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May 22, 2012

WEBINAR

Dial-in telephone: +1 (914) 339-0029 Access Code: 683-486-508 Webinar ID: 491-814-898

✆

BEST PRACTICES & TIPS FOR BOOSTING VIDEO COMMERCE SEO

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BEFORE WE GET STARTED…

Today’s webinar is moderated by:

Justin Foster Co-Founder & VP Market Development, Liveclicker

Having technical difficulties? - Use the Q&A chat box to let us know.

- If we can’t help you, call Citrix at 888-259-8414 for technical support.

- Or you can chat with a Citrix representative at www.citrixgcs.com/chat.

To submit questions during the webinar, use the Q&A chat box. Questions will be answers at the conclusion of the webinar.

This is an interactive webinar! Take the polls!

Everyone will receive a link to a recording of the presentation and a copy of the slide deck within 2-3 business days.

FOUNDER OF VIDEO-COMMERCE.ORG

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THE LEADER IN VIDEO COMMERCE Help retailers and consumer brands sell more products through video

The only video solution you need, from production to conversion

99.8% client retention rate

A FEW EXAMPLES OF THE BRANDS THAT WE WORK WITH

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AUTOMATED VIDEO SEO WITH EVERY UPLOAD

Automatically generate and submit Google sitemaps for every video you upload

Showcase your entire video library in one location while maximizing search results with a Liveclicker Video SEO Gallery.

Track video SEO analytics

Intelligent video descriptions and keywords

Integrated transcription service

Liveclicker helps marketers take advantage of video SEO without costly IT investment

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SAVE THE DATE!

August 9-10 | San Francisco, CA

Attend the e-Commerce industry’s largest event devoted to online video

Get more info at http://videocommercesummit.com

Save $300 by registering for the early bird rate

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TWEET!

TWITTER CONTEST! 2 free $50 Apple gift cards will be given out to randomly to anyone who tweets about the webinar today with the hashtag: #LCWEB

#LCWEB HANDLES: @LIVECLICKER JUSTIN - @VIDEOCOMMERCE MARK - @MARKRROBERTSON

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WHO’S HERE TODAY?

How many videos are you currently using on your site?

38%

24%

21%

9% 8%

Less than 10

11 - 50

51 - 200

201 - 500

501+

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WHO’S HERE TODAY?

What is your industry vertical?

58%

11%

10%

5%

16%

E-commerce retailer

Product manufacturer

Marketing agency

Technology provider

Other

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SPEAKER

Mark Robertson Founder & Publisher

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• SEO Chaos & Evolution of Search

• Understanding Search

• Video SEO Basics

• On-Site Video SEO

– Best Practices and Tips

• YouTube SEO Best Practices

– YouTube SEO Tips

– Conversion Tips

Agenda

00:09

EVOLUTION OF SEARCH

The ever-changing nature of search

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SEO = Moving Out of Control

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Search Engines Get Social

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Social Has Always Supported SEO

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Google

“Each year, Google changes its search algorithm up to 500 – 600 times” SEOMOZ

– Panda

– Penguin (Webspam Update)

– Google Plus, Personalized Search

– Knowledge Graph

– Schema.org

Bing

– Now accepting video sitemaps

– Deeper Facebook integration

Lotza Search Engine Updates

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Google “Search Plus Your World” = Big Deal

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• YouTube embeds getting indexed

• Indexing happens fast

• Schema markup for video is introduced (more to come on that)

Google’s Video Index Constantly Changing

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YouTube & Its Search Algorithm Changing

DON’T FRET IT. CHANGE IS GOOD

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Videos Dominate Universal Search

38% of Google searchers were served video in Universal search results *

- More than any other category

- And it’s growing

Sources – *ComScore – Jan 2008 | Searchmetrics, August 2011

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Across all positions, video results with thumbnails generate consistently higher click through rates.

Source: RankAbove.com SEO Firm 2010

Videos Get More Clicks

00:18

UNDERSTANDING SEARCH

Organic vs. Universal vs. Video vs. YouTube

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Universal Video Results – What’s The Intent?

