Using Video to Promote Your Business?  You Should Be.
Have you considered advertising online with video content?   If you aren’t using Video SEO to promote your business online, there’s never been a better time, and there never will be.  This is a great time to give it a try and start to establish a presence in the Video Marketing world.

Everyone from your little sister to your grandmother is online, and they’ve all shared or watched videos that moved them in one way or another.  By using this powerful medium, your business can harness that power to help promote your brand, sell a product, or even defend your reputation.

Some of the major benefits of using video to promote your business online:

• Videos are more engaging than other forms of online advertising – Because videos stimulate multiple senses they tend to engage the audience more than static images or text.    This stimulation leads to longer time on the website, increased page views and the ability to integrate more calls to action on your website.  Ultimately this increased interaction should lead to more conversions and sales.

• Search Engines are Hungry for Video – There is a relatively small amount of video online, when compared to text and images.   This is one of the reasons that search engines are hungry for more video.  The search engines have even adapted their results pages to include special sections for highlighting videos, usually appearing in the video results at the bottom of the SERP’s.

• Videos Rank Quickly in the Search Engines – A properly optimized video will rank for targeted keywords in a very short period of time, usually in several days, whereas a text file or web page may take months to achieve the same rankings.    This quick placement can help a business to get exposure early on, while their organic search engine optimization efforts are still taking hold.   As a secondary effect, the additional exposure can lead to more links from sites in your niche, and others looking to add content to their blogs and web pages.

• Video sharing sites allow you to reach more customers – Sites like YouTube are now getting more search queries than Yahoo and Bing.   This is a great indication that consumer behavior is changing, and they are now looking to the video sharing sites for more than entertainment, they are looking for how-to videos, and educational clips.    If you are able to give away a bit of valuable information, you will become a subject matter expert, and consumers will look to you when it’s time to pay a professional to do the work.

There are a myriad of other reasons to get started with a video marketing campaign but the biggest reason to start now may be the relative lack of competition.   In a couple of years your competition will have saturated your niche with online videos, and you’ll be playing catchup.   Take the leap and begin your video marketing efforts now while the market is new and mistakes are forgiven, and you’ll be far better off down the line.

-Chris

You Can’t Just Digg Your Way to the Top Anymore

Digg announced today (9/2/09) that it is now applying the no-follow attribute to any links that are deemed untrustworthy, effectively ending the constant stream of SPAM that is posted to Digg daily.   While they did state that they are going to continue to allow link juice to flow to “trusted” articles, and they are not adding the no-follow attribute to all links, they did not specify what would constitute a trusted article.   Links on user profiles, comments and not-so-popular posts will get the no-follow tag, meaning it won’t pass along link juice.

John Quinn made the announcement regarding the changes on the official Digg blog:

“We’ve made a few changes to the way Digg links to external sites that may impact some folks in the SEO community. These changes reduce the incentive to post spammy content (or link spam) to Digg, while still flowing ’search engine juice’ freely to quality content. We’ve added rel=”nofollow” to any external link that we’re not sure we can vouch for. This includes all external links from comments, user profiles and story pages below a certain threshold of popularity.”

From what I can tell initially, any articles that make the front page of Digg avoid the no-follow attribute, therefore allowing the social community to effectively police the articles that are posted to Digg.   If an article gets enough votes from the community, it earns the trust needed to garner the link juice that comes from Digg.

Seems fair to me…

Minimal Impact on the SEO Community

This really shouldn’t affect the good SEO’s too much.  Sure, you lose an easy source of links that can be built with keyword based anchor text, but Digg seemed to be cracking down on link spam in general, so this just takes it one step further, and does so in an orderly fashion.  This will really only affect the spammy SEO’s that are simply posting article’s for the single Digg link.  If you are writing good content, and it includes links to true subject matter experts, you will still earn your link juice, they’ve just made it much harder to game the system.

