Site videos and rich snippets - where to place video
-
Hi all,
we have product videos that we are putting on our (new) site. The video thumbnail for a product is displayed along with image thumbnails on the product details page i.e. see here:
http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/dvd/portable-dvd-player-car/twin-dvd-player/nextbase-sdv48ac/
Click on the video thumbnail and a lightbox pop up window displays the movie. We would like to markup the videos with rich snippet markup. Is this possible with the videos setup in this way (i.e. video displayed in Lightbox) or would we need to embed the video in the product description text on this page (rather than thumbnail with Lightbox popup as it is at the moment) so that we stood a chance of getting a rich snippet on Google SERPs for our product detail pages?
Thanks for any help.
-
The video is still behind Javascript there, which could prevent the content from being indexed.
It's hard for me to say one way or the other without testing, but my gut instinct is to say you'll still struggle to get the videos indexed. Google can execute some JavaScript, but from tests i've done it's not super consistent.
Also - don't use YouTube to host those videos - it's not a wise move (more details here: http://moz.com/blog/building-a-video-seo-strategy), especially since you're allowing others to advertise on your videos.
-
Hi Phil (or any one else out there who is in the know),
hoping you could very briefly comment on whether you think how the videos are now technically implemented on our site is better than how they were before (which was in a lightbox which was calling another page i.e. as per above conversation). I believe it is ... but that means very little! Link to page with videos on it below:
http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/dvd/portable-dvd-player-car/twin-dvd-player/nextbase-sdv49ac/
Ultimately the aim is to markup our videos with rich snippet markup with the hope of getting a thumbnail image with our page listing on Google.
Thanks for any comments.
-
Merci beaucoup Phil.
-
Hi Jason,
my apologies - I didn't realise I'd already looked at the site and offered similar comments previously!
Yes, embedding the videos in the block of text should work fine - just make sure you don't duplicate this in lightbox though, as this may cause some confusion for Googlebot.
I'm afraid I can't quite remember what the site looked like last time, but I have to say I actually think the overall look, feel and structure is pretty decent. Good job! My main concern generally speaking would be with the site build and the back-end. It's currently very slow to load and things like the drop-down don't work very well on tablets/mobile devices. As mentioned, the videos are also delivered through a lightbox in a slightly strange way which isn't great for SEO.
Video wise - I do completely take your point about the value of the content even though it's not ideal, however, I would advise extreme caution if you're serious about trying to rank with rich snippets. It's not easy to "undo" getting a video rich snippet - and if the poor quality thumb actually lowers your CTR and therefore rankings, it'll obviously be pretty disastrous for you. So, I definitely recommend split testing this if you can before pushing ahead - using SERP Turkey as a tool to do this for you.
-
Hi Phil,
thanks for the reply.
That's what i thought. Maybe as a short cut we will embed the video content directly in the product description text for now and hopefully that should then solve the issue for us, for now? Following which we can then look at a change of how the videos are implemented in a lightbox style implementation in the future as & when we have time and budget to spend on this.
With regards to the video quality... it's OK, I know you're not a fan! But thanks for taking the time to re-comment.
Here's a chat we had mid point last year when we were just implementing these: http://moz.com/community/q/vimeo-pro-video-seo-and-rich-snippets
... we / I listened to you re the web site itself and didn't disagree at all with what you were saying re our site look / design and its impact on legitimacy / quality, site URLs and had known for sometime that we had to make a change. Thus following that discussion and other discussions I had already had with our then SEO company and another ecommerce site owner we implemented a Magento install which went live end Aug. We're now working hard to try and pull back our rankings and traffic, which has taken a hit after the implementation - but we knew that was the risk. But I think we have a much better front end site and a much better underlying platform to move forward with and grow (hopefully!).
With regards the videos, they aren't professionally created, we will hold our hands up to that. We felt there wasn't any point trying to achieve that on our "budget" as it wouldn't / couldn't ever happen and would probably look much worse if we did try to achieve that. We are a small business that is (we like to feel) expert in its area and are trying to achieve a niche where we are the "friendly expert" and give an unsurpassed level of service & support that isn't available from the corporates that we compete directly against. Our videos we felt show information to our customers, who are close to making a purchase decision, that they cant actually see anywhere else online (but could see if they were in a shop) and this is what we felt added the value. Plus it is unique content for our site which we hope cant hurt.