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• How do video thumbnails surface in Universal Search?

– Search intent

– Personalized preferences, history, etc…

• What keyword triggers work

– The obvious – “video”

– Instructional - “how-to”

– Informational - “review” “unboxing” “about”

– Navigational - website addresses, brand names, brand descriptions, etc…

– Long-tail queries with less competition (e.g. homedics brethe air revitalizer)

– Transactional keywords don't often trigger - like “buy,” “cheap,” “free,” or “sale”

Universal Search vs. Video Search vs. Organic

00:21

VIDEO SEO BASICS

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Website Video SEO is Step 2

Keep in Mind:

Video SEO is merely an extension of SEO

Focus 1st on general SEO – Keyword research

– Site architecture

– On-page SEO factors

– Off-page SEO factors

– Content

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Liveclicker SEO Case Study - Spanx.com

What was done?

• Completed an SEO audit

• Enhanced internal linking

• Optimized titles, metadata, etc…

The Results?

• “Visible lift in page views”

Website Video SEO is Step 2

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Start with Keyword Research: YT Suggestions

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YouTube Related Searches

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Google’s Keyword Suggestions

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Optimizing for Google vs. YouTube?

• Long-tail, transactional, non video-centric

• Video-centric, entertainment, etc…

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• On-Page SEO

• SEO Copywriting

• Keyword Research

• Etc…

Brush Up on General SEO Best Practices

Poll

Where are you optimizing your videos for SEO purposes

a) YouTube b) Your own site c) 3rd party hosted video pages/gallery d) All of the above e) None

00:36

ON-SITE VIDEO SEO

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• Search @ Google.com/videohp = site:YOURSITE.com

How to Check if You’re In Google Videos’ Index

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1. Search Engine Crawls Web & Finds Video

– Unreliable

2. XML Video Sitemaps

Step 1. Create XML video sitemap.

Step 2. Give Google Video XML Sitemap

Step 3. Google crawls page to verify video exists where indicated

Step 4. Your videos get indexed in Google video

• Available via universal search results

• Thumbnails displayed if appropriate

Getting Into Google Video & Universal Search

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• JavaScript and iFrame publishing can cause issues with step #3

• To get around this, make sure to indicate and match player_loc in the source of the page

– Schema Markup

– Facebook Markup

– NoFrames tags

– NoScript tags

<video:player_loc>http://site.com/player.swf?v=1232</video:player_loc>

Video Sitemap Tips – Javacripts & NoFrames

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• Robots.txt

– Include sitemap location

– Allow crawling

• Tell search engines which thumbnail to use

– Avoid using content_loc when possible

• Augment sitemaps with more info for crawling

– Facebook Share Markup

– Schema Markup

• Consider not using “duration”

• Monitor 404’s, expire video entries in sitemaps

Random Tips for Video Sitemaps

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What is Schema Markup?

• Joint effort launched by Bing, Google, Yahoo and Yandex

• Structured markup language (like microformats, RDFa, data-vocabulary.org, etc.)

“…Today, we’re also launching video support for schema.org. …now the recommended way to describe videos on the web.” – Henry Zhang, Product

Manager for Google Videos

Schema Markup for Video

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<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/VideoObject">

<h2>Video: <span itemprop="name">Title</span></h2>

<meta itemprop="thumbnailURL" content="http://site.com/thumbnail.jpg" />

<meta itemprop="embedURL” content="http://site.com/player.swf?123"/>

<object ...> <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" ...> </object>

<span itemprop="description">Video description</span>

</div>

• Must include the following

– itemscope and itemtype

– Name (title)

– thumbnailURL

– embedURL

– Description

• More info – http://www.reelseo.com/schema-markup-video/

How to Markup Videos with Schema

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• Make sure markup is done in the source code for that page.

– It needs to be visible without executing any JavaScript or Flash.

• You should also submit a video Sitemap

– Helps Google discover your videos

– Provides additional information about your video content

• Use the same information in both your video sitemap, and your on-page markup.

