Videos, if optimized, can be a useful tool to market your products, services and business.  Videos often rank well in the search results pages and can provide another way for your audience to engage with your brand.  If videos are an integral part of your online marketing strategy, there are a few video optimization tips that you should take into consideration.

First, do you know where your videos will be hosted?  If you are not sure or haven’t decided, think about why you are creating videos in the first place.  Is it to increase views of the video or to bring traffic to your website?  If your goal is to attract more visitors to your website, it will make the most sense to have the video hosted on your website. When videos are hosted on your website, you create an opportunity for your site to position in the search results for that video. On the other hand, if you want to have as many viewers as possible, it will certainly be in your best interest to upload your videos to YouTube and possibly other video sharing sites as well.

Utilize keyword-rich titles, descriptions and tags for your videos. This will help your video to not only be found more easily on video sharing sites, but it will also create the opportunity for your video to appear in the universal search results for those keywords.

To make your videos more enticing, especially amongst thousands of other videos on sites such as YouTube, use catchy titles that viewers will want to click on.  Keywords in the titles can also help with search engine rankings, but be sure that they are descriptive in nature.  Also utilize the thumbnail to attract more viewers.

Remember your audience. Keep in mind that most people will watch videos for only a few minutes, if that.  If you have a lot content that you want to cover, consider breaking the information into a few shorter, condensed videos or playlists.

There are also ranking factors that can play a role with your videos’ visibility on video sharing sites. We have found that YouTube, for instance, places importance on engagement and community factors when determining video rankings (i.e. views, ratings, comments, etc.).  Interact with other videos by posting comments, and when comments are posted on your videos, reply where appropriate. Also take a look at your competitors.  Are they doing anything in particular to have more views, ratings, and comments on their videos?

Another factor that can provide a boost to your video optimization efforts is the quantity and quality of links from external sites.  If you are familiar with search engine optimization (SEO), this should not be surprising.  Creating videos that are interesting and the type that others will want to link to can make acquiring external links to your videos much easier.

Lastly, think about the goals for your video.  What are the next steps that your audience should take?  Maybe you want them to remember your brand, your URL, your phone number, or even simply view another video.  Whatever it is that you want them to do, make sure that the call to action is prominent.

Blogging began as a way for individuals to communicate, sharing personal experiences and self-expression though an online diary. Today blogs (short for Web Logs) have expanded beyond individual use. Now businesses of all sizes are blogging to connect with customers, prospects or employees to share information, knowledge and expertise.

We’ve all heard that blogging can be beneficial from a search engine optimization (SEO) point of view, but it’s often unclear why it can be helpful.  As I’ve been approached with this question a few times recently, I wanted to take this opportunity to point out a few reasons how it can help to boost your SEO efforts. 

•  First, blogs provide an opportunity to offer up-to-date and informative content to your readers. This can help to portray your organization as a resource and can build credibility for your brand. 

•  Adding pages to your website is also easy with blogs and each additional post has the potential to rank in the search results (as actual pages rank in the results, not websites). Ensuring that the titles, body content and the anchor text of any links are keyword-rich can spread your reach for additional keywords.  Additionally, blogs are very search engine friendly.  Every time a post is uploaded, the search engines are alerted to the fact that there is new content to crawl. By having a blog, you are inviting the search engines to come to your site more often, which in turn will ensure that you have the most up to date information indexed in the search results.

•  Quality information shared through blogging can also serve as ‘link bait’, encouraging others to link to your blog post or website. It is important that your blog has a purpose, and that your purpose is perceived as valuable by your readers. Blogs that are viewed as valuable will attract incoming links and those incoming links can indicate a blog’s popularity or authority to the search engines.

•  Blogs can also be a great way to bring your brand into the realm of social media. Sharing your blog’s content within social media channels will also help to gain links when shared among participants of social networks. Social media channels will facilitate the distribution of your message and enable your readers to essentially do the marketing for you. If you participate in MySpace, Facebook or Twitter, you can have your blog pulled into these channels to update your friends, fans and followers.

Do you have informative content that you can share with your site visitors?  Do you have a unique viewpoint of a product or service?  If so, creating a blog can be a great way to share your ideas and create a community that is involved with your product or service.   Like any other form of internet marketing, you’ll be able to monitor and evaluate your blog through an analytics program.

Incorporating video into your marketing efforts can prove to be an effective to way supplement search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) initiatives.

The popularity of online video has experienced tremendous growth over the last few years and with the help of video sharing sites, online video has made its way to the local advertising level.  According to The Kelsey Group’s US Local Video Forecast, local online video ad revenue will increase from approximately $10.9 million in 2007 to $1.5 billion by the end of 2012. Local video advertising is an emerging way to deliver a company’s message, showcase products, services and build credibility.

Many Internet Yellow Pages such as Superpages.com, Yellowpages.com, and Yellowbook.com offer video advertising as part of their advertising bundles and are continuing to expand upon their offerings. For example, Yellowbook.com recently entered into an agreement with YouTube, which will enable Yellowbook.com’s video advertisements to be displayed across YouTube, the world’s most popular online video community. This is a great opportunity for an advertiser’s message to be exposed to an audience separate from Yellowbook.com.

Videos can also be leveraged for SEO. It is common to see video results occupying the top spots on the search engine results pages as part of Universal or “blended” search. These videos can be a powerful differentiator from the common text listings. Tagging video files with relevant terms, adding videos to unique pages on the site with supporting content, and uploading them to sharing sites or social networks can all boost SEO.

Lastly, humorous, informative or interesting videos can increase interaction on a website and can become viral. An engaging site may lead to repeat visits, inbound links from other sites, and an increase in conversions.  With the considerable amount of growth potential, now is the time to take advantage of video because online video marketing will only become more competitive in the years to come.