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All posts for the month February, 2013

Video: no longer “nice to have”…it’s a “must have” for optimal SEO

Posted by T. Wall on February 26, 2013
Posted in: Videography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Over the last few years, we have seen video grow from a “frill” some businesses occasionally include on their websites, to an essential, competitive differentiator that drives search engine optimization — SEO — and increases brand identification. Knowledgeable businesses have already embraced this shift and made video a central part of their online offerings. The most advanced have found ways to create high-quality video that is automatically updated across their websites on the fly, using existing web content. At this point, it’s possible to create endless numbers of professional videos with no human intervention, and the SEO implications make it too appealing to ignore.

Ever since Google integrated video into its universal search offering in 2007, websites featuring video have gained a significant SEO advantage. When a company integrates relevant videos that match the content of its website, search engines find and index the video within the site’s context. This improves your overall website and video search ranking as it relates to your business’ keywords, and also allows search results to be presented with matching videos, making them more appealing, and thereby increasing search-based traffic. And make no mistake…it was no accident that Google acquired YouTube. YouTube has arguably become the fourth largest search engine*, right behind Google, Facebook and Yahoo!.

Still, it is not enough to simply embed videos within a website. To harvest the full potential of videos, they should be deployed throughout the website. Whether a large e-business with 50,000 products or a small business with only a dozen or so products or services, you should have video to illustrate each product or service in your portfolio. This way, those videos match keywords that are specific to each and every product or service, targeting consumers that are more likely to search for products using those keywords. And it goes without saying that your video catalog should be kept current to reflect additions, deletions or changes to your products or services.

Other factors to success include, but are not limited to: checking to insure quality in the content of your videos; having a catchy and relevant title to your movies; deploying keyword “tags” that line up with a searcher’s query; keeping the video’s length under five minutes—and if it must be longer, consider breaking it into segments (you don’t want to lose your audience after working hard to get it!); the use of branding and your company’s logo(s); syndication; and last…share, share, share!!

Video SEO can and should be an excellent way to get your company or organization in front of potential users who otherwise may not know about you. Side note: this is equally pertinent and relevant to non-profits! Engage, entertain and promote, and make sure the search engines can find your videos and rank them well!

 

*Source: Experian “Hitwise” for week ending 2/23/13

A thought or two about music

Posted by T. Wall on February 3, 2013
Posted in: Videography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Back in the “old days” which, for today’s post I’m defining as pre-2004, people seldom worried about using music in conjunction with videos which they knew would receive limited viewing. Whether a wedding video distributed among family members or one produced for a company that would only be viewed internally, little thought was given to the consequence of using music without paying royalties to the artists or producers of that music. That has all changed. With the popularity of social networking, the emergence of YouTube, Vimeo and other media hosting/sharing sites, Pinterest and other web portals created to present videos, everyone should be aware of the potential consequences arising from the use of copyrighted music without permission from the artist(s).

Music labels and producers (and the lawyers that represent them) are no longer taking this lightly and are suing the pants off folks who use their intellectual property without proper attribution AND royalties paid. Aside from the expense of a lawsuit—which could easily put a videographer out of business (epic fail!), finding the right person to pay the royalties to can be quite the hassle, in and of itself!

Rather than engage in a time consuming and expensive battle with artists, producers and attorneys, I have chosen to use legally licensed music. And although I don’t have that latest tune…you know…the one you call “our song,” I can get very close to most contemporary songs and still have a clear conscience.

Ron Dawson is a friend and an incredible filmmaker who has been doing this for well over a decade. Ron knows many of the top filmmakers across the country and he recently shared a story about another filmmaker, Joe Simon, in his blog post, “The Music Licensing Chickens Have Come Home to Roost in Wedding and Event Videography.” Ron gave me permission to link to his story; I encourage you to take a peek as it unpacks this subject in far greater detail.

First Impressions Video has a library of royalty-free or royalty-paid music that we use which—we believe—fits our clients’ tastes, their story and the emotion of the event, and it often can mimic current music. Notwithstanding music considered to be in the public domain or picked up in the course of recording a reception or other activity, we will endeavor to use only music and recorded special effects for which proper licensing has been obtained. It is our desire and intent to stay on the right side of this legal issue; we trust you’ll respect this decision.