Secondly, the no-follow attribute doesn’t completely eliminate the passage of link value, it simply dilutes it.  How much?  No one but the folks at Google really know, and they’re not going to show their hand.   The best you can do is read up on Matt Cutts blog post about no-follow and link sculpting, and draw your own conclusions.  For the purpose of continuing to use Digg for SEO, you should have a quality copywriter that can captivate an audience with a great article (or at least a great title), and you should build your network of friends, thereby increasing your chances of hitting the front page.

Other Social Sites Soon to Follow?

It will remain to be seen, but the social media world is a copycat arena.  Twitter was strong-armed into adding no-follow to all of their links, and now Digg has gone the same route.   Digg has said that ” This work was done in consultation with leading experts from the SEO/SEM and link spam fields” and one can assume that the experts included Google.

If other social sites start to get the overflow of Digg spammers, they too may start evaluating their own links and whether or not they should follow links.  And you always have the possibility that Google will “help” them figure out how they should handle their links as well.   I think there’s a good probability that more social sites will follow suit in the coming months.

If This Hurts You, You Need Better Link Sources

This is a good thing for SEO.  It will force out some of the spammers that can’t, or won’t put in the effort to find their own natural link sources, and will reward those who have spent the time building their profiles and interacting on the site.   Great content is still going to get Dugg, and will still have the potential to make the front page, while your quick and easy link-spamming will deteriorate, although it may not come to a screeching halt.

Get that copywriter going, get back to writing good content, and seek other link sources.  They are out there, you just have to stop being lazy.

-Chris

Twitter Rocks

I love Twitter.  There it is, I’ve finally become a full twitter addict and it has virtually replaced all of my other forms of social media.  I still use Facebook to keep up with friends, and I still participate in the other social sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn and a myriad of others, but Twitter has become the standard for my social activity.

Why do I love Twitter so much?  There are several reasons but those listed below are the 5 main reasons I think Twitter is ‘Da Bomb!  I encourage you to leave a comment on the reasons you love (or hate) Twitter.

5 Reasons why Twitter is my Favorite Social Media Site

1. Twitter Provides Instant Gratification – I live in America and I’m a very busy man, so my time is precious.  Anything that gives me immediate gratification in a short amount of time is high up on my list.  Twitter allows me to push out my company news, personal info, and interesting reading to millions of potential readers in a short, quick burst.   The reach is amazing and the response can be instant.  On the flipside, being able to ask a question of your tweeps and get the same immediate response is a very helpful benefit.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked a simple question and received immediate responses from my Tweeps who always seem to be willing to help.
2. Twitter has Immense, Targeted Reach – The great thing about social sites in general is the ability to reach out to people you might not ever meet otherwise.  Twitter takes this to another level by allowing you to target specific niches based on their interests.  This is a very powerful factor for marketing, and for personal interaction.   By regularly interacting with your Tweeps, who likely have the same interests as you do, you can network with people that will help you in business, or in your personal life, and get immediate results when you ask for help.  Other social sites allow some of the same ability, but in my opinion they don’t accomplish it as well as Twitter.
3. Twitter Gets You Connected with Local Resources - When I moved from Seattle to Denver I wanted to get to know the local SEO scene and connect with some of my colleagues in the industry.  I didn’t know who was good, who was not, or who to avoid.  I simple sent out a tweet that I was looking to meet up with some Denver SEO’s and get to know them.  Within hours I had responses from some of the better local SEO’s inviting me to Denver SEO meetups, drinks at the local pub, and offering help if needed.  Thanks to Twitter I have made connections with some great SEO’s in the Denver area such as Knox, Zach Katz, and JimKrienbrink.
4. Twitter is a Learning Tool - In my early days on Twitter I was just trying to figure out what was going on and how people were using this social platform.  I didn’t really feel comfortable putting out my info there until I knew the audience and the norms.  (BTW – This is my normal protocol for joining a new social site.)  So what did I do?  I followed a bunch of people in my industry who are known thought leaders and innovators, and I watched their Tweets to see what they are talking about.  There is an amazing amount of information on any topic that is being regularly circulated through the Tweet Stream, and if you are looking to learn about a specific subject you don’t need to do anything more than search for the subject and start following.  Favorite the items you like and you’ll soon build a library of reference material that you can return to again and again.
5. Twitter Search Offers Real Time Results from Real People – As opposed to Google’s search results, which are a snapshot of Google’s memory of the web, Twitter search results deliver real time info as it is being tweeted.  There is no waiting for Google to index a page, which means that you can find information as it happens, and get your results from people, which are much harder to manipulate than Google’s search results.
   Two examples:  1. Plane catches fire at Denver International Airport and passengers tweet the information to friends and family before the airport can release the info themeselves.   2. Google bombers manipulated the search results so that George Bush was listed as the first result when searching for the term “Miserable Failure”.  This was changed back in 2007, but the point remains – If SEO’s want to manipulate Google so that Obama shows up as “Wasting US Tax Dollars”, they can, but getting the same results in Twitter would be nearly impossible, due to the large amount of Obama supporters that can submit their own views on the President’s Economic policies.  This is one of the many reasons that Google should be very worried about the future implications of Twitter on their market share.

