Larry Kless' Weblog: SEO

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Thursday, June 9, 2011

Funny or Die's Recipe for Success: Great Content, SEO & Social Media - Patrick Starzan, Funny or Die

Core to any good video content strategy is a blend of ingredients that compel and engage viewers to discover and share your content. You can have the most compelling content in the world, but if people aren't aware of it and can't find it easily, it won't make any difference. According to Patrick Starzan, Vice President of Marketing and Distribution for Funny or Die, its recipe for success is a combination great content, search engine optimization and social media. I caught up with Starzan at the Online Video Platform Summit where he discussed how Funny or Die developed its content strategy and some of the common mistakes publishers make with online video.

Funny or Die is both a video content site and brand focused on funny videos, and since its founding in 2007 by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Chris Hench, it has become one of the top destinations for comedy on the web. It's known for celebrity-driven comedy and has a steady stream of topical viral hits, including its most viewed video, The Landlord, with over 76 million views that features Ferrell, McKay and McKay's two-year-old daughter Pearl who plays the foul-mouthed landlord that berates Ferrell for overdue rent money. Other celebrities are featured regularly in Funny or Die exclusives, such as Zach Galifianakis' hilarious web series Between Two Ferns. The October/November 2010 issue of Streaming Media magazine features an in-depth cover story on Funny or Die, The Art and Science of Funny or Die - Streaming Media Magazine, that chronicles the rise and success of the popular comedy website, which Streaming Media editor Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen calls, "a shining example of marrying the best of Hollywood to the best of Silicon Valley."

Starzan says:

"For us, social media has been a core part of how we get our content discovered, and it's something we've working on for years."

How Funny or Die got there, Starzan says is that:

"Everything starts by defining your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and your metrics and what's important for your company's success. So we did that and we went out and developed a content strategy, separately for each of the platforms, understanding that the type of person on each platform is consuming and engaging in content in different ways. We really follow a strategy of building social capital, trying to give more than we get, trying to interact with the user, trying to give them a platform for access to Funny or Die, but also a platform where we can celebrate who they are."

Starzan says the Funny or Die team spends a lot of time working on their content strategy, about eight to nine hours a day on each of the platforms, because they feel that users are more engaged with content they want to watch.

"After your content strategy," Starzan suggests, "you start with your acquisition strategy and figure out how to target more people to come to join each of your platforms."

For many brands, the question of whether or not to drive traffic to its own site rather than establishing a presence on YouTube is quite common. For Funny or Die, its content strategy was to first establish its brand and then go to YouTube.

As Starzan explains:

"For us, coming out of the gate we really wanted to establish Funny or Die as a brand and we took a very walled garden approach. So we really wanted to control the experience and optimize the experience to out users, until we felt we had a brand that had a solid foundation. We didn't want to dilute it by actually going out and doing a lot of distribution, especially with YouTube. Once we felt we had that brand equity, that's when we went to YouTube and established a windowing strategy of our content over on YouTube, because obviously YouTube has a huge, huge audience."

Funny Or Die's photo: This is our new social media expert: Robobot.

Starzan says though that YouTube distribution hasn't cannibalized its brand or the video views on its own website and sees about the same amount of consumption on YouTube as on its our own site.

So for Funny or Die, it's now about exposing its brand to the largest audience. But as Starzan notes, a lot of Funny or Die's traffic comes from search and they've done a lot of work optimizing their video players and the specific type of keywords. Direct traffic though continues to grow as Funny or Die has become more of an established brand. But by far, social media has been one of its critical success factors for audience building and has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, StumbledUpon, Reddit, and so on, which are all places that people can search and discover Funny or Die's content.

By the numbers, Funny or Die's social media presence continues to prove successful by doubling its number of followers in the last six months, with 2.2 million Twitter followers and with 938,749 Facebook fans (but more than 3 million Facebook fans along with co-founder Will Ferrell), 40,000 followers on Tumblr and 468,306 subscribers to its YouTube channel. The website is also getting 2,000 “Likes” per day with an overall audience reach of 32 million through its social media channels.

