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Yes, you are able to pick individual videos, categories and channels (though obviously this takes a bit of work) and you can also segment by interest groups and remarket as you would with normal PPC.
So, the targeting can be really quite specific. You could nail it down to be: people over 18 watching videos on this channel, who live in the following countries.
Not really - no, as long as the videos are technically on the same URL and your video sitemap references them only on the URL you want rich snippets for.
If you'd rather go for a lightbox than a inline embed, then that's fine - but do be careful of the implementation here, as you still need Google to be able to see the video file in the source HTML, so normally a CSS only lightbox or a basic JavaScript trigger is much better than anything that pulls in the video dynamically with JS (which can often prevent the video getting indexed).
Yes.
Video-blog kinda thing or "vlog" or whatever it's called by the cool kids these days. Whiteboard Friday kinda thing - totally appropriate.
I can't really think of any other use-case right now...Maybe interviews if the authorship is pointing at the interviewer?
Hey Craig,
Unfortunately it's really difficult for me to offer you a decent answer for this blind (without trawling through the site and sitemaps) - but I expect that it's just a waiting game, yes.
If you've updated all your video embeds and the sitemaps to match that - then essentially Google need to recrawl and verify all your pages and videos. This will take time, especially for the number you're talking about - as, yes, Google will see these as new videos (they technically are).
There isn't a way to go back on this either, as if you've refreshed all your content and sitemaps - Going backwards Google will still need to recrawl everything.
I don't know how long you've been waiting - but I'd expect it to be a couple of months before everything is as it was, and that's if your site is SEOmoz kinda strengh - so DA90 odd..
Basically - I'd recommend just tracking this week by week and seeing if things improve. Make sure all the Sitemap entries are referenced via robots.txt as well as WMT and then hold tight. If you're still not having all the videos indexed after a couple of months, then you might need to drill down a bit deeper.
Cheers,
Phil.
I've tried that before and only had it not work - I think it just confuses the algorithm. No real advantage in referencing both the .mp4 and .flv of the same file, as Google aren't preferential regarding the encapsulated format.
Hey Craig,
In short - it sounds like you're doing everything right and I'd be inclined to question the indexation stats first rather than the method you've implemented.
Q1) Neither are a major factor in the video getting indexed. Indexation on that front is essentially binary - it's either indexed, or Google doesn't accept some of the inputted tags and then won't provide a rich snippet
Re - deindexing old ones and indexing new ones, i think that's exactly what's happening. If you refresh all the content and the sitemaps, it will take a while for Google to crawl through and reindex everything properly.
I'd advise just sticking with it for now and waiting a few weeks to see if you can get everything indexed as it should be. If you've got some of the new videos indexed - then it means your implementation is correct and you'll probably just need to be patient given the amount of content you've got.
Additionally, I wouldn't trust the Google webmaster tools data on indexation either - it's notoriously unreliable and may be undereporting the amount of videos you actually have in the search results.
Cheers,
Phil.
So..here's the thing...
Your template script will be absolutely fine - as long as you don't put those videos on YouTube, where it could be seen as low quality content and will therefore be devalued.
However - luckily for you, best practice would actually be to not put this content on YouTube at all, and rather to self host the content (or use a secure third party hosting platform) and then submit a video XML sitemap in order to get rich snippets for your videos.
YouTube is an absolutely terrible place to put Product videos as the traffic you get on YouTube is typically low quality (nobody goes to YouTube to buy things) which will mean your videos don't rank will in YouTube, yet you still risk having customers searching for your products go to youtube.com rather than your landing page if the youtube.com url ranks in the Google organic search results for your product.
Conversely, if you securely host the content - Google will only drive customers to your site (and not to YouTube) and the algorithm won't be able to work out that you have lots of near duplicate video content.
So, in short - yes it is a problem if you put it on YouTube for the reasons mentioned - but it's not a problem if you self host. Plus, you should self host this kind of content anyway.
For more information on these principles - have a look here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/hosting-and-embedding-for-video-seo and here:http://www.seomoz.org/blog/building-a-video-seo-strategy
What i mean by "your content won't be suitable for both competitive keyword ranking and building links" is that the kind of video you'll want to create and embed on an important keyword landing page is probably not the kind of content that people are actually going to link to. It's extremely rare to find a video that will serve that landing page well (likely by being fairly commercial in nature) and a video that lots of people will want to link to (by being useful, informational or entertaining). That's not to say it's not possible, but I have never ever seen it executed successfully.
