VSEO " video search engine optimization "

Video optimization started hitting the heads of online marketers in the last 2- 3 years after the mass explosion of interest generated by Youtube in online video watching. There are several video streaming sites on web apart from youtube like www.dailymotion.com, www.break.com, www.desitara.com and so on. Now comes the question as to how to market video in internet via search or other means of marketing. Videos within a video sites are getting popular with the on page video optimization made on youtube and other site by mapping relevant keyword to it, found through keyword research analysis.

After inclusion of video in the search results by search engine, most of the SEO experts are interested in gaining traffic for their video through search engines. Since Google being the top on the chart, there are several video SEO methodologies one need to follow to optimize the video for search engines.

Here is the example for video optimization in search engine.

 

So How to Optimize a Video in Search Results of Search Engines

Though it is true that search engines can’t automatically and independently determine the contents of the video, videos can be used to list your website in the search engine results. Since the search engine is an automated tool running behind with lots of algorithm to throw the quality results, its difficult for it to map what is the content in the video. To help search engine determine the video content, they introduced a format search engine crawler can understand so as to identify the video content. Here comes the evolution of video sitemap.

XML Video Sitemap

As in the normal sitemap creation, video sitemap also created in XML format. XML is a markup language which can be easily understandable by its simplicity in the code. All the Markup language helps to give presentation in structured way. They have set of prescribed annotation to follow, and all markup languages are enclosed in “<” “>” symbol.

With Video XML Sitemap we are able to present the data required by search engines in a structured way as they required. When a site makes use of video sitemap, they would be able to get double listing in the search engine results. This will really be helpful in increase the traffic to the website tremendously as it would be well optimized.

Below is the video sitemap code desired by Google http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=80472#2

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"

xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">

<url>

<loc>http://www.example.com/videos/some_video_landing_page.html</loc>

<video:video>

<video:content_loc>http://www.site.com/video123.flv</video:content_loc>

<video:player_loc allow_embed="yes" autoplay="ap=1">

http://www.site.com/videoplayer.swf?video=123</video:player_loc>

<video:thumbnail_loc>http://www.example.com/thumbs/123.jpg
</video:thumbnail_loc>

<video:title>Grilling steaks for summer</video:title>

<video:description>Get perfectly done steaks every time</video:description>

<video:tag>steak</video:tag>

<video:tag>meat</video:tag>

<video:tag>summer</video:tag>

<video:category>Grilling</video:category>

<video:family_friendly>yes</video:family_friendly>

<video:duration>600</video:duration>

</video:video>

</url>

</urlset>

<urlset> :Standard protocol which is used to call the sitemap. It inherits the certain property as prestructured by XML. The <urlset> tag contains all the information about each url in the document and this can be really helpful in optimization.

<url> to </url>This is the video url , whatever is mentioned here will be reflected to that particular URL.

<loc> tag will specify the location of the video in the url. This will help the crawlers to locate the video.

<video:video> to </video:video> will have all the information about the video.

<video:content_loc> will give the crawler the right location of the video. This will let the search engines know where exactly the video has been taken from.

<video:thumbnail_loc> tag will give the location of the thumbnail image that should be shown in the search engine results. This must be 160X120 in dimension. The right video thumbnail has to be chosen to induce interest in the minds of the viewer. Thus if you search for a keyword in search, then video shown in search engine have relevant thumbnail will have more click through rate than others. Its a really important step to be noted.

<video:title> the title of the video must be specified in this. As we do in regular title optimization in organic search engine optimization, we need to play with relevant keywords to optimize the title for the video. Which will have more impact on search results.

<video:description> this tag must contain the description of the video. This make the search engine understand what you mean in this video. If we write proper description as we do for meta description for a page in SEO terms then video optimization will be much easier than the non followed once.

<video:tag> will contain the tag of the video. Each tag must be specified differently.

<video:category> tag will contain the category to which the video belongs. By choosing the right keyword you will be able to inform the search engines the category of your video.

<video:duration> tag will contain the length of the videos. In Google there is an option to click on video tabs in it and the left panel gives the customize option to select the duration of the video. Default option given by video section in Google are Short (0–4 min.), Medium (4–20 min.) & Long (20+ min.).

<video:family_friendly> tag will contain whether the video that has been uploaded is family friendly or not. This will help from adult videos being displayed to the general audience.

Note: From <url> to </url> we can give details of one video, if you want more video to attach in same XML video sitemap create more <url> to </url> within the one <urlset> to</urlset>.

Once we create the XML video sitemap now its time to register with google.

Submitting Video Sitemap In Web Master Tools

* Create the videositemap.xml

* Upload the videositemap.xml file to the root folder of your site ie;sitename.com/videositemap.xml

* Submitting a video sitemap is similar to the normal sitemap. Go to the webmasters tools and sign in with the username and password.

* Click on the verified domain name, click on site configuration and then on sitemap.

* When this page opens give the URL where you have uploaded the videositemap.xml and then click on submit.

* Wait for about 15 seconds and the status of your sitemap will be displayed. If there is a green mark with the format as video, you have successfully submitted your sitemap for search engines to crawl. Depending on the crawling rate of your website the sitemap will be indexed in Google.

Once this is submitted, the probability of your video to come in search result is higher with thumbnails and other details as in the search results.

So once the video is uploaded and optimized for the onpage optimization with relevant keywords and xml sitemap creation and submit. Now its time to make it popular in public, if the keyword we are targeting with keyword is of high competition , then just a video sitemap submission with onpage factor won’t help. We need think and channelize the strategy to make people aware of the video, for that we need to follow traditional search engine optimization methods like blogging with video embed on it, link building for the video with proper anchor text optimization in internal and external links and so on. We can use the video popular in social media marketing channels making it go viral in social networking sites or make viral in bookmarking to bring traffic to video. Once the video started getting enough traffic through all these media and then search engine feel that the particular video have the authority to be showcased on their results, there comes the beauty of seeing your video in top of the search results in high search keywords with all its property as we listed xml video sitemap.