As you may have noticed, there is a ton of buzz out there about video search and marketing for video search engines, and there are a few posts out there with good information on how to upload your videos to these search engines, but most do not provide insight into the specific needs of SEO for video.

To have a success in video search engine optimization, you should have knowledge of some key technical aspects involving online video and search.

As with Search Engine Optimization for webpages and text content, keyword research is an important first step. Prior to optimizing your videos, you will want to obtain a keyword target list. There are however, some difference with regard to how users search for videos vs. website and webpages. Namely, most users include the word “video” when doing a search. Make sure that your keyword list contains several variations with the word video, Examples - car videos, car video, racing video, automotive videos, etc….

The next step after you have generated a keyword list is to take a good look at the video search platforms to see which channels and categories, tags, etc… tend to get the most views, as well as to look at which platforms have the highest performance in views, ratings, etc… You will certainly want to submit your video to multiple sites but you will want to make sure that at the least, you submit your video to the more popular engines.

You should also keep a track of the audience already searching for your targeted terms. In case you fail to find the same, find the closest related terms being searched. In video search engine optimization user feedback plays a very vital role.

Make sure that when you add your video to the video search sites that you allow users to comment on your videos. Videos that enable users to comment tend to get much more traffic. In addition, those users that do comment and provide feedback are more often the users that will result in a conversion.

If you can do this, it is always better to pick a video theme that is not saturated in terms of competition out there. As an example, a video about Tom Cruise will likely be very hard to optimize for as there are thousands of results for that search.

Another important factor to know is that typically, users do not watch videos that are long and drawn out. Instead, users want quick snacks of video content, usually viewing no more than a few minutes of a video. If you have a video that is many minutes long, consider creating several shorter clips for your video ranging from 1-3 minutes in total length.

Finally, make sure that you take advantage of the fact that you can brand your video with a watermark logo, text for your URL, and additional information to get users back to your website or business. One of the main points for doing video SEO is to get users back to your destination.

So, if you want to get your video discovered, view, and consumed by more and more users, video search engine optimization is the way to go. This is a great new technique for getting maximum exposure to your business, and currently, this is such a new topic, that you can be one of the first to capture your keyword or theme with a video search result.

Posted: February 12th, 2008 under Marketing.
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With the incredible rapid growth that online video sharing and video search sites are realizing, more and more advertisers are pumping money into video advertising. According to the latest research, online video advertising revenues in the US are expected to reach $7.1 billion by 2012 which is a 72 percent compound annual growth rate for the next five years. In 2008, the projections are just shy of $1billion.

Because of the keen interest of the advertisers towards the online video segment, many video sharing sites have been encouraged to come up with different formats for the placement of video advertisements. The quantum of investment in this segment has fueled innovation of the methods in which video sites are deploying online video monetization and advertising programs. In-stream (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll) advertisement formats have been in existence longest and have produced a good share of revenue for online video content producers.

Pre-Roll Ads - In this format of advertising, the advertisement clip is inserted before the actual video and while playing the video, the advertisement clip is played first and the viewer is compelled to watch the advertisement before the start of the real video file.

Post-roll Video Ads: In post-roll ads, just like pre-roll, a 15 or 30 sec clip is streamed at the end of a video itself. This is usually launched in conjunction with pre-roll as well as often times, the advertiser never gets their ad seen as users most often only watch part of the video.

Mid-Roll Video Ads: Again, like the other in-stream ads, mid-roll streams a short video clip within the video player itself, only with mid-stream, the ad gets played in the middle of the video almost like a normal TV commercial. This seems to be somewhat less offensive to users.

Some of the video sites have started experimenting with different formats like, in-player banners: In-player ads sometimes include relevant text or image advertisements in the space available in video player between the outer margin of the video and the inner margin of the video player.

One of the most promising video advertisement formats is contextual advertising which attempts to match advertisements with the most relevant content and visa-versa. This ad itself can take of various different forms, in-video banners, lower-thirds, and contextual text overlay advertisements. The nice thing about this particular method is that it does not disturb the viewing of the video and it responds only when the viewer clicks on it.

Some of the video sites like to go through the video and include only relevant in-video text advertisements, which match the contents of the video and at the same time it does not disturb the process of video watching by the viewer. Youtube was one of the first sites to adopt this format as a standard and it is called Overlay Video Ads.

Although there are a few other formats that are being tested and utilized, the formats that I covered are the most commonly used formats at the moment. That being said, with the attention on this sector as it is, we will likely continue to see rapid innovation and will keep our eye out for the next best online video ad format.