So those are the 5 Reasons that I love Twitter.  As with most of my posts, this was supposed to be short and sweet, and 900 words later we come to a close.

I welcome comments and would love to hear other reasons people love Twitter!

-Chris

Pondering SEO in 2009

Last night I pondered the future of Search Engine Optimization, particularly the effects of Universal Search and it’s full implementation, and while some of these changes have already started to show, yet others have yet to be fully implemented.

I came up with a list of 5 primary attributes that I feel will be essential to SEO in 2009. If your site is struggling to rank and get visitors, implementing these items in your site may help it rise from the ashes.  Conversely, if your site is ranking well, but you continue to exclude them, you may lose your high ranking position, and it won’t take long.

Social Profiles and Activity -

• With the continuing evolution of the Internet, and increased adoption of web 2.0 functionality, social profiles and activity are going to take on a more important role in the eyes of a search engine.
• Interaction with others through social communities will allow businesses to create and manage their reputations online, as well as provide company info, and respond to customers inquiries and requests in a real time basis, thereby separating the companies that have adopted Social Media from those who simply provide their info in a one way, traditional fashion (think newspaper, or web 1.0).
• The people and companies that engage their customers through social media will have a more content rich online profile, and as a result, should achieve higher importance to the Search Engines.

Interactive sites will be essential

• Because of Universal Search, and the listing of media in the search results, text will no longer dominate the Search Engine Results Pages.
• All other forms of media will take on a more important role in the search engine results.  Because there are relatively fewer images, videos and music on the web (in relation to text documents), the search engines are hungry for all types of media, and those sites that integrate multimedia into their user experience will have a greater propensity for showing up in the SERP’s.
• Some of the items that webmasters will want to integrate into their site to create a more interactive user experience will include:
  • Pictures
  • Video
  • Audio
  • Maps
  • News
  • Blogs

Analytics Programs Become the True Measure of SEO Success

• Analytics will be the key to gauging your optimization efforts, and these are some of the factors that may become more important to your site’s rankings:
  • Bounce Rate – If you are using Google Analytics, it will be very easy for them to gauge your visitor interaction, and bounce rate may be one of the key factors used in determining your rankings.  If they are able to see that a visitor entered your site through a specific keyword, and your site has a higher bounce rate than other sites for the same keyword, your position in the SERP’s may be lowered.  The logic being that other sites keep more visitors for that keyword, so they must be providing better content.
  • Page Views – a second factor that would be very easy to judge (if you are using Google Analytics), would be the number of pages viewed on your site.  If a site visitor enters your site through a specific keyword, and continues to browse through your entire site, chances are they found compelling information that caused them to review your site’s content in depth.   If they only view one or two pages, they must not have found what they are looking for, and have left the site to seek another source.
  • Time on Site – If the above listed information is not available to the search engine, the overall determining factor may be the amount of time on the site.  Without an analytics program to give detailed information about the site interaction, the only variable that can be measured is if you enter a site through a search engine, and then return to the search engine to run another query.  While this is not an exact measurement, it can provide the search engines enough information to determine the average amount of time spent on your site.
  • Helpful? - It may be helpful for the search engines to have this information in some instances, but I feel that it would be far more beneficial to the webmaster, site owner and Search Engine Marketing Company to keep this data to themselves, thus avoiding any kind of penalty that may be implemented by Google if they don’t like what they see.

