Search
engine optimization about to get turned on its ear? Read
or watch what Bruce Clay, had to say at PubCon at the "Top-Shelf
Organic SEO" session, (and we summarize below)
Bruce Clay
"Ranking is dead, and traffic is all that
matters. Google looks at
soundtracks and converts them to text. They can jump into the
middle of videos, scan sites to determine if you have
video/images or not. There are a lot of variables in universal
search, and some of these variables tell how engaging your site
is."
If you don't have video and your competition does, Bruce
thinks we're going to see a big shift in rankings. He thinks
if the top ten sites don't have video, they may lose their
ranking overnight.
Amy's comment:
Now, that may be a little dire, and certainly no
reason to put a bad video on your site, but if it's a
watchable video that communicates your image, your product,
or drives traffic to your door or website, that's a good
thing. What's important is that advertising is
changing, becoming more targeted, and giving you specific
results for the dollars you spend. Let's not forget
though, that they'll only watch it if it's interesting.
HOW DOES VIDEO HELP MY BUSINESS? HOW MUCH DOES
IT COST?
We've
seen video views stimulate and increase business for our
customers. A customized video doesn't cost that
much....delivery of a simple :30 web commercial can cost
less than $500. And you can host them on your own site or wherever you
like. There's a search engine benefit to a YouTube
posting, but the video quality tends to be low. A clean, encoded swf
file of a :30 commercial is a very small file, less than 5
megs. A 3-5-minute flash video will only take up about 20 megs on your
server. In our own experience, videos hosted on
our own server and on godaddy, have streamed 300 times in a
day with no delay for the viewer.
Once you've got the video, you can certainly offer it
on your own website, but there are also services that can
place it in geographically targeted internet markets and
drive more traffic to your website or your business. We'd be
happy to talk over the options.
We've
seen video views stimulate and increase business for our
customers. A customized video doesn't cost that
much....delivery of a simple :30 web commercial can cost
less than $500. And you can host them on your own site or wherever you
like. There's a search engine benefit to a YouTube
posting, but the video quality tends to be low. A clean, encoded swf
file of a :30 commercial is a very small file, less than 5
megs. A 3-5-minute flash video will only take up about 20 megs on your
server. In our own experience, videos hosted on
our own server and on godaddy, have streamed 300 times in a
day with no delay for the viewer.