Video SEO, should I do what Roger does?

[BruceMcG]

As per http://www.seomoz.org/blog/hosting-and-embedding-for-video-seo I want to rank with a rich snippet and improve my domain's overall ranking. So I am going to ignore YouTube and use Vimeo Pro (using old embed code). I will also submit a video XML sitemap and implement schema markup.

Gotcha. Now let's check this strategy with what SEOmoz is doing.

Let's take 5 Steps to Facebook Advertising - Whiteboard Friday it was uploaded onto the SEOmoz blog on 29 March 2013. Then on 4 April 2013 it was uploaded onto YouTube. As at 7 April 2013 (PST) I am not seeing the latest SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday Evolution of the Local Algorithm - Whiteboard Friday posted on YouTube. SEOmoz blog has a person written transcription, YouTube has an automatic transcript. There is a link to the SEOmoz comments below the YouTube Video.

Cricky! They've gone all YouTube. Stop the boat.

Or should I?

My assumption is that SEOmoz is big enough so that it is willing to risk losing a few links to their YouTube webpages. Indeed they delay posting the video on YouTube for a week after it has been posted on the SEOmoz blog. What's more it ensures that there is a very good transcript on their blog. Top that off with comments (and I assume video sitemap and schema) and it is happy it will gain more from the traffic generated from the YouTube community than the potential loss of links to its domain, forgoing potential domain authority increases and resulting traffic.

So Roger, I'm a little boat not a SEOmoz battleship cruiser, should I do what you do and wait for a week before I put my videos on YouTube? Or avoid the dangerous currents of YouTube stealing my domain authority and ignore YouTube all together?

[BruceMcG]

Thanks Steven

[BruceMcG]

Thanks Phil.

[danatanseo]

I am so glad Phil jumped in here. He's brilliant....and absolutely right of course. I think he's really got it the right way around with determining what you hope to achieve and what kind of content you want to produce and let that determine where you publish your vids. I happily defer to his recommendations and suggest you follow them.

[StevenHowe]

The answer is, rather unhelpfully at first glance, "it depends".

It depends on your overall objective for the content - what is the goal you are trying to achieve?

It depends on your audience location - are they organic searchers, social media sharers, youtube searchers, etc?

If your primary objective is to get people to your site (link building) and you're using the lure of video to incentivise this, then Phil's "don't do both" comment is spot on. If on the other hand you want as many people to watch the video as possible and make it accessible through as many channels (because you have a diverse audience base and you're not link building) then I think you can do both.

I would say that Phil has more experience at Video SEO than me so his comments certainly count double on mine for this topic!

[PhilNottingham]

What i mean by "your content won't be suitable for both competitive keyword ranking and building links" is that the kind of video you'll want to create and embed on an important keyword landing page is probably not the kind of content that people are actually going to link to. It's extremely rare to find a video that will serve that landing page well (likely by being fairly commercial in nature) and a video that lots of people will want to link to (by being useful, informational or entertaining). That's not to say it's not possible, but I have never ever seen it executed successfully.

If your goal is basically just getting these rankings so you can drive traffic that may then link to you - then yes, I would recommend using Vimeo Pro or similar (if you're using vimeo pro, Disable the community pass). If no-one is searching for those general topics on YouTube - it's probably not going to be worthwhile putting your content on there. You can test it, of course - but make sure that the metrics you're tracking are traffic from YouTube and engagement on the platform. It's easy to get swayed into thinking YouTube is useful because of high view counts - but views are essentially just "hits" and there's no way of knowing whether those views could have been driven to the version on your site instead.

When you embed the content, you'll also need to provide a custom embed code for others that includes a textlink back to your site - as the standard vimeo embed code will only link back to vimeo.com

[BruceMcG]

Very insightful thanks Phil, though I'm not sure I follow, "your content won't be suitable for both competitive keyword ranking and building link". I'll do some more reading on this point.

It made me review what my objective is with video which is to build links (which I thought was to to boost keyword rankings, domain authority and increase traffic). So I'll allow embeds 'links' and host with Vimeo Pro.

I did use the YouTube keyword tool but there is "Not Enough Data" for any of my important keywords. So I looked at SERPs by using my SEOmoz keyword 'Rankings' report. I have 38 very important keywords, 7 of which show video results in the Top 50, 2 showing results in 10th/11 place. (Ironically I have one of those 2 results but it points to my Vimeo Pro page not my website reinforcing my desire to get video SEO right!). 6 of these are for YouTube. Only 16% are YouTube, so I take it that means YouTube is not for me.

Goodbye YouTube.

[PhilNottingham]

What I am right about, is that you need to consider your content type into the equation here and let that influence the technical implementation.

I didn't say "don't put the content on YouTube", but I don't believe anyone can offer you the correct advice until they've had a look at your content in detail, alongside your site and worked out what the best implementation can be. There is no one answer to the "where do I host my video" question - and anyone who offers one without taking the specific content type into consideration hasn't thought it through (That's not to criticise any of the other answers here - but I think they're all too quick to offer you a solution without the proper process of discovery.)

Reread this post http://www.seomoz.org/blog/building-a-video-seo-strategy

You're currently at the position of the first graphic, where you're letting your goal define the technical implementation - but are completely ignoring the content type within that equation.