Local Search Becomes More Important

• Based on the increased efforts at Search “Personalization”, local search will become more important, and those seeking placement on a national or global scale will have to focus on local search methods to show up in an area outside of their local market.
• A user searching for flowers in Denver may find completely different results than a user in Seattle.  The national companies that ship throughout the country, or internationally, will have a new challenge to contend with, and may see a significant decrease in their traffic from other areas.
• More small businesses are going to be in the SEO arena, as more and more businesses close, leading to more sales conducted online = local search becomes more important.

Traditional optimization factors are still important

• Content is still king as it engages site visitors and improves site interaction – the difference now is that content includes items other than text – pictures, audio, video, etc…
• Links still matter, but social links are more important, and editorial links and internal link structure become more important, while the value of links from paid sources such as directories continues to diminish.
• Good site navigation leads to a more interactive experience, so having an easy to navigate site is essential to increasing user interaction and increasing the time a user spends on your website.
• Internal link structure still ensures that the bots crawl all the content and direct link equity to the important pages of a site.
• Links within multimedia content, like watermark links within video and image content start to carry value, similar to anchor text.

Those are just a few of the ideas I have about the direction search engine optimization will take in 2009. There are many more options, and some of those may not become valid, but it’s already apparent that including more engaging content and creating a broad online profile will be important to a website’s overall importance in the eyes of the search engines.

I welcome any comments or ideas about this subject, and look forward to a follow up article in 2010 to gauge how accurate my observations are.

-Chris

In this post, Darren Rowse of Problogger gives us 3 relevant reasons to consider using Video on your Blog or your website. This is entirely Darren’s content, but I thought it was an excellent article and worth sharing.

Earlier in the week I wrote a post arguing that Text is King in the online space which caused some interesting discussion (both in the comments and on Twitter).

While I did try to qualify the post by saying that I do think video has its place and that it’ll continue to grow as a medium, particularly in some demographics, some people saw my post as me ‘writing off’ video.

So today I wanted to write a short post giving three reasons why I do believe in video and will continue to use it on my blogs. I won’t do it exclusively (ie I’ll primarily be investing my time into text) but I do believe that it’s a great compliment to the written form of communication that I focus upon.

1. Video Gives You a Voice and Face – perhaps the biggest thing that I noticed when I started posting videos here at ProBlogger was that I noticed readers interacting with me in a different way. Suddenly the emails I received had a more personal edge. Strangers started emailing me using a tone and language that was more familiar – as if they knew me. At first I didn’t realize what was happening – but after a while I realized that people felt like they ‘knew’ me. This happens with text as well – but video has a way of showing your personality. It shows your face and lets people hear your voice as it really is. This ‘personal’ aspect is powerful.
2. Video Connects with Different Personalities and Learning Styles – another thing that I noticed when I started using video was that I started getting comments on video posts from people I’d never heard of before. I started getting comments that would start with – ‘I’ve been reading your blog for 12 months but never commented before but just wanted to say…..’. We all have different learning styles and personalities – some of us learn better by hearing and seeing – while others by reading. Video appeals to a different crowd and can potentially widen your audience.
3. Video Opens Up Opportunities to Illustrate Certain Principles in Creative Ways – some things are very difficult to communicate in the written word. There are just some times when you need a tone of voice or body language to be able to ’show’ people what you mean. Video allows you to do this. It also opens up different ways of illustrating the principles you’re talking about. For example in my last video on First Impressions I started the video with a little sequence that illustrated what I went on to talk about – that sequence was commented upon by many and wouldn’t have been achievable with text (or at least not in the way I did it).

Should you write off video? No way! It is definitely a medium that I feel is worth experimenting with (and so far it seems 67% of you have been doing just that if our latest poll is anything to go by).

I guess all I was trying to say with my last post is that just because video is on the rise doesn’t mean that Text is dead. I think it is here to stay and will remain ‘king’ for quite some time yet!

