Unilyzer » Search Engine Rank

Using the Power of Video for SEO

Rebecca — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:09:33 +0000

When you perform a search on one of the major search engines, take a look at what you get. You get more than just search results, notice the results now include images and videos. The videos returned in the search results stand out on Google because it includes a thumbnail image with a play button. Web surfers have a tendency to jump the the video link even if it’s not the top search result, simply because video is more engaging. Having your videos indexed in Google can be a great way to get ahead of your competition when it comes to being discovered on the major search engines.

But how do you get those videos in front of people? It’s called utilizing Video Search Engine Optimization (Video SEO/ vSEO). With the increase of search engines adopting “Universal Search” features and the growth of online video content, it is imperative vSEO becomes a player for those businesses looking to drive significant traffic.

Video SEO at its core is about the discoverability of video content via search engines. As a business, the goal of vSEO is getting video content to the top of search engine rankings within the video search results page AND the standard search results page.

A lot of the same rules that apply to SEO also apply to vSEO; you must have relevant and keyword rich text surrounding the video content and utilize inbound and internal linking. Take advantage of social media to allow visitors to share, bookmark, rate and comment on your videos, and strong video title and meta tags.

Promotional videos and vlogs (video blogs) are important if your business is going to survive in the future of the Internet. Remember, we retain 7% of what we read, 38% of what we hear and 55% of what we see. That alone should tell you online video must be a part of your marketing package. Businesses that put their message in front of a customer through video marketing will be the businesses thriving in the future.

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How to Become an Authority Site

Rebecca — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 22:39:07 +0000

Becoming an authority site is the ‘holy grail’ in the hunt for top position on the search engines. Most websites either lack content our lack the incoming links to be considered authority sites. On most search engines, you will notice that the top 10 results are usually loaded with authority sites. There are some exceptions, but in general, the search engines reward authority sites with top rankings.

What makes an authority site?

Authority sites generally have more content and more pages than other sites. The search engines feed on content-rich websites and those with many pages and much content per page will do better when going head-to-head with a smaller site. If your site has links from other authority sites, your site will be considered an authority site as well. Search engines generally give more weight to the incoming links from authority sites as long as their main keyword is the same as your own.

How do you establish your site as an authority site?

Add more pages to your site
Add informative and engaging content to those pages
Get other authority sites to link to you

Article writing is a great way to “kill two birds with one stone.” If your site is built using WorPress, then each time you add a post, you are adding a page to your site. All your articles should use permalinks!

You can write your own articles. If you don’t have time, then delegate this task to someone else, or hire a copywriter to do this for you. If you already know how to write content-rich, keyword-rich text, then you can take this task on with very little expense. If this is not your strength, then you may delegate this task or hire someone else to do it. As an alternative, there are online article exchanges where you can pick up content simply by linking back to the author’s site.

Once you have more pages with more content, you will need to solicit other authority sites to becoming link partners with you. This can be accomplished through email. Some will and some will not answer your requests, and of those who answer, some will and some will not link to you. The content and design quality of your website will determine whether others will want to link to your site.

Optimize your article pages to be crawled by the search engines. If you are using WordPress, make sure to categorize and tag your articles using your targeted keyword phrases. It also helps to have the title of your articles include some of your keyword phrases, because WordPress automatically makes that title’s H1 title tag. Good luck!

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Organic Traffic vs. Paid Traffic – Which One is Better?

Rebecca — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:00:18 +0000

When it comes to internet marketing on the major search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing there are two ways to get exposure in the search results – either organic or paid. Is one way better than the other? Is it worth the money to pay-per-click on the search engines? Let’s look at the difference between organic and paid placement:

Organic Placement – Your website appears naturally in Google search results because you have good article content and your pages are optimized for the search engines. Building a site that ranks well in organic search results requires time and effort, but the traffic cost is absolutely zero.

Paid Placement – when you pay to have your site listed under specific keywords, you only get charged when your listing gets clicked, hence the term pay-per-click. The amount you pay is determined by a bid system. The more competition in a keyword category, the higher the price per click will be.

Below is a screen shot of search results in Google. The organic search results are highlighted in green, and the pay per click positions are in pink. The three highest bid advertisers are listed above the organic results, and the remaining advertisers are listed in descending order on the right sidebar. Google looks at more than just the bid to determine your ad placement. Your site must be relevant to the keyword phrase you are competing in. This is to avoid search result contamination. Regardless of how high the credit card companies bid, they won’t appear under the search term ‘bubble gum’ on Google.

So, which form of traffic is better, organic or paid? Not all traffic is created equal. While organic traffic is free and pay-per-click costs money, that is not the only way to evaluate their performance. The best way to know, is to look at your Google Analytic’s report (more info on Google Analytics) and see which traffic source is generating the most time on site, lowest bounce rate, and pages per visit. The source that brings quality visitors to your site is the best. Quality visitors spend a longer period of time on your site and browse your site, looking at multiple pages. The longer they are on your website, the better chance you have at converting them to customers.
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