is important, for instance, add a map to your Google+ page that directs customers right to your doorstep. Keep that information up to date and make it easy to find through Google+ searches.

Grow your circles
Whenever people follow you, you can add them to your circles. They’ll also begin to see your posts in their stream. So spread the word and encourage people to add you. You can even get the Google+ badge to let people add you to a circle without leaving your site here.

Google+ Tips

Add your Google Plus  Profile ID to the following:

LinkedIn Profile (Hint: Use the Website Section in your Profile)
Twitter Profile (Hint: Create a short url link)
Personal Blog or Website (Hint: WordPress has Code- Widgetsplus)
Facebook Profile (Hint: Use the Website Category)

Google + Local 

Google Places have been swallowed up by Google+ Local Pages, merging all business listings into one to be used across search, Maps, mobile, and Google+.

Users can access enhanced local listings via a new Local tab in the left sidebar of Google+, by performing searches on the fly on their mobile (currently supporting Android, iOS coming soon), in Google searches, and through Maps.

One notable addition: Zagat’s reviews are incorporated, taking the place of Google’s five-star rating system. Google purchased Zagat’s last year and working the review system into Google+ Local has taken down the paywall, making the service free for all users.

Here’s how it works, demonstrated in a video released by Google.

The new format will be rolling out to all users “in the weeks and months ahead,” Google VP Engineering Jen Fitzpatrick wrote in the blog post announcing the change. Business owners are still able to manage their information through Google Places for Business, though now the listing will surface through a number of Google services.

Different people are interested in different parts of your business. Whether it's breaking news, updates, promotions, links, photos - even talking face-to-face with groups via easy-to-use video chat - Google+ lets you easily share the right things with the right customers.

Help word get around. Put the +1 button anywhere you'd like people to be able to recommend your business, products or services to friends and contacts all across the web.

Do you want to capture 50% to 60% of the people searching for eye care in your area?

Here is what to do:

1. Claim Your Listing.
2. Add Information About Your Business.
3. Upload Photos.
4. Add Videos.
5. Solicit Reviews.
6. Create an Offer.
7. Promote it on Your Website and Social Media sites.
8. Optimize the Keywords on Your Website.
9. Create Backlinks to Your Website.
10. Create Address and Phone Number Citations on the Web.

Happy Googling !

Social Media tips fo the Eye Care Professional, Internet Marketing for the Vision Care Community.

It’s a fair bet that your boss, dates and anyone you give your business card to will type your name into a search engine. If something negative appears in the results, your online reputation can quickly damage your offline reputation — and affect your life.

Of the almost 80% of U.S. hiring managers who had searched for candidates online, 70% of them said they had rejected a candidate based on what they found in his or her search results, according to a 2009 study commissioned by Microsoft.

While you might not be able to remove damaging content from the Internet, there’s a good chance that you can minimize its impact using simple SEO techniques. And even if your search results are squeaky clean, the same techniques can help you control how you’re perceived online.

Here’s how to get started.

Step 1: See Where You Stand

Before you can manage your online reputation, you have to assess it. Type your names in search engines. Set up search alerts for your name (Google recently made this easier to do from the Google dashboard through a new “Me on the Web” tool).

If you find something unflattering, ask yourself:

• Did I post it? If, for instance, photos from your Flickr account that you’d rather keep private are showing up in search results for your name, you can simply delete the photos or adjust your privacy settings.
  After you’ve removed the offensive content, you can use Google’s URL removal tool to stop it from appearing as a cached copy or snippet in search results. If you do nothing, the content will still eventually drop from Google’s index — it will just take a bit longer to disappear.
• Is it personal information that could be used in a crime? If someone posts your social security number, bank account number, credit card number or an image of your handwritten signature, Google will makeefforts to remove it from search results. It will also contact the site’s hosting company to request that the page be taken down.
• Is it posted on a high-traffic news site? Competing for search results with a popular news site is difficult. ButPatrick Ambron, the cofounder of a personal online reputation management service called Brand-Yourself, says that all hope is not lost. “Google usually only likes to rank one result per domain name per page,” he says. “So if you could get another result on the same domain name like Huffington Post that was better optimized for your name, you could theoretically knock the bad article off.” One way to do this is to create a profile on that news site using your full name. Use as many links as possible, and link to the profile from all of your other web properties.

If you can’t answer “yes” to either of these questions, your best bet for reducing the visibility of negative content is to compete for top search results using positive content.

If you can’t get the content removed from the original site, you probably won’t be able to completely remove it from Google’s search results, either,” reads Google’s guide to keeping personal information out of Google. “Instead, you can try to reduce its visibility in the search results by proactively publishing useful, positive information about yourself or your business.”