"We make funny videos with celebrities in it," Starzan laughs, "and it lends itself well to the social media world."

The advice he offers to online video publishers and marketers to get their content discovered is that:

"It's about really having a comprehensive strategy. I don't think you should look at one, search over social media, as two different things, or two different variations of what's important. They're both just as important as the other. Because at the end of the day, you want to have your content discovered as quickly as possible by relevant audiences… So, put as much time into both of them as you can."

Starzan admits that they've learned a lot from trial and error, and for search, he recommends that you make all your content embeddable; that you have links coming back to your site; and that your tags are using the optimal keywords that you want to be discovered for, because it becomes a huge back linking strategy and you define what people are seeing when they back link to you. He says it's about making sure you do the simple things; like making sure your sitemaps are indexed with all the search engines and identifying the keywords that drive traffic to your site or to specific pages. If they'e driving a lot of traffic, go to that page and optimize that keyword for that page so you can rank better in search.

For publishers looking to build out their platforms using social media, Starzan says that it's not just about driving traffic to your site but about being a part of the community. While Funny or Die has an edge over other media properties through its celebrity power, he says it really comes down to the basics, which first and foremost, is to make great content.

"You have to have great content if you're ever going to survive on social media," he says, "and make a lot of it. Then just make sure you're in those communities. I think a mistake a lot of people make, and we made it in the beginning, is we just put up these pages and we'd put content up there and expect people to engage with it, share it and do everything we wanted them to do with it, but it just dies. You have to be there everyday – it's just like any other social interaction – you have to be there, you have to have that conversation, you have to listen as much as you talk. So take the time to learn all the nuances and definitely realize that, a lot of people say social and SEO are free, organic ways of driving traffic, but it take a lot of time in terms of resources to really develop these platforms and really optimize them."

Funny or Die recently introduced a new feature to its video player to help drive traffic from social media sharing by adding a clickable embedded Twitter hashtag. According to NewTeVee's Ryan Lawler, the latest episode of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifinakis features the new social media element which is located in the bottom right corner of the video player.

"The embedded hashtag is a call to action that enables viewers of the video to share it with their friends," says Lawler, "Once clicked, it launches Twitter with a link back to the episode and the #btwn2ferns hashtag."

In an email to NewTeeVee, Starzan wrote:

“We are pretty excited about the potential of the in-video hashtag in driving usage and overall Twitter traffic. Since no one else is doing this it’s the first video we tested in, [but] I expect usage to increase as our users gain more exposure to it.”

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: Will Ferrell from Will Ferrell

About Funny or Die
Since its inception, three years ago, Funny Or Die has emerged as an award-winning, top destination for comedy on the web. With hundreds of exclusive celebrity videos and a steady stream of huge viral hits, Funny Or Die has become the "place to be seen" for comedic celebrities, and the obvious destination for a daily comedy fix. Funny Or Die's founders are Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy. Judd Apatow is also a principal partner in Funny or Die. http://www.funnyordie.com

Follow Patrick Starzan, VP of Marketing, Funny or Die

Head of Marketing @FunnyOrDie. I tweet about the interweb, marketing stuff and the FOD. I like coffee, tobasco, punk music and you!

Starzan (starzan) on Twitter
Things I Think | Tumblr

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Thursday, April 14, 2011

If You Publish It, Will They Come?

You can have the most compelling content in the world, but if people aren't aware of it and can't find it easily, it won't make any difference. From search engine optimization to social media marketing, there are myriad strategies for getting your content in front of as many people as possible. At the Online Video Platform Summit, this session "If You Publish It, Will They Come?", assembled some of the brightest minds in online video search and discovery, social media optimization and entertainment to examine the art and science of getting your videos seen. Tim Siglin wrote a great summary of this session in a post on Streamingmedia.com, that captured some of the key points the panelists discussed on the importance of both video SEO and social media recommendation. The following quotes in this post are excerpted from his post.

