Video optimisation for inclusion in Universal Search is one of the most unknown topics in the SEO field. We know that if we optimise our video properly, the video gets watched by a reasonable amount of people and is rated and commented, we might have the chance of ranking for blended results in SERPs, but that is as far as our knowledge reaches.

Video results tend to dominate in Universal Search results according to Comscore, and video optimisation is a great opportunity to be able to leverage all your digital assets and get people to know more about your site, from different channels. But how Google decides whether or not to include universal search results for a particular query?

Danny Sullivan wrote an interesting article back in the day when Universal Search was in its first year of active performance. According to him, what Google does is to compare rankings and relevance among different vertical before producing the SERP. That means that Google will only add a video to the results page if it is more relevant than a text page. Considering that Google is actually unable to determine what is in the video, it is very unlikely that your video will outrank a HTML page.

So what is the point then? Interesting question. There is only as much as you can do to optimise a video. In Youtube you can ensure that you fit the keywords in the title, write a keyword rich description, use a descriptive filename and relevant tags…but that is all you can do really. How can you compete with a fully formed HTML page with hundreds of words related to the main term?

Take this video for instance. It is trying to rank for the keyword prison hotels, the text is catchy and descriptive and the description keyword rich. It is hardly a very competitive keyword, although funnily enough the search volume is of almost 3600 people searching for that specific term monthly.

So far, so good. The video ranks first in Youtube and Google video after a week  of being uploaded for the before mentioned keyword. That tells us that the optimisation work paid off. But is there any chance of being ranked in the main index results?

There are only 900 pages properly optimised for prison hotels, and aside the first 5 results, the rest is highly less relevant for the query than the aforementioned video. Some of them are results talking about hotels in the proximity of a prison but not former prisons that are hotels, which is the information searched by the user.

Reality here is, that despite being a great way to use your digital assets for additional reach, videos are only likely to rank for very long tail/low volume keywords or queries with the word “video” in it.  We know that video attracts the user and engage them longer than text results. We know that, so far, the number of videos in the index is minimal in comparison with text. There are windows of opportunity there for clever marketers, but our ignorance about the algorithm and a, in my opinion, flawed approach of Google when it comes down to ranking blending results, makes it only a nice to have SEO strategy rather than a must have.

What do you think?

As an SEO you read about Link Bait day in and day out. Everything very interesting but you can only digest a limited number of Link Bait definitions or top 10 lists examples as link bait. Don’t get me wrong, I am the first one to enjoy a top 10 list but I can count with the fingers of my amputated limb the times that I have linked to any.

For me, Link Bait real ideas are the ones that show some creativity. The economic issue is always there and probably is much easier to write a controversial post insulting someone to spark an argument or invent a story altogether, but what I enjoy as an Internet user, and I really link to, it is useful and funny stuff, most of the times in the shape of a video, software or funny web application.

So from that point of view there you have my favourite Link Bait attempts of all time:

• Compare the Meerkat . The Link Bait spin-off site par excellence. Alexander and his compare the meerkat site has reaped the benefits of a TV campaign too but it quickly went so viral that the spoof site has the same PageRank than Compare the Market but with 11 years less of existence. Fantastic, humorous, funny and effective…as well as useless. But that is not the point.
• Will it Blend. Video related link bait also in a additional site. There is a dilemma whether the subject or your link bait should be hosted in the main site or in a standalone microsite. Succesful attempts seem to point to the latter like these series of videos from Blendtec trying to use their blending machines to destroy all sorts of stuff. This started as a Youtube channel and has evolved to a microsite.
• Doodlebox. This is a great online tool, funny as hell and on topic. Hotels.com has created this online tool so you can scribble around with uploaded pictures and mess around with your friends facial hair or vision impairment levels . Appealing to the primary school student that is within all of us , Doodlebox is a funny way to spend a few minutes and share your “art” with your mates. Flash applications are not the most SEO friendly thing in the world but who cares when the result is so cool. We will have to see how that evolves in terms of links but it is certainly worth sharing.