Working with Schema Markup

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Working with Schema Markup

“Using schema.org markup will not affect any Video Sitemaps or mRSS feeds you’re already using. In fact, we still recommend that you also use a Video Sitemap because it alerts us of any new or updated videos faster and provides advanced functionality such as country and platform restrictions.”

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• Use Google’s Rich Snippet Testing Tool.

• Your video may not appear with the rich snippets, but this tool will still show you whether it’s being seen by Google.

Verifying Proper Schema.org Video Markup

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• Going back to general SEO – do you have enough content on your page?

• Liveclicker Transcript Study

– 37 pages measured for 7 days, one month before and after transcripts.

– Pages with transcripts earned an average of 16% more revenue than they did before transcripts.

– Likely related to increases in incoming traffic through long-tail keyword searches resulting from matches in the transcripts

Transcripts or No Transcripts?

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• Must be in source code

• Ideally, should not be hidden from viewers

• Can be hidden behind video, so long as it’s clearly representative.

– Still best to provide in visible manner

• Remember to also utilize for YouTube closed captioning

How to Utilize Transcripts

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Help Readers Share Your Videos from your site

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<head>

<meta property="og:video" content="http://example.com/video.swf" />

<meta property="og:video:secure_url" content="https://example.com/video.swf" />

<meta property="og:video:height" content="640" />

<meta property="og:video:width" content="385" />

<meta property="og:video:type" content="application/x-shockwave-flash" />

</head>

Use Open Graph to Share Videos from Posts

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Best Practices for Video SEO Publishing

Make it easy for users to find videos • Show thumbnails vs. icon or “click here for video”

• Incorporate video results within own site search

• Add “videos” to navigation

• Recommend related videos and link to them

• Avoid using popups if possible – (i.e. “click to watch video” pop-up)

Auto-play or No Auto-play? • If detect coming from search – try to auto-play to

reduce bounce rates

Same Domain, YouTube, New Domain?

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• Add additional content images to your pages to boost SEO

– Additional on-page cues

– Image search

– organic search

– video search, etc…

• Liveclicker Case Study – adding additional high-res images

– Added still images from the video to the bottom of the page.

– eBags had over 115% uptick in traffic on their video SEO site.

– The stills are named in a way that makes that page show up in an image search as well as a video and web search.

Other Tips for Website SEO – Leverage Content

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Other Tips for Website Video SEO

Create Compelling Thumbnails • Eye-catching, relevant, high quality

• Which one would you choose?

Make Your Thumbnails

• Clear, in-focus

• Bright, high-contrast

• Close-ups of faces

• Visually compelling

• Good composition

• “compel you to click”

• Accurately represents

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Other Tips for Website Video SEO

Page Load Times are Critical

• It’s a new RANKING FACTOR

– Faster sites improve user experience

– Site speed also reduces operating costs

• Free tools that you can use to evaluate:

– Page Speed, open source browser add-on.

– YSlow, suggests ways to improve speed.

– WebPagetest, waterfall view of performance.

– Webmaster Tools, Labs > Site Performance

00:40

YOUTUBE

Why YouTube & How

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< 5 yrs. - YouTube = 2nd Largest Search Engine

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Bing

Yahoo!

YouTube

Google

2.7

2.7

11.7

3.9

U.S. Search Queries (billions) in November 2011

Source: comScore qSearch, Dec. 16, 2011

00:18

YOUTUBE SEARCH & SEO

The Basics

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Rankings

On-Page SEO

Social Media,

Buzz & Off-Page

Paid Promotion

Content Quality,

Frequency, Freshness

YouTube Ranking Factors

– Title

– Description

– Tags

– Views & frequency

– Likes, dislikes

– Playlist additions

– Flagging

– Shares

– Comments

– Age of video

– Subscribers

– Favorites

– Embeds & inbound links

– Social media buzz

– Annotation linking

YouTube Search = More than Keywords

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Views Aren’t It Either

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Dedicate time….