If your goal is basically just getting these rankings so you can drive traffic that may then link to you - then yes, I would recommend using Vimeo Pro or similar (if you're using vimeo pro, Disable the community pass). If no-one is searching for those general topics on YouTube - it's probably not going to be worthwhile putting your content on there. You can test it, of course - but make sure that the metrics you're tracking are traffic from YouTube and engagement on the platform. It's easy to get swayed into thinking YouTube is useful because of high view counts - but views are essentially just "hits" and there's no way of knowing whether those views could have been driven to the version on your site instead.
When you embed the content, you'll also need to provide a custom embed code for others that includes a textlink back to your site - as the standard vimeo embed code will only link back to vimeo.com
What I am right about, is that you need to consider your content type into the equation here and let that influence the technical implementation.
I didn't say "don't put the content on YouTube", but I don't believe anyone can offer you the correct advice until they've had a look at your content in detail, alongside your site and worked out what the best implementation can be. There is no one answer to the "where do I host my video" question - and anyone who offers one without taking the specific content type into consideration hasn't thought it through (That's not to criticise any of the other answers here - but I think they're all too quick to offer you a solution without the proper process of discovery.)
Reread this post http://www.seomoz.org/blog/building-a-video-seo-strategy
You're currently at the position of the first graphic, where you're letting your goal define the technical implementation - but are completely ignoring the content type within that equation.
You originally said that you want to rank with a rich snippet - but now you say the goal is building links. I can almost guarantee your content won't be suitable for both competitive keyword ranking and building links - so which one is more critical and what sort of content have you created? Is the content suitable for building links? And if so - is it suitable also for the YouTube community? Is anyone on YouTube searching for relevant keywords?
For purely building links, you can go through the path of uploading to YouTube after self hosting that dana mentioned (which i detail in this post http://www.reelseo.com/video-link-bait/) but bear in mind when you do this that you will allow some links to point to YouTube that you otherwise may have been able to get back to your site. It may also mean YouTube outranks you for the video for a time, until you reclaim the links and take it down
The technical implementation will always be a compromise and I suggest that you'll be best off nailing down what it is you really care about and what the content's suitable for, rather than hoping for everything with one series of content.
Does that make sense?
Actually, IMHO, no you absolutely shouldn't do that.
I think Roger (sorry Roger) is doing it all wrong. SEOmoz whiteboard friday should always be on YouTube - rather than using Wistia. SEOmoz don't really have anything to lose by people watching the videos on YouTube rather than SEOmoz.org (so don't really need their own domain to be the one that ranks) - yet separating their traffic means their YouTube viewing figures are really really low compared with the views driven on SEOmoz and as such their YouTube optimisation is pretty poor. Embedding the YouTube versions of the video for this informaional content would help moz to dominate YouTube and likely wouldn't have an adverse effect in terms of traffic or conversions elsewhere - since the community is so strong.
Does that mean you should just use YouTube? No - of course not. Ultimately, it depends on your goals and more importantly, what kind of content you have.
If you have "conversion/sales" focused content - essentially product videos - then they should be self hosted and embedded on the product landing pages. If you have more informational, bloggy kinda content - then you should put this on YouTube and embed the YouTube versions on your site. Don't do both - as you'll cannibalise your overall success on YouTube - while potentially driving traffic there. Either be really good on YouTube or don't bother and then self host.
Ask yourself why do you want to rank with a rich snippet - and then determine which solution is appropriate for you. If it matters that you retain the traffic and get all the links - then your content likely isn't appropriate for YouTube anyway. Conversely, if where the audience views the video wont really matter (does it make sense isolated from your website) and the video is fulfilling a genuine informational query (look at the YouTube keyword tool to see if anyone is searching for relevant keywords) - then go with YouTube.
I totally agree re 2 relevant vs 1 semi-relevant.
I take your point about not having explained that in detail before - I'll try and get something written to explain that! Thanks for challenging me and forcing me to articulate it with more clarity!
Regarding the content type distinction - the most I've written about it will be in here http://www.distilled.net/training/video-marketing-guide/ - chapter 4
I agree that there's not completely hard and fast distinctions in terms of keyword type - but there is a trend of user-intent and - for the vast majority of keywords, you can make a reasonable assumption about what the user wants. Whether or not they are convinced to reassess or shift their intent based on what they find is another question .
Your cat urine odor example is a good one. Like you say, this would be best served by a YouTube video that explains the process....and could also recommend products within that video.
However, assuming the user doesn't then either click through to your website - or do a branded search off the back of that video, the second level of their journey might be to search "cat odor removal spray." At this point, they know what they want and are clearly (rather than ambiguously) keen to purchase.
For such a keyword, You don't want YouTube to rank - you want your site to rank with a great landing page you can sell from and drive users there so you can retarget them if they don't convert. If you've decided that your landing page will be best served with a video explaining why your cat urine odor removal spray is the best - this video shouldn't be on YouTube - for the risk that users go to youtube.com rather than your site and likey therefore don't convert to sale. Additionally, the video snippet may help to improve your CTR.
