SEO has always been a hot e-commerce topic. And now the trend’s expanding to include video SEO—that is optimizing video content for search engine traffic.

Most major search engines, such as Google, Bing and Yahoo offer consumers the option to view only video search results.  However, according to Benjamin Wayne, president and CEO of Fliqz, a company that manages, distributes syndicates and tracks video content for businesses, there are more video results shown on natural search engine results pages (SERP).

The goal when working with video SEO is to have your video content appear in video searches as well as in the organic search results for major search engines—with traffic being directed to your site and not to your video hosting provider.

Video SEO Tips and Common Mistakes

Video content presents an interesting opportunity for businesses, however Wayne believes that this is currently an under-tapped opportunity.

Video gives businesses a new way to drive traffic from search engines. For example a car manufacturer might use specific keywords to drive traffic to professional crash-test videos—and those keywords are going to differ from the company’s Web site SEO keywords.

The obvious benefit is that video content is so specialized that you’re competing with a smaller pool of listings in the search engines.  When you search Google you may actually see tens or hundreds of thousands of search results, but chances are there will not be as many videos on the topic. 

Online video search engines, like Blinkx for example, are popular with consumers, but Wayne recommends that businesses focus more on the major search engines for video SEO content. “A lot of these video search engines really service consumer searches for things like car chases and music videos,” he said.  “Consumers are not really using video-only search engines for business-focused topics—like tax tips, instructional or review content.”

Wayne suggests that businesses need a good understanding of their audience. Then they need to optimize their video content for the search engines that are most important to their business.

DIY Video SEO

Companies that have a huge fan base where consumers specifically look for the latest video—or have a video that goes viral—are less concerned with video SEO. In these situations they already have consumers driving traffic to their video.

For smaller businesses however, consumers usually visit your Web site and select videos to view, and it is here where a business may be losing potential search engine traffic.  According to Wayne, the biggest issue facing site owners is that Web crawlers can’t read the embedded flash tags that are used for video. Basically, most video content is invisible to search engines, and many people don’t know how to give the search engines metadata about their video content.

All search engines accept RSS feeds or an XML sitemap, but different search engines have different rules for the information that must be provided in those feeds. “From a site’s prospective the obvious easy way is to find a provider who will do it right for you,” said Wayne. “It is not the easiest process for a small business, especially a business with no IT department on-site.”

If you are going to try video SEO for yourself, Wayne recommends starting with one search engine that is most important to you—typically Google—and focusing on creating a sitemap for that specific engine.

The Benefits of Hosted Video Providers

The easiest way for small businesses to get started with video SEO is to use a video provider.  Wayne’s company, Fliqz is one of several providers you can choose from. Fliqz primarily works with sales and marketing departments that want video to be a part of the marketing mix on their Web site.

The company currently serves more than 15,000 publishers from large companies like T-Mobile, to small businesses; like real estate agents and other independent businesses.

Wayne said that any businesses looking to invest in a video platform provider should question a provider on the following things;

• Find out which search engines the provider will used to list your video content
• Ask what info will be provided to the search engine, such as title, description and other metadata
• Ask if the search engine links will point to your site or to the video hosting provider’s site.
• Make sure the video provider can give you traffic details to track search engine leads.

Wayne also believes that businesses just getting started with video content and video SEO should look for a platform that is simple for companies without in-house IT support. Here you would simply provide the service provider with the keywords, descriptions and other data you want associated with the video and in which search engines you want a higher ranking.

Pricing and Availability

Fliqz' basic free plan is ad-supported and offers publishers a Fliqz-branded player, 25 uploads and 500 streams. Fliqz also offers businesses four packages starting at $99 per month for an unbranded player, play controls, 100 uploads and 1,000 streams, up to $999 per month with a host of additional features and capabilities.

Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.