35 Ways to Improve Your Online Videos
I came across a very informative article at WebProNews by Chris Crum that gives you 35 ways to improve your videos online.
Here’s what Chris has to say:
1. Encode video files with good metadata like titles, dates, authors, descriptions and keywords.
2. Offer multiple formats (e.g. mov, mpeg, mp4, flv).
3. Include keywords (and the word “video”) in the filename.
4. On the page, follow general SEO principles for optimizing (title, meta, H1, etc. tags and URLs).
5. Include contextually related links to articles and other videos on the page.
6. Post captions and/or abstracts as additional relevant on-page content.
7. Use Unique URLs.
8. Use one video per URL.
9. Use embedded players rather than pop-ups or links to files.
10. Create nav links to the video content.
11. Place video files in one central directory called “videos” off the root of your folder structure.
12. Enable comments.
13. Include social bookmarking tools.
14. Allow visitors to subscribe to your videos.
15. Let viewers grab your embed code – easily (with a link).
16. Remember internal linking (consider site-wide links in your page footer).
17. Distribute your video to the top video search sharing sites.
18. Include titles, descriptions & keywords on YouTube, etc.
19. Create a video site map with a mRSS feed.
20. Control associated page text to optimize for search engines.
21. Control the player (which may drive future video SEO).
22. Shorter videos are better.
23. Don’t spend a fortune.
24. Include end slates with URLs.
25. Drive people back to your site.
26. Thumbnail images matter.
27. Look for new opportunities for video placement (think about things like Google’s product search).
28. Figure out what keyword phrase is most relevant (and winnable) for your video.
29. Look into including videos in Google Place Pages.
30. Set up a Google video XML sitemap.
31. Use tools like Tubemogul’s to optimize metadata across the major video sharing sites.
32. Track viewership.
33. Advertise with video via rich search ads with Google/Yahoo and YouTube promoted videos.
34. Make sure your videos live on your domain and use 3rd parties for distribution purposes.
35. Stay on top of technology changes and new standards.
Source: WebProNews