• Create Magnetic Content

• Optimize Your Videos

– Uploading

– Describing

– Extending

– Interacting

– Sharing

YouTube – #1 SEO TIP = Don’t Be Lazy

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– Thumbnail selection

– Geo-tagging for Google Earth, Places, etc…

– 1080p HD uploads, up to 20GB

– Promoted videos

– Annotations

– Playlists

– Insights

– Closed captions

– You should be active anyway (it’s a social platform)

Optimize Directly on YouTube

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• Titles show in player and SERPs

• 50 char shown in Universal

• Put targeted phrase FIRST

• It’s ok to duplicate phrase

• Re-optimize over time

Titles Are VERY Important

Which one would you click on?

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Maximize Descriptive Text Areas

• Descriptions – Use descriptions liberally (5000 char)

– Put target keywords first

– Long-form? Link within the video

– Include URLs (with http://) to Channel, Playlist, or site

• Tags – optimize & de-optimize

– Don’t spam

– Put target keywords first

– Phrases in quotes or commas

– Add semantically related & misspelled

YouTube Optimization Tips

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Annotations Affect Search – It’s a Factor

“…YouTube’s search algorithm favors videos that drive traffic to other videos, playlists, channels, or subscriptions via linked annotations….”

- The YouTube Creator Playbook

Use Annotations to:

- Link to other videos

- Link to channels

- Link within the video

- Encourage interaction

- Issue calls to action

- Post messages

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Annotations Drive Action, Views & Rankings

Link to other videos

Community Engagement Encourage responses, comments,

likes, subscribes

Link to other videos

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Control Related Videos, Kind of

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Annotate When At High Attention

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Take Advantage Of YouTube Playlists

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Remember - YouTube’s Search Looks Outside

Directly from YouTube’s Partner

Guide

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• Encourage embedding

• Allow commenting, rating

Video Upload Settings

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• Customize your channel – Settings, themes, colors,

modules

– Background image

Don’t Ignore Your YouTube Channel

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• “YouTube referrals out-weigh everything else”

• > 45% of all the referrals to site.

• Most importantly, YouTube converts @50%

– Vs. 10% other referral sources

• 3 months sold over $130K

Drive YouTube Viewers Home

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In-Video Calls to Action

– Teasers, Coupons, Promo codes, Call tracking, Unique URLs, Etc…

Drive YouTube Viewers Home

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Put Links in Description

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URL in Description Field

– Must include http://

– Use URL shortener – tracking, nofollow

• Customize w/ keywords using bit.ly

Tip: Use URL Shortener

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Drive Viewers With Annotations

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Use Promoted Videos w/ CTA

> Cost per click off-site? $0.00

> Overlay works on pause

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• Consider creating unique content for YouTube (teasers, bloopers, etc…)

• Consider creating unique channels like Zappos

– Zappos

– Zappos Style

– Inside Zappos Channel

– Zappos Insights

• Consider brand and partner channels

Other YouTube E-Commerce Tips

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Poll

What topics are you interested in hearing more about?

a) Social video commerce b) User generated video c) Video distribution strategies d) Interactive video e) Mobile video

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Q & A

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INTERNET RETAILER EXHIBITION & CONFERENCE JUNE 5-7TH | CHICAGO, IL

Liveclicker will be hosting quick 15 minute video commerce strategy sessions. As a thank you to those that sign up we will be giving out FREE $50 gift cards to your choice of one of Liveclicker’s retail clients below:

Sign up for a meeting here: http://www.Liveclicker.com/web/meet-up-with-Liveclicker-at-irce-2012/

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SAVE THE DATE!

August 9-10 | San Francisco, CA

Attend the e-Commerce industry’s largest event devoted to online video

Get more info at www.Liveclicker.com

Save $300 by registering for the early bird rate

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CONTACT MARK

MARK ROBERTSON FOUNDER & PUBLISHER

FOLLOW @MARKRROBERTSON

http://www.reelseo.com/

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CONTACT LIVECLICKER

LIVECLICKER 2055 JUNCTION AVE SAN JOSE, CA, 95131 SALES@LIVECLICKER.COM (408) 335-6202 WWW.LIVECLICKER.COM FOLLOW US @LIVECLICKER FOLLOW JUSTIN @VIDEOCOMMERCE VIDEORETAILER.ORG VIDEO-COMMERCE.ORG