In this "on landing page" video instance, a cat urine odor removal spray video that helps users who want to buy the stuff is probably not going to be much use if it just explains the process and reasons for using a spray, rather than actually selling the virtues of the production. Conversely, the video which just sells the virtues of the spray isn't really going to serve the needs of the user who searches "how to remove cat urine odor."
You can say that you don't think the videos need to be that different - but I can guarantee when you actually give it a go and test the stuff, you'll start to comprehend the nuances and see what kind of content performs best. Interesting - it shouldn't take much more budget to produce two cuts of a video - one more informational and one promotional, than it would to create just the one video. Any skilled editor could easily do both at the same time.
Competing against yourself is problematic in two instances - specific traffic to commercial pages ..and also if you're trying to build links using video.
I think you may have got mixed up with where stuff like the "competing against yourself" principle is relevant.
As mentioned, I concur that what you've done there is an appropriate implementation - and I do the same with Distilled's stuff - but "how to remove your name from google" is not a commercial term - it's an informational term. A term with commercial intent would be something like " best SEO agency new york". For informational terms - YouTube is the way to go 9/10 (and i actually think SEOmoz should host with YouTube for Whiteboard Friday - not Wistia). The key, which i'm not sure you're quite understanding - is tying the content TYPE to the hosting platform, not just the goal.
Regarding video for conversions (which should be self hosted) - what i mean here is not marketing funnels in the broadest sense. You absolutely can market cleverly through YouTube and drive enquiries that way for your particular business (And i do EXACTLY the same at Distilled), but that's not the same as having video designed to improve conversions on a specific page - which normally looks like a product video.
At no point am I suggesting YouTube is a bad place for marketing content - far from it, but that doesn't mean you can just put anything up there and hope it sticks. Competing against yourself is relevant when the user experience landing on the video on YouTube is subpar to them coming to your site - in a fundamental way, i.e. when the video doesn't make sense to those who don't have wider knowledge of your brand/business.
Regarding budget - I simply don't think that's true. I've given out plenty of examples of small budget successes, but nevertheless, budget doesn't effect "appropriateness" for specific channels. Your example is appropriate for YouTube - but not for self hosting.
I agree you've done the right thing with that video - I'd recommend exactly the same implementation, which I have also followed for all of Distilled's informational/bloggy kinda content.
You can't monetise that stuff, it's not part of a specific conversion funnel and it isn't really going to get links by itself - making it the perfect kinda content to put on YouTube, rather than self host.
At no point do i ever recommend anything to the contrary - nor do i suggest you need an elaborate strategy. My principle is always that the hosting has to fit the goal and the content type - that's all. If you're only doing a few videos, great, but have a thing about what you're creating them for and who the audience is in order to work out where you should host them. You can by all-means test some things out to see what works best for you, but to just ignore that altogether and think it doesn't matter IS foolish.
I'm not entirely sure I understand what your objection to this is David? Do you just think it's worth putting all content on YouTube and disagree with my appraisal of the possible downsides?
Views, in the purest sense, are not a significant ranking factor for YouTube - but embeds and having "engaged views" are at least a significant part of the algorithm
I like your distinction, but I'd really question calling that approach "realist" - it's just simply lacking in any sort of strategy.
More akin to "throwing stuff at a wall" rather than "casting a net".
Short Answer - you can do it, but it's not very strategic. It will mean that you don't hit any of your possible goals with the maximum effectiveness and ninety nine times out of 100, you won't have content suitable for both driving conversions (which should ve self hosted) and also being popular on the YouTube platform.
The problem is ultimately trying to "do everything with one bit of content" when actually a proper video strategy should have your content types segmented into the appropriate channels.
Long answer - read the whole of this post which pretty much covers that exact question in detail. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/building-a-video-seo-strategy
We don't usually cut any content from the videos, no - except in a few instances where speakers have requested that certain things are left out or the session is not released altogether.
There are also sessions at the conferences that aren't filmed though - such as live site clinics, round-table discussions with the speakers and some impromptu Q&A. If you have the opportunity, I would definitely recommend coming along to the event rather than just buying the videos - though if that's not feasible, the videos are a pretty good compromise between cost and getting the knowledge.
We're working on them at the moment and are hoping to get them public within the next couple of weeks.
We normally wait just over a month after the conference before releasing the videos - as they do take a while to edit, but also we want to give our attendees a while to implement all the tips before they're released to the wider public!
So - it may be before then, but they should all be available on the Distilled store http://distilled.net/store by the 22nd April.