We hoped / hope that even though the content isn't smooth, beautifully animated etc etc the pluses mentioned above outweigh this.
As we move forward with the videos hopefully we can improve in the future... these are step 1 for our informational videos, step 1 of improving web site look / feel etc. All to be honed in the future.
As always any comments gratefully received ... on videos, new web site etc!!
-
It is possible to get videos indexed in a lightbox, but it all depends whether or not Google succeed in understanding your execution.
As your implementation currently links to another page with the embedded video player on it, then pulls this page up in the lightbox - I'd confidently say that this won't work for you. From a crawler standpoint, the video lives on this page http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/videogallery/gallery/single/product_id/443/media_video_id/24/, not this page http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/dvd/portable-dvd-player-car/twin-dvd-player/nextbase-sdv48ac/.
So, in order to make this work, you will need to find a different way of implementing your lightbox, ideally using just CSS or with simple JavaScript.
The one thing just to flag as a point of concern - the videos in the example are extremely low quality. If you are trying to get thumbnails of those videos displaying alongside your listings, I'd be concerned that you may actually drop traffic, rather than increase it.
I hope that's useful!
Thanks,
Phil.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Videos - Host on our Site or YouTube or Both
Hi We are redesigning our site and going to post how to videos on some of our product pages.
Image & Video Optimization | | klbklb90015
For SEO purposes I want to post the videos on our site with a video transcription either self hosting or through Wistia. Can we also post the same videos on YouTube or is that duplicate content and will we get hurt somehow? Thanks.0 -
Any tips for optimising for Local Search/Google Places
I have a client that used to come up on Google Places consistently for some very competitive keywords - when they ranked quite low for them through their normal website - places would see them above all the organic results in normally number 2 position - whereas they would rank between 16 - 26 normally We have optimised the site and have 'A' grade keywords for the ones we are interested in google placing for and just recently we are out of it all together, even though we have improved their optimisation for that word with SEO Someone said that their phone number on the website had to match perfectly with google places and so does their address. Is this true? Is there anything else that will help them keep their position in places ? ie. setting up a Google + page etc., Any advise would be appreciated thanks
Image & Video Optimization | | intermingle0 -
Google Places Hide Address
I've read about the changes in requirements for Google Places - and hidden the address for my relevant local clients. Is there any step I can take to speed up the edit being recognised and displayed in SERPs. In addition, I would like to know, will the address also disappear from the actual Google Places page as well?
Image & Video Optimization | | catherine-2793880 -
Google Places - Optimisation?
Can someone please provide some details about key ranking factors for Google Places? Such as Keywords, reviews, pictures, location? I've tried getting reviews, adding lots of details, + Pictures etc..
Image & Video Optimization | | charles11 -
Schema or Google Video Sitemap
Hey. I have a few hundred pages with videos on them. I want to have rich snippets with the thumbnail and such in the search results. Should I focus my time on Schema or building out a solid sitemap? Your feedback is appreciated! Tommy Swanson
Image & Video Optimization | | TommySwanson520 -
Google Places - second listing, same name
We will open a new office at a new location and I would like to add it to our Google places. How do I do this? Per Google guidelines: "Do not create more than one listing for each business location, either in a single account or multiple accounts." - Website & Phone: Provide a phone number that connects to your individual business location as directly as possible, and provide one website that represents your individual business location_._ Do I have to another contact page on my website for that location too? I will end up having to business listing with the same name but different locations. I want people to know that we have 2 separate offices because they serve different clients. I want to show up in Google places for the second location as well. Any thoughts?
Image & Video Optimization | | echo10 -
VSEO - Is backlinks help youtube video to rank well??
hey, I made a test & got backlinks to 2 youtube videos of mine and saw what should happening in next few days..but nothing got! I didn't get update or change in my videos even if the keywords are low competitions.. but when I read many posts & experts say that getting backlinks to your youtube video or VSEO count by google and we should doing it! the only way I've found to improve your youtube video ranking in google is to add it in blog & use video sitemap! but I'm also use video to direct affiliate link & there where I think backlinks should work to help me. I would to know from your experience is that worth to do or not or if backlinks for youtube are link ping we should do it directly when we upload video? PS: any info or idea you've it can be a very helpful solution for all! thnx
Image & Video Optimization | | akitmane0