The Great Video SEO Frontier

By Liz Gannes

As people get more accustomed to seeing videos in their first page of Google search results, the range of marketing possibilities grows wider

 

While efforts to get Web sites onto the top page of Google's (GOOG) search results have spawned an entire industry, people are only starting to seriously consider the value of video optimization for search.

Google's "Universal Search" feature—which incorporates results from news sites, videos and maps right into the body of a search results page—was introduced in May 2007, but already one-fourth of U.S. Google searches (and more in other parts of the world) return videos in the results, according to a study by Nate Elliott, now with Forrester Research (FORR).

VIDEO'S BETTER ODDS

Videos are 53 times more likely to appear on the first page of search results than text pages, Elliott found. Under the catchy headline "The Easiest Way to a First-Page Ranking on Google," he blogged about some of the math behind that number. The study looked at 40 of the most popular keywords, and found:

"On the keywords for which Google offers video results, we found an average of 16,000 videos vying to appear on results pages containing an average of 1.5 video results—giving each video about an 11,000-to-1 chance of making it onto the first page of results. By comparison, there were an average of 4.7 million text pages competing for a place on results pages with an average of just 9.4 text results—giving each text page about a 500,000-to-1 chance of appearing on the first page of results."

The simplest reason for this finding is that there are far fewer videos than Web pages. But it's worth considering that U.S. video views have (as expected) surpassed searches—there were 12.7 billion video views in November 2008 and 12.3 billion searches.

A PRIMARY MARKETING FOCUS IN '09

These developments are old enough to already support multiple video SEO companies, among them Vmatrix and EveryZing, with services ranging from video production to creation of keyword-driven video pages based on natural language processing and content analysis.

In a PermissionTV survey of more than 400 executives, 67% said online video would be a primary focus of their 2009 online marketing, with 52% expecting to start or extend online video projects in the second quarter of this year, up from 32% at the time of the study in December.

For his part, Elliott recommends that video marketers optimize keywords by including them in titles, tags, and file names; host their videos on YouTube, which shows up by far most often in Google results; and make sure to add new content, because freshness matters. He pointed out Electronic Arts' integration with YouTube for its game Spore, where users can directly upload game-play videos that are properly tagged automatically, as a successful effort to take over a generic word (though at this point there is only one agricultural-related result on the first "spore" results page, so it wasn't video alone).

NO MAGIC BULLET

Google is quick to point out that getting a video to the top of its results is not that easy. "[M]arketers shouldn't expect video SEO to be some sort of magic bullet," said Matt Cutts, Google software engineer in charge of Web spam, via e-mail. Because video production is expensive and intensive, and watching a video takes time, which may cut down on conversion, it's most appropriate for visual industries and branding efforts, not direct response. Cutts also warned, "[I]f Google believes that users are getting a low-quality search experience, we always reserve the right to change our algorithms, which can include how often we show videos." But by the same measure, those factors would seem to make video less susceptible to spam (my interpretation, not Cutts').

Cutts is right to caution against video as a cure-all. Elliott also warned in a phone interview, "If you're not very good at text-based SEO, then you're going to have trouble with video SEO." But it seems clear that video SEO has the ability to make all sorts of video marketing more valuable. Original branded video content, viral commercials, video analytics, and video search will become more valuable because of how prominent they can be.

E-Books Take Center Stage

by Melissa J. Perenson

New Amazon Kindle rumors and Google's e-book announcement help fuel e-reading furor.

It’s been over a year since the Amazon Kindle e-book reader was introduced. And the electronic-ink-based device--which in many ways has transformed the e-book category--has spent much of that time in high-demand: The Kindle was on backorder and sold out during the holidays. Today the Kindle remains on backorder at Amazon's site, by three to five weeks.

Rumor has it that the second-generation Kindle will be introduced at an Amazon event in New York on Monday. Last fall, images purported to be the Kindle 2 surfaced on The Boy Genius Report.

The first-generation Kindle cost $359--when you could buy it. “The Kindle has spurred much interest in the e-book category, not only because of its wireless capabilities, but also because it extends the footprint of Amazon nearly anywhere," notes Ross Rubin, NPD Group director of industry analysis. "It's been one of the first wirelessly connected consumer electronics products to offer fast connectivity at no end-user cost to the consumer.”

That connectivity--an integrated 3G cellular radio and Kindle’s free, Whispernet EvDO wireless connection provided in partnership with Sprint--allows immediate access to the Kindle store for on-demand e-book purchases. Plus, you can use Whispernet to subscribe to and receive blogs and RSS feeds, as well as to browse basic Web sites (text pages, not graphics-heavy sites, so it's handy for quick news and weather checks, or for Wikipedia lookups).

A second-generation Kindle has the opportunity to correct some of the design flaws of the first-gen model--it was too bulky, and handled PDFs and other document files less than gracefully--while making the device more competitive and appealing, given new competition.

Sony, for example, has added backlighting and a touch screen, on its slim second-generation Sony Reader Digital Book PRS-700BC. Meanwhile, Google announced that the 1.5 million public-domain books in its Google Book Search will be accessible via mobile handsets such as the Apple iPhone 3G and the T-Mobile G1. And Amazon has countered by saying that it is working on making Kindle e-book titles accessible on cell phones as well.

Cell phones could be the ultimate mobile e-book reader, by virtue of their portability and ubiquitous nature. “There's a relatively small market for a dedicated device for reading best-sellers, and we're seeing more development on e-book initiatives for the iPhone, with offerings such as Shortcovers and Zinio for the iPhone,” says Rubin. Add in the Google Book Search and Amazon mobile Kindle initiatives, and cell phones could become the next big platform for e-books, beyond the dedicated electronic-ink screens.

Rubin says that one area Amazon could potentially mine is that of electronic textbooks. “There's a tremendous opportunity for the first e-book provider that can tap into the textbook market,” he says. “At the appropriate price, that could transform these devices from frequent-flyer folios into a staple in the homes of students.”

Amazon offers game downloads

by Tech.yahoo.com/news

Online retail giant Amazon began offering game downloads on Tuesday, opening an online store featuring more than 600 titles.

Amazon said all of the casual games available at its new Game Downloads Store at amazon.com/gamedownloads were priced below 10 dollars.

The games, which are available for a free 30-minute trial, are only playable on personal computers which run Microsoft's Windows.

Amazon is one of the largest online sellers of digital music and books and the Games Downloads Store is its first venture into the world of downloadable gaming.

Amazon purchased casual game maker Reflexive Entertainment in October.