ReelSEO's Mark Robertson moderated the discussion and opened the session with new data from TubeMogul which pointed out that while Google is still generates the highest volume of video traffic from search, "referral traffic from Facebook and Twitter is growing faster than traditional engines as a source of video views."

Frank Sinton, of MeFeedia added that, "The portion of video watched when it has been recommended by a friend is significantly higher than viewing times for content found by search."

Mike Sommers of KickApps noted that the problem with video is that Google's search engine bots can't understand what video content is about as well as humans can. He said that search engine optimization (SEO) is evolving into friend engine optimization, "which is building your website in way that makes it sharable, that invites people to take our content, notify your friends about it and then drive traffic back to your website."

Patrick Starzan of Funny or Die, said that search is a bigger factor when it comes to their content being played and but social media media gives them more engaged viewers. He said, "Our optimization may be driven by top celebrities we've worked with-Lindsay Lohan searches yield Funny Or Die as one of the top "found" sites-but then viewers spend a lot of time browsing and viewing other videos."

Adam Singolda of Taboola, agreed that search and social media are both important and that said that publishers spend time optimizing their sites, "and look closely at the anchor videos which bring viewers to your sites, but remember that most sites-including those with interesting videos-are primarily still not video-centric sites."

Read more of Tim Siglin's article here and watch the video below for more of the discussion.

Speakers for this session include:

Mark Robertson, Founder, ReelSEO (Moderator)
Mark Robertson is the Founder and Creator of ReelSEO.com, The Online Video Marketer's Guide, which provides news, tips and trends on the online video industry and video marketing. Mark speaks regularly at conferences, webinars and industry events sharing his extensive experience in online marketing, particularly in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Mark was previously the Director of Search for Freedom Communications and has worked with many newspaper and broadcast stations for optimization online content. Follow ReelSEO Video News (reelseo) on Twitter

Frank Sinton, CEO, MeFeedia
Mr. Sinton is responsible for product development, communications, advertising and media functions at MeFeedia. Before founding BeachFront Media, LLC/MeFeedia.com Mr. Sinton spearheaded the strategic technology vision at Sony Pictures Entertainment and was largely responsible for the search engine that powered the successful startup of Business.com ($340 million acquisition). Mr. Sinton is also the founder of Gotkidsnetwork.com, a parents social networking site. He received his B.S.in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University. Follow MeFeedia (mefeedia) on Twitter

Mike Sommers, EVP of Products, KickApps
As Executive Vice President of Product Management, Mike oversees all of KickApps’ product management efforts. He has over 15 years experience building Internet products. Before joining KickApps, Mike was VP of Product Development for AOL Search. In his 7 years at AOL, he was also responsible developing a variety of rich media, search and community products. Prior to joining AOL Mike worked for a variety of Silicon Alley startups in New York City.
Mike has a B.A. degree from Columbia University. Follow KickApps (kickapps) on Twitter

Patrick Starzan, VP of Marketing, Funny or Die
Funny or Die, www.funnyordie.com, is an award-winning website that has become one of the top destinations for comedy on the web. The site has averages over 5 million unique video views per month. With hundreds of exclusive celebrity videos and a steady stream of huge viral hits, Funny or Die has become the "place to be seen" for comedic celebrities, and the obvious destination for a daily comedy fix. Funny or Die's founders are Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy. Mr. Apatow is also a partner in Funny or Die. Follow Funny Or Die (funnyordie) on Twitter

Adam Singolda, CEO and Founder, Taboola
As the chief executive officer of Taboola, Adam Singolda is leading the company business strategy, execution, and business development, while maintaining a unique company culture of competitiveness, quantitativeness, and innovation. Prior to founding Taboola, Adam served as an officer in a mathematical elite unit in the Israeli National Security Agency (I-NSA) for almost seven years. Adam’s focus in the unit was data-mining and “unsolvable problems.” His background uniquely prepares him to lead Taboola’s efforts toward technological advantage that focuses on scale and quantifiable value to publishers, advertisers and users. Adam is an honored alum of the IDF's elite "Mamram" computer-science training program, and he finished first in his class in the officer's academy of the IDF. Adam's vision for Taboola is to change the way people around the world discover the videos they like no matter where they are. Follow adam singolda (adamsingolda) and Taboola (taboola) on Twitter

The Online Video Platform Summit is a two-day event designed to help organizations of all types, not just those for whom video is their core business. Held on November 2-3 in conjunction with
Streaming Media West in Los Angeles, the Online Video Platform Summit is designed for video publishers of all types and sizes, whether small businesses looking to publish content for the first time, independent entertainment content creators, large media organizations, or anywhere in between.