My contribution is quite cool

• Twitter Grader. When you combine and up and rising start-up in every body’s mouths and a tool that rates “popularity” online the results in terms of buzz and links are bound to come. I am particularly fond of anything that Hubspot do as I find them to be a bunch of cool guys doing the marketing that makes me want to learn more about (as opposed to the kind of marketing that is based on deceiving people). I am not a marketer per se, I am an web developer in background and a SEO for trade, but tools like this make me more accepting of the idea of marketing.

What are your favourite Link bait examples?

Social media optimisation was the big topic of the last year in the industry, and at the moment agencies are trying to build a business model around it. Most of them are going down the consultancy path plus offering specific services in the way of building widgets or Facebook applications to boost viral campaigns. Most of them are struggling to give value out of it and most companies marketing departments are still reticent to invest money on not so tangible services.

The erroneous way to approach Social Media services, advocated by some other agencies, it is the pay per profile, pay per automatic tools to be present in social networks or per tweets/Facebook friends/Linkedin contacts, etc. This approach is the equivalent of blog comment spam or automated link requests and goes against the intrinsic nature of social media which is based in engaging in the conversation.

In my opinion, the way to monetise the use of social media as an agency service for marketing departments is through education. You don’t give a fish to a hungry man you teach him how to fish. The marketeers are always going to know more about their target audience than any search agency, they know their products upside down and they can relate to their customer’s needs and enquiries promptly and accurately, unlike any third party agent.

Most of people are already engaged in social media whether the CEOs approve it or not. We all have Facebook profiles or twitter accounts or we use youtube and upload videos. It is the way it is and banning it would be useless. On the flip side, that means that every company has already the potential to leverage social media as a tool to generate leads, improve customer services and cut costs accordingly and apply insight gathered from their customer base to product development. They just have to capitalise on their workforce, find an agency/trainer who can educate them in the use of social media outlets for corporate purposes whilst keeping it fun and personal.

Additionally, a corporation is nothing but the sum of its employees and the sum of the personal reputations would enhance corporate reputation. It is a win-win situation.

At the International Search Summit next week, I will speak about the balance between personal and corporate reputation, how to capitalise on your social media savvy workforce and why social media gurus can just be snake oil salesman; a successful social media strategy will only be successful if stems from the corporate core and the company most valued assets, their people.

During the symposium on Web 2.0  which took place in Madrid on February 18, in Camilo Jose Cela University, the Director of Communications of Tuenti, Icarus Moyano, defended the privacy provided by social networks compared to the lack of regard for security showed by the traditional media outlets which have no scruples to reproduce private information from social media sites.

Spanish Social Networks have been under the scrutiny of traditional media channels which have deemed social media outlets in Spain as partly responsible of indiscriminate violence. A journalist found out that the 17 year old girl killed in Seville, Marta Castillo, had a profile on Tuenti, the most popular Spanish social network among teenagers, and so did her friends. One of them has confessed being the criminal.

Moyano criticized the newspapers that have made use of Tuenti to publish private messages, profiles and conversations among friends of the murdered 17 years old girl Marta Castillo, considering this a “breach agaisnt her privacy rights”. He added that 95% of users interacting in this network have privacy settings on. Tuenti’s director of Communication stated that Marta Castillo’s case has become a target for sensationalist media.

Spain is the second country in Europe and fifth in the world in the use of social networks such as  Facebook or Tuenti, with 13 million users. Seven out of ten social media users are less than 35 years old. Only Canada, Brazil, UK and Mexico outnumber Spain. Worldwide, more than half of Internet users use social networks to interact with their social circle.

Another participant at the symposium was Rosa Jimenez, a journalist and blogger from the most populat traditional newspaper in Spain, El País, who defended the figure of traditional journalistic channels, whereas other speakers highlighted how news have shifted from belonging to the media to be part of the public.

The bottom line of this debate is that at a time of economic turmoil when advertising is feared to be reduced to minimum in order to save costs, digital platforms arise as cheap and innovative new media formats, making the user the vital part of the marketing equation. Traditional media has understood where the enemy is and while they have been losing advertising revenue at an alarming rate, social media networks emerge as a much more targeted way to appeal to specific demografics. I don’t rule out more gratuitous attacks from tradional media outles in order to try to demonise online channels.

Much more insight will be provided in the International Search Summit where I will be speaking about all sort of Social Media developments across Europe.