Best Video Sitemap plugin for wordpress? And do I need both a video sitemap and a normal one?

[seowhiskey]

Hi all,

I currently use the Google XML Sitemaps plugin on my wordpress site.

But we've recently began adding (self-hosted) videos that we've been careful to markup with the relevant schema.

However, there's a couple of things I don't understand and am hoping someone could help:

1. Do we need a separate video sitemap that either works alongside Google XML Sitemaps or replaces it?
2. If we do need a video sitemap, what's the best video site map to get? (we are using the Thesis theme so can't use the Yoast one unfortunately as they don't play nice together...)

Thanks for your help!

Andrew

[SEOAndy]

it's not free but yoast SEO have this awesome WP plugin, adds microformats etc - see benefits  @ http://yoast.com/wordpress/video-seo/

used it for a client, well worth it- adds something competition don't have for the most part

[seowhiskey]

thanks but unfortunately yoast confirmed it won't work on a thesis suite

[Branagan]

You could try this one: Google XML Sitemap for Videos

It seems that it only includes posts that contain (or link to) videos in a file called  sitemap-video.xml, so you'll probably need your regular sitemap plugin too to generate a full sitemap.xml file.

[Branden_S]

have you considered a 3rd party video hosting service?  Wistia (recommended by SEOmoz) automatically creates a XML Video sitemap for videos hosted with them.  And Wistia can capture email to play video & integrate email marketing campaign (if you want), heat maps, call to action link at end of video & CNAME codes, etc.  A 3rd party video hosting can also ensure quick playback of videos, and you wont receive any surprise hosting costs from your current website hosing company.

Great blog post about this http://www.seomoz.org/blog/hosting-and-embedding-for-video-seo

[seowhiskey]

Thanks Branden - I really like Wistia and if I wasn't going self-hosted for various reasons would definitely choose them.

[PhilNottingham]

1. Do we need a separate video sitemap that either works alongside Google XML Sitemaps or replaces it?

You can integrate the video tags within your normal sitemap - or submit a separate one, whichever is more convenient for you. I'm afraid I'm not that familiar with the Google XML sitemaps plugin, but from what I do know, i don't think it included video tags within the sitemap - so if you wish to continue using this plugin, you'll need to submit a separate video sitemap

2. If we do need a video sitemap, what's the best video site map to get? (we are using the Thesis theme so can't use the Yoast one unfortunately as they don't play nice together...)

Yoast is the only video sitemap generator for Wordpress that is any good IMO - the rest don't work properly. So, unfortunately if you can't use that - then you'll need to manually create the video sitemaps or use something like this tool i built https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhK1-u_-nIZhdE5KdEFTYVJCN3M4Yk9Xb2pfY0hrQkE&usp=sharing to scale it out in excel.

[PhilNottingham]

That wont work as the plugin only works with YouTube videos.