Related:

Thursday, October 28, 2010

If You Publish It, Will They Come?

Adam Singolda, CEO and Founder, Taboola
As the chief executive officer of Taboola, Adam Singolda is leading the company business strategy, execution, and business development, while maintaining a unique company culture of competitiveness, quantitativeness, and innovation. Prior to founding Taboola, Adam served as an officer in a mathematical elite unit in the Israeli National Security Agency (I-NSA) for almost seven years. Adam’s focus in the unit was data-mining and “unsolvable problems.” His background uniquely prepares him to lead Taboola’s efforts toward technological advantage that focuses on scale and quantifiable value to publishers, advertisers and users. Adam is an honored alum of the IDF's elite "Mamram" computer-science training program, and he finished first in his class in the officer's academy of the IDF. Adam's vision for Taboola is to change the way people around the world discover the videos they like no matter where they are.

The Online Video Platform Summit is a two-day event designed to help organizations of all types, not just those for whom video is their core business. Held on November 2-3 in conjunction with Streaming Media West in Los Angeles, the Online Video Platform Summit is designed for video publishers of all types and sizes, whether small businesses looking to publish content for the first time, independent entertainment content creators, large media organizations, or anywhere in between. You can register online for the OVP Summit or Streaming Media West show and get $300 off Streaming Media West with the discount code of DRF1.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Video Replay of "Reel” Video SEO Strategies & Best Practices Webinar

If you missed the Ooyala hosted video SEO best practices webinar from last week, you can now watch video recording. The webinar, "Reel” Video SEO Strategies & Best Practices, featured Mark Robertson, Founder and Publisher of ReelSEO, Dr. Pete Kocks, President of Truveo and AOL Video, and Sean Knapp, Co-Founder and CTO of Ooyala. Mark provided an overview of what is video SEO, guidelines and best practices for hosted video, YouTube optimization and shared good and bad examples of video SEO. Pete covered video search optimization and the key differences between web search and video search. Sean talked about Ooyala’s new SDK release which helps helps increase visibility on search engines by creating rich on-page text for video landing pages.

The webinar was well attended and the feedback was very positive which is indicative of how much interest there is in video SEO.

As Mark says, it's not smoke and mirrors and,

"the value of video SEO lies in generating additional exposure through positioning relevant video content in front of a growing number of internet users who are actively seeking out that content using search. Just as with general SEO, Video SEO is about publishing content in a way that follows best practices to ensure and maximize indexability and discoverability."

Here's a link to Mark's presentation. You can also contact Mark through ReelSEO.com or hire him as a Video SEO consultant at mark@reelseo.com.

Thanks to Ooyala for hosting this free and very informative educational webinar.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Online Video Platform Summit: Redefining Monetization

Established methods of monetizing online video content include: advertisement, sponsorship, merchandising, licensing and acquisition, paid syndication, subscription and pay-per-view, product placement and branded entertainment. And in many cases, businesses may use video as marketing tool for lead generation and sales to promote their products, goods and services and extend brand message. But the question of how to most effectively monetize online video and what revenues to expect, tend to be more difficult to answer for many online video publishers. I led a panel discussion on Redefining Monetization at the Online Video Platform Summit that featured a diverse panel with Benjamin Wayne, CEO of Fliqz, Peter Csathy, CEO of Sorenson Media, Kevin Nalty of Nalts Consulting, and Teg Grenager, co-founder of Adap.tv who debated the viability of advertising in online video and the true value of online video as a marketing tool.