Posted: February 12th, 2008 under Marketing.
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If you belong to any home based, multi level or network marketing business, you need to do more than get people to opt in to your supplied marketing website, as much as a LOT of businesses would have you believe otherwise. I have taken the liberty of listing some of the tools I use.

To professionally conduct business online, you need your own, personalized email address. Avoid using free email accounts such as Yahoo, Hotmail, or Gmail. If you use free email account, you wont be seen as dedicated or professional. It will be a LOT harder to make sales, as people will see you as somewhat of a scammer. M.J.Mascaro@mjmascaro.com looks far more professional when compared with m.j.mascaro@hotmail.com.

No doubt when you first register with a home business or a network marketing company, you are given your own replicated website for bringing people to. Though, with GRN, you choose your own domain name. You need to register a domain and hosting with a similar name to your home business website. The main reason being, you have unlimited customization options with your own website. whereas a replicated site only give you a certain amount of options.

To become effective and successful in marketing your home business, it is most important that you have possess tools you need to be able to go about your business. Without the right tools, you can’t succeed. A chef cannot cook without her tools, a marketer cannot market without hers.

You must make the home page of your new website an opt in page. This is to enable to obtain the contact details of everyone coming to your website. At this point, an auto responder is used to automate all the tasks of following up on customers. It also allows you to send broadcasts, announce company offers and get the names and emails as well as other personal details of everyone visiting your website. It keeps track of the number of people that open your emails, click on your promotional links, unsubscribe and allows you to manage everyone on your list seamlessly.

These are not just a few of the tools I use. This is IT. My own website and an auto responder, and nothing else. A home business is not as complicated as people may think, but it’s also not as easy as others think. On my team, we keep it simple, yet effective.

Posted: February 12th, 2008 under Marketing.
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The history of American retailing is wrought with genius and idiocy. We are all capable of both.

One example is Starbucks or any other national coffee chain. I happen to be a fan of Starbucks, but I do not visit it as often as many of my peers for several reasons.

The average bill at Starbucks is $4-7 plus a tip. You don’t need a calculator to evaluate money (literally down the drain). The flavorings at Starbucks is very good, in fact excellent. The coffees themselves are a bit better than mediocre. This is because they do not buy their coffees in beans as some chains do and grind it themselves. Coffee gets stale fast unless in bean form. Okay, that’s simpler and I do not blame them for it.

I can only speak for myself. Am I some kind of authority?

Aside from owning my own private label gourmet coffees that are sold in gift baskets, I did quite a bit of research on worldwide farms, how to make better coffee, and some psychological benefits of the packaging of coffee (whether it be in gift baskets or at a table in a shop).

As good as they are, I believe it was a big error to print provocative philosophical text on their cups. I do not want to talk about deep subjects first thing in the morning. My newspaper editor and probably yours too knows what we like best. We like to laugh. He/she has devoted an entire non revenue-producing page just for us called the comics page. The editor is fully-aware we are going to be reading some “pretty nasty stuff” before we wade through to the comics.

So why not something funny for breakfast?

I did.

Late last year, I launched the world’s first cartoon gourmet coffee gift basket (with whole fresh beans from 5 different countries, some flavored, some not). I included a set of four cartoon coasters, both the oversize cup and the coasters have the cartoon of the customer’s choice. I put it on my website. I posted it at Shop.com, Amazon.com, Ebay.com, and a bunch of others. And guess what. I was right. People enjoy the coffee and laughter, not coffee and Emanuel Kant or coffee and today’s crime du jour. And no charge for the gourmet biscotti.

So what does all this have to do with corporate gift-giving. I decided to not only discount the coffee gift boxes but offer engraving of one’s company name and URL for only $2. Do I take a loss on that? Sure do. I make up for it with a decent markup, however. I am not becoming Bill Gates, but the marketing concepts works for some reason.

And the reason is psychological. Think about it. There are a million ways to advertise you and your business. But there is only one way to advertise your name and business to your client or potential client in which he/she, first thing in the morning, sees not only your name and URL, but a very funny cartoon that immediately puts them in a good mood. As time goes by, when they think of you or your company, they think positive thoughts.

Now I’ve added everything from collectible desk and wall clocks to desk pen holders, and all can be engraved for only $2 for the perfect corporate gift. It is win-win and everyone seems to love it.

Posted: February 12th, 2008 under Advertising.
Comments: 1