You originally said that you want to rank with a rich snippet - but now you say the goal is building links. I can almost guarantee your content won't be suitable for both competitive keyword ranking and building links - so which one is more critical and what sort of content have you created? Is the content suitable for building links? And if so - is it suitable also for the YouTube community? Is anyone on YouTube searching for relevant keywords?

For purely building links, you can go through the path of uploading to YouTube after self hosting that dana mentioned (which i detail in this post http://www.reelseo.com/video-link-bait/) but bear in mind when you do this that you will allow some links to point to YouTube that you otherwise may have been able to get back to your site. It may also mean YouTube outranks you for the video for a time, until you reclaim the links and take it down

The technical implementation will always be a compromise and I suggest that you'll be best off nailing down what it is you really care about and what the content's suitable for, rather than hoping for everything with one series of content.

Does that make sense?

[BruceMcG]

Thanks Steven, very helpful.

What do you think of Phil's comment,

"Don't do both - as you'll cannibalise your overall success on YouTube - while potentially driving traffic there. Either be really good on YouTube or don't bother and then self host."

Currently the question remains answered as to whether I should do both.

[BruceMcG]

Thanks for your answer Phil (hat tip to you being a video seo subject matter expert).

My objective is to build links (to boost keyword rankings, domain authority and increase traffic). I've read your blog posts in detail, gone to DistilledU video seo posts, sat on the sofa and mulled it over ... and I think that hosted through Wistia or Vimeo Pro, allow embeds and shares is the right video approach.

It's kinda 3 (Dana, Steven below and Roger) against 1 (yourself) when it comes to whether it should go up on YouTube at some stage in the future. I'm willing to believe you're right but ... are you sure you're right about not uploading to YouTube in the future?

[PhilNottingham]

It definitely does have a volume control!

[firstconversion]

And I HATE the fact that Wistia doesn't have a volume control! Thats why they shouldn't use it

[StevenHowe]

Hi Bruce,

Just to add some detail into the mix here; for video hosting and embedding, SEOmoz uses Wistia (who you can a discount with your PRO package) which has some great SEO features and a very reliable (and cheap IMHO) transcription service.

I like this approach because, as Dana has pointed out, the content is excellent and the only way to get it is to come to the site - this encourages links, social shares etc.

The advantage to using YouTube however is that, in itself, YT is a gigantic search engine and therefore SEO opportunities are significant.

We host our video content using Wistia and embed on our site as well as posting to YT, but all of our inbound activity directs would-be viewers to the embedded pages.

Ultimately, depending on the content of the video, you have to consider where your audience is and what your objectives are in sharing it with the internet.

Good luck!

[PhilNottingham]

Actually, IMHO, no you absolutely shouldn't do that.

I think Roger (sorry Roger) is doing it all wrong. SEOmoz whiteboard friday should always be on YouTube - rather than using Wistia. SEOmoz don't really have anything to lose by people watching the videos on YouTube rather than SEOmoz.org (so don't really need their own domain to be the one that ranks) - yet separating their traffic means their YouTube viewing figures are really really low compared with the views driven on SEOmoz and as such their YouTube optimisation is pretty poor. Embedding the YouTube versions of the video for this informaional content would help moz to dominate YouTube and likely wouldn't have an adverse effect in terms of traffic or conversions elsewhere - since the community is so strong.

Does that mean you should just use YouTube? No - of course not. Ultimately, it depends on your goals and more importantly, what kind of content you have.

If you have "conversion/sales" focused content - essentially product videos - then they should be self hosted and embedded on the product landing pages. If you have more informational, bloggy kinda content - then you should put this on YouTube and embed the YouTube versions on your site. Don't do both - as you'll cannibalise your overall success on YouTube - while potentially driving traffic there. Either be really good on YouTube or don't bother and then self host.

Ask yourself why do you want to rank with a rich snippet - and then determine which solution is appropriate for you. If it matters that you retain the traffic and get all the links - then your content likely isn't appropriate for YouTube anyway. Conversely, if where the audience views the video wont really matter (does it make sense isolated from your website) and the video is fulfilling a genuine informational query (look at the YouTube keyword tool to see if anyone is searching for relevant keywords) - then go with YouTube.

[danatanseo]

I think that's wise Bruce!

[BruceMcG]

Thanks for your answer Dana, and I didn't take it that way at all. Actually I evernoted your  own blog post on this an hour ago.

May be I'll wait 6 months and then post all of them up at that time that way I'm totally "in the clear".

I'll wait to see if Roger answers (though I understand he's too busy with crawling) before giving you 'Good Answer'.

[danatanseo]

I just wanted to add that my comment may have sounded rude and I apologize for that. It wasn't meant to be. I am just trying to make you understand that for an established site like SEOmoz, the standard and timing is going to be way different than it might be for the rest of us.

[danatanseo]

The answer IMHO is ...Yes....and Yes...but wait 4-8 weeks before posting on YouTube (if you really feel like you have to) instead of 1 week. Why? Because SEOMoz is fascinating content to  Google, and they are going to get indexed very often.... You my friend are not. Establish your video via Vimeo, give it 4-6 weeks before posting on YouTUbe....if you must