In other words, if you want to make negative webpages appear lower in search, you’ll need to create content of relevance to push the negative links down. Google suggests responding to negative reviews of your business, for instance.

Profiles on social networks are powerful tools for this purpose, as results from large sites like Facebook andTwitter often carry more SEO power than a single post on something like a personal blog.


Step 2: Post Positive Content

“If you can’t get the content removed from the original site, you probably won’t be able to completely remove it from Google’s search results, either,” reads Google’s guide to keeping personal information out of Google. “Instead, you can try to reduce its visibility in the search results by proactively publishing useful, positive information about yourself or your business.”

In other words, if you want to make negative webpages appear lower in search, you’ll need to create content of relevance to push the negative links down. Google suggests responding to negative reviews of your business, for instance.

Profiles on social networks are powerful tools for this purpose, as results from large sites like Facebook andTwitter often carry more SEO power than a single post on something like a personal blog.

Step 3. Create an Identity Hub

One secret to pushing your positive online presence further up in search results is to make a hub that links to all of your content. Ambron recommends these tips for pushing your hub to the top of search results for your name.

• Claim your domain name. Including the search term (in this case, your name) in the URL of your web page tells search engines what the page is about.
• Mention yourself. You’re trying to tell search spiders, “This page is about me!” A good way to do that is to use your name a lot. Use your name in tabs and headers.
• Link to your content. “[Google] considers each link to your site a vote for the site,” Ambron says. “Google has gotten pretty smart, so where those links come from is very important. The more reputable links are better votes. A vote from CNN is better than some site you made that you just linked to yourself.”
  Remember all of those social media profiles that you created in step two? They’re attached to reputable sources like Facebook and Twitter, which makes their “votes” count as much more reputable than a page you just created.
  Sign up for as many of them as possible (use one of these sites to see what is available), and then link them all to your hub.
• Post often. Search engines like fresh content. One easy way to create it is to post your social media feeds to your blog.

• Step 4. Consider Automating the Process

  
  
  There are several services that will help you with your quest for a pristine online reputation for a small fee.Brand-Yourself, for instance, keeps track of your reputation on a dashboard and helps you improve it by helping you raise existing positive content or helping you create new positive content. Vizibility allows users to pre-select the information they want displayed in “search results” from a special button or URL that can be added to online profiles, websites, resumes, email signatures and business cards.
  
  
  This article was reposted form Mashable. http://mashable.com/2011/06/27/manage-online-reputation-seo/
  
  
  
  

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Why is Blogging so important to Search Engine Optimization? Social Media Optometry

How many times have you heard someone say, I just want that top search result on Google? For a business website, the top spot in the search engine returns can be a lead generating machine.

Think about it. Google is where most people go when they are researching. What if there was a way to get your company’s website on that coveted first page? Well there is…

One of the best ways to gain that top spot is by blogging. Incorporating a blog into a website can have a huge impact on the overall website’s search engine rankings.

A blog does two important things in terms of the search engines:

Adds naturally occurring, keyword-rich pages.
Increases the potential for incoming links from high-quality websites.
This article will reveal the why and how for improving your search engine rankings with blogs.

Playing the Numbers—Static vs. Dynamic Websites
The average small business website includes anywhere from 10-20 static web pages. These are the basic pages you see on most sites such as the home page, an “about us” page, product descriptions and even pages with contact information. Once created, these pages rarely change. In some cases, even small changes on these pages can be an expensive proposition that involves bringing in a web designer.

If the site is well-built with all the appropriate code and metadata, the search engines will index these 10-20 pages of content. If the site is highly optimized and focused on a limited number of keywords, the search engines may connect those 10-20 pages with the right keywords (the search engine terms used to find information). However, due to the inherent needs of a website, some pages aren’t indexed for the desired keywords (i.e., contact forms).

Best-case scenario, 10-20 pages are recognized by the search engines as possible returns for the targeted keywords.

The Impact of Blog Posts
Now let’s take our static website and add a blog. For the sake of this example, let’s say that there are five representatives in the company who have each agreed to write one blog post per week.

Here’s where our blog really starts to pay off. Each time a new blog post is added, a new page is indexed by the search engines. By the end of the first month, the website has doubled the number of pages originally indexed by the search engines.

Within a month, our website—which originally had 10-20 pages in the search engine pool—now has 30-40 pages that can possibly be returned in the top spot on Google. Stretch that out over the course of a year and our 10-20 page website now has around 250 pages indexed in the search engines.

And while a blog post a day is a lot of work, scale it back to one blog post per week and we’ve still more than doubled the number of indexed pages during the first year.

Each indexed page adds another ticket to the great Google lottery. The more tickets you hold, the better chance of winning the top spot in the search engine rankings.

