50 Reasons Why Marketers Should Embrace Online Video

According Forrester Research, “On the keywords for which Google offers video results, any given video in the index stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page in the index”. That’s pretty compelling evidence to support the use of online video for your product or service.

Lots of marketers are starting to post videos, but they most don’t pay attention to the factors that will get them included in the search results for their important keywords. Nate Elliot of Forrester says, “Less than 20% of marketers tell us they insert keywords into the filenames of the videos on their site, and even fewer use more advanced tactics like writing keyword-rich captions and annotations, or creating online video libraries.”

There’s a big opportunity for those willing to learn a little bit about search engine optimization (SEO) and more specifically, SEO for video. As more people get smarter about video SEO, it won’t be as easy to get results.

Reducing “Noise” on the Web

The big three search engines will embrace a new web standard to reduce duplicate content on the web (more details in today’s New York Times). Google has been a leader in this effort for years, evidenced by their very helpful Webmaster Central Tools. Google’s goal has been and continues to be providing their users with a better search experience… helping people what they are looking for in a minimum amount of time. Now that Microsoft and Yahoo are following their lead, searchers will have fewer pages to sift through and more relevant results! This is good news for search.

How We Perceive The World

Half-empty or half-full? What’s your take on the world? You might think it doesn’t matter, that the world has too much momentum for you to make a difference.

At least one company recognizes that how we think about things can open up opportunities. Take a look at the recent commercial for Kaplan University:

Forward thinking, hopeful, using the technology of the present to shape the success of our future. Finding a new way in a jungle of worn-out ideas.

I hope more of those who influence our lives everyday, in government and private industry, will begin to look at the world “half-full” and not “half-empty”. Once we believe in the possible it changes everything.

The Rationale for Search!

Gord Hotchkiss is someone I follow regularly because I think he’s really smart. Not only is he a very smart marketing professional, but he’s an expert in Search and is constantly researching the how’s and why’s of consumer behavior. And, he’s a very good writer to boot!

Yesterday, he wrote a piece describing the seven habits unique to search that make it as close to recession proof as possible. The article is entitled, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Advertising“. He gives a good explanation of why there has been minimal contraction in search spending during the current economic downturn. After reading it, I felt it was one of the best explanations of why every business should make search a key part of their marketing arsenal.

If you haven’t started a search program at your business, now’s the perfect time to do it. Don’t wait!