Text, Video, Audio and other forms of communication online all have their place and can all be powerful. I find them especially powerful when you combine them rather than focus upon one – (but that’s partly just my style). Choosing your mediums and working out how much to focus upon them will probably come down to weighing up a number of factors including:

• Your topic
• Your audience and what mediums they’re most comfortable
• Your personality and how you best communicate
• Your skills in presenting, speaking, writing etc
• Your resources and access to cameras, bandwidth etc

OK – so that is enough of me – what do you think?

Darren Rowse is widely considered one of the top experts on blogging and his is one of a handful of blogs that I read daily.  If you have a blog and you have not visited ProBlogger, you are missing out on a valuable resource.

-Chris

Mountain View Chevy

Auto Dealers are having trouble with sales in this economy.  Many dealerships are closing their doors.  But it’s not all doom and gloom.  There are some savvy Internet sales managers taking advantage of the downtime to create Internet Video Marketing campaigns that they hope will pay off big when the economy rebounds.  Early indications show that they are on to something.

One example of an automotive dealer that is excelling with the use of online video is Mtn. View Auto Group in Chattanoga Tennessee.  The Auto Group is currently running video marketing campaigns for both their Ford and Chevrolet stores.  Led by eCommerce Director Don Erwin, Mtn. View has embraced Online Video Marketing and they are dominating the local car market online.

By utilizing as many as 10 different video sharing sites, and embedding their videos on a separate blog, Don is able to make sure that their videos are getting maximum exposure, and targeting their local auto enthusiasts and car buyers through as many channels as possible.   Running a variety of campaigns allows them to provide more content to their viewers, and highlight specific vehicles that need to be moved off the lot.   Don’s team runs separate campaigns to target different vehicle buyers – one campaign spotlights used vehicles, another campaign focuses on trade-ins and yet a third is composed of new vehicle walk-arounds.

By using separate campaigns, they have been able to target specific vehicle niches, and the buyers associated with those markets.  Their videos show up in the search results for keywords related to thatsubject – I.E. someone searches for the term “Chattanooga Corvette” they will find Mtn. View Chevy’s video of a 2009 Corvette Z06 in the top 3 results – which means that the viewer of the video fits their target audience from a needs standpoint, as well as geographically, and in most cases this means that they are in the buying phase and looking for the local dealer.

Not only does this strategy lead to ranking for highly targeted search terms, but it drives more traffic to their website, and takes up more positions in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s).   The benefits of owning more spots in the SERP’s is that you create a larger online presence, you have more control over what is being said about you online, and you are able to push your competition down in the results.

By strategically targeting customers through online video, Mtn. View Auto Group has increased their overall Internet sales, gained a larger share of the online market, and reached more customers than ever before.  As they continue to work with online video, they are honing their processes and improving their effectiveness, and their reach begins to grow as well.  They are gaining valuable knowledge and experience, not to mention maket share, and when video marketing online begins to hit it’s prime, they will be well positioned to dominate, and take their sales to a new level.

While there aren’t a lot of businesses that are embracing online video marketing with the same vigor as Mtn. View Auto, this model can be adapted for almost any business, and now is the time to get in, while errors will be forgiven, there are fewer competitors, and the market is not yet saturated.

Any predictions about the full scope of online video in the future are pure speculation at this point, but the potential implications for business are huge, and when Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 Billion in October of 2006, it was a pretty good indication that the world’s leading search engine has plans to make it big.  Bundle that with the introduction of Universal Search, and it’s easy to see that online video marketing has a bright future.

There is a huge opportunity for those businesses that are early adopters of this increasingly powerful advertising medium.  Starting an Internet Video Marketing campaign now will pay off big dividends down the line.

Get in now or get left behind.

-Chris

Google

This article, from Google’s Webmaster blog, discusses some of the key things to look for when hiring an SEO company.   This is an endorsement for quality SEO providers, and points out some of the negatives to look for in a bad SEO firm.

This is a good article for anyone who is considering hiring an SEO provider and offers some pointers on what to look for when evaluating an SEO company.

To read the full article follow this link > http://tinyurl.com/5whsw5

-Chris