Unilyzer » Video Blogging

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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Repurpose Your Content

Rebecca — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:49:52 +0000

It can be overwhelming to think about all of the content you have to create to maintain a social media and internet marketing campaign. Coming up and generating original ideas for blog posts, tweets, fan pages, videos, and podcasts can be challenging. However, by compounding your content and using a blog post to inspire a chain of related tweets, posts, and video you can reduce the time and increase the effectiveness of your online marketing.

Here is the formula for getting the most mileage out of your content:

Write a blog post with the rule of three. The post contains an introduction paragraph, three supporting examples or arguments, and a conclusion.

Turn the blog post into tweets. Take your main point from the introduction paragraph and post it as a question to your twitter followers. Then take the first sentence of each of your supporting examples or arguments and drip tweet them throughout the day. Make sure to link to your original blog post in all your tweets.
Turn your blog post in to wall posts. The conclusion of your blog post summarizes the overall point you’re making. Take this nugget of an idea and find a related video, resource, or book on the topic. Post the video or resource on your Facebook wall along with a link to your original blog post.
Turn your blog post into a video or podcast. Take the blog post introduction and personalize with your own voice and style. Take the three supporting arguments and find an expert in the opposing or supporting side and interview them. With a podcast format you can call them and record their voice. With video you can be like a journalist and interview a local expert in the topic. Suggest several resources for the audience to get more information and wrap up with your final conclusion. Don’t forget to plug your website and encourage folks to subscribe to your channel.

Digg and Ping your blog & videos. After you post to your blog and video site of choice, make sure to recommend yourself on the social bookmarking sites. This introduces your content to folks and generates incoming links. If you’re using a tool like WordPress to write your blogsite make sure you have it set to auto-ping blog indexing sites like Feed Burnner and Technorati.

As you can see, one blog post can be easily repurposed into four different social media channels. This not only saves you time, but keeps your message consistent. If one blog post can generate four different pieces of content you can exponentially increase the reach of your online marketing.

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Grab Attention with Your Facebook Wall Posts

Rebecca — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:41:01 +0000

The Facebook wall is a running list of your friend’s latest status updates. Typically it includes a thumbnail of your friends profile photo and some text on the right. When there are about 30 updates on your wall, it’s hard to stand out if all you have is text. Adding video and photos to your updates makes your wall post stand-out from the crowd and draws friends or fans to click and see more. The examples below show how wall posts with photos and video stand out.

Standard Facebook wall post:

Facebook wall post with photo:

Facebook wall post with video:

Facebook makes adding video super easy. Embed video from YouTube, Revver, and Yahoo Video. In fact, you can record video from your webcam directly into Facebook, no fancy editing software needed. (watch tutorial) When your friends or fans click on your video link they can watch the video (it expands and plays). They never have to leave Facebook to watch. What a great tool to keep users on your fan page or encourage them to learn more about you, and in the end your products and services.

People are naturally drawn to pictures and video. I know when friends post photos I almost always check out their profile photo galley to see more. Next time you post on Facebook, try adding a photo or video then observe your friends reactions. Did they have a tendency to comment more? Let me know how this works for you by leaving a comment below.

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