The Power of Incoming Links
Now let’s say that our faithful bloggers have been adding their daily posts on topics of interest to their industry. Word gets around that they put up some valuable information and at the very least offer a voice for the company. A couple of blog posts have been emailed to fellow colleagues and even better, fellow industry bloggers are starting to link to the blog. The site starts to appear on fellow bloggers’ blog rolls and specific posts are linked as references and points of discussion in other online publications.

Google likes these incoming links. Google likes them even more when the links come from sites that are relevant to the content in the blog.

Then one day, a mild-mannered New York Times reporter is conducting research for a story related to our company’s industry. Because the blog has added a number of indexed pages to the website and others have started to link to the blog, it pops up in the reporter’s Google search. Our reporter includes a link to the blog in his article.

Google really likes incoming links from big, high-traffic sites like the New York Times. Along with the initial traffic sent to the blog from the New York Times article, Google sees that the New York Times linked to our site in an article related to keywords indexed in our blog. Google recognizes that the New York Times is an important Internet site and makes the connection that because the New York Times has linked to our little blog, our blog must be important. Thus Google moves it up the search engine rankings.

Congratulations. Thanks to the addition of a blog, our little website of 10-20 static pages now holds one of the top spots in Google search results.

Indexed Pages + Relevant and Reputable Links = Search Engine Success
At the 2009 WordCamp San Francisco (a gathering of WordPress users), Google’s Matt Cutts pointed out the importance of being both relevant and reputable. Incoming links from reputable sites such as the New York Times in which the content is relevant to the content in the post are highly valued by Google.

A blog is one of the best ways to continually add pages to a website that generate relevant and reputable links.

In the scenario above, our business blog has managed to provide both relevant content and generate reputable links—two big keys to success on Google.

Real-World Example
Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at a real-world Google search to see the impact of a blog in action.

Let’s say that we’ve just moved to Baltimore and need a realtor to help us find a new home. We go to Google and search “Realtor Baltimore.” Once we get past the map-based search results (important to note), the national sites such as Realtor.com and the national brokerages, one of the first local real estate agents to show up in the organic search results is Wayne Curtis at www.charmcityrealestate.com.

CharmCityRealEstate.com includes a blog with posts dating back to November 2006. As you can see in the image below, Google has indexed 145 pages of CharmCityRealEstate.com. Many of these pages are blog posts filled with naturally occurring keywords related to the real estate market in Baltimore.



Now let’s take a look at another realtor in the Baltimore area. This realtor’s website did not rank in the Google search results and does not include a blog. As you can see from the image below, the site shows only 14 pages indexed with Google.



Measuring incoming links is a little more difficult as different tools return different numbers. You can get a basic overview by using the search term “link:yourdomain.com” in both Google and Yahoo. Using Alexa.com’s “Site Info” tool we can see www.charmcityrealestate.com’s top incoming links. The very first link returned on Alexa is a link from HDTV.com’s television series House Hunters, a highly relevant and reputable real estate site.



Quality of Pages Indexed and Incoming Links
When conducting this experiment, you can find sites that don’t rank as well on Google yet have more pages indexed. This is often because the pages indexed do not rank for the keywords searched. A topical blog naturally lends itself to keyword-rich posts just by the nature of the content.

The same holds true with incoming links. Too many incoming links from websites that are not relevant to the content on the site can actually hurt a website’s search engine ranking.

Consider Keywords When Creating Posts
Now that you can see the importance of keyword-indexed blog posts, you can begin to optimize your posts to include relevant keywords.

Going back to our example above, we can use the Google Keyword Tool to see that during the month of March, the phrase “Realtor Baltimore” was searched on Google 2,900 times in the U.S.; however, the phrase “Realtors Baltimore” was searched 60,500.



Since “Realtors Baltimore” was searched around 57,000 more times than “Realtor Baltimore,” it would be wise to use both terms when writing a post about choosing a realtor in Baltimore.

Incorporate the Blog
If the goal is to raise the search engine results of the larger website, it is important to incorporate the blog into the larger website. Use a call to action at the end of the blog post to direct the reader to other parts of your website. Keep it on the same domain and provide clear links that encourage visitors to explore the rest of your website.

Make it easy for your reader. If the path to your larger website isn’t clearly marked, they will never find their way.

ROI
Measuring the ROI of social media is tricky, but consider the value of the top spot on Google. How much would you pay for the top organic search return? Although it doesn’t happen overnight, a blog can be one of the best ways to get there.

Have you seen a jump in the search engine rankings since adding a blog? If your business is not blogging, what’s holding you back?

By Jim Lodico
Published May 24, 2010