Redefining Monetization

Different organizations have different goals and business models when it comes to monetization. Some monetize their video content directly with advertising through pre-rolls, post-rolls, overlays and product endorsements or by a pay-per-view or subscription model. But most organizations will benefit by using video as a way to build value by driving sales, highlighting products, expanding brand awareness, and increasing customer engagement. This panel discussion will look at monetization from all the angles, address the different needs of B2B and B2C initiatives, and show examples of successful monetization practices.

Moderator: Larry Kless, Founder, President, OnlineVideoPublishing.com
Peter Csathy, President & CEO, Sorenson Media
Teg Grenager, VP of Product and Marketing & Co-Founder, Adap.tv Inc.
Kevin Nalty, Consultant, Nalts Consulting
Benjamin Wayne, CEO, Fliqz

Highlights from the Panel

Benjamin Wayne noted that until recent years video tended to be viewed in narrow terms of monetizing the video stream, and while ad supported models have proven effective, we're now seeing video used as a marketing tool in broader terms for reaching, building and converting an audience with a call-to-action on the site, with a 3-4 times conversion rate. Some of the businesses now using video are real estate agencies, dental offices, law firms, industrial and manufacturing.

Benjamin said:

"So the question is really, if you have a website and you're using online marketing as a tool to drive people to that website, video really should be part of the marketing mix. And the way in which you integrate it into the site and into your SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts needs to be broad reaching and strategic, as opposed to simply tactical around ad monetization."

Kevin "Nalts" Nalty looks at video as the most visceral form of social media, and initially he looked at it as an awareness tool, but more and more he's seeing it as a direct response vehicle. Now as a full online video marketing consultant, he works with many brands who are afraid of YouTube and video and want a safe place to play. But his message is, that it's the same concern about the web a decade ago, and that you need to be where the people are and bring your compelling message. His videos get about 6 million views per month with the bulk coming from YouTube, and as a content creator that's become a second source of income through the ad sharing revenue program.

Kevin shared some advise for creating branded content.

"When I'm commissioned by a company to do a promotional video, it's got to be entertaining, it can't feel like an ad, where people just turn it off."

Peter Csathy said any business online can use video to monetize their business and that 99% of sites with online video are not content or media sites that serve ads, they're much like the sites that Benjamin described, small and medium-sized businesses that drive revenue through video to showcase their products and services. He said that in 2010, competition in the business sector will drive more adoption of video as successful practices emerge, and high quality video is very important because it reflects on your brand.

Teg Grenager discussed online video from the media company perspective, and that the primary revenue stream for media companies is advertising. But they are faced with challenges of scale and inventory, but with ad networks and companies like Adap.tv, media companies have been able ramp up their online video publishing businesses. But CPM (cost per thousand) impressions vary and large media companies the Wall Street Journal and NY Times boast that hey can command CPMs of $50-60-70, but as Teg maintained that small media companies can run a very good business in a reasonable range of $10-15, which is what direct ad sales teams can get with relatively small but high quality content.

Benjamin pointed out that the page CPM and video ad CPM are different, and that the ability to monetize the entire page gives publishers more leverage. Teg agreed and said that the web offers a unique experience akin to television where publishers can measure time the spent on a page and balance that with an ad load that viewers can accept, such as two ads every 10 minutes.

Nalts shared a pet peeve of his about how impressions and CPMs are measured from a media purchase to a media buyer. Online video ads (pre-mid-post-rolls) and banner ads don't have the same result and level of engagement and until that gets fixed, we won't have real measurement of the viewer experience.

According to Kevin:

"An impression is such a lousy term for video, because an impression isn't an impression unless it MAKES an impression."

The panel discussed online video advertising and balancing the needs of viewers, publishers and advertisers, and that over time through real-time feedback on ads, there will be a more personal viewing experience where you won't get served up irrelevant ads. They also debated the production value of video advertising and the sustainability of amateur video for business marketing efforts, the death of viral video, and how that making a viral video is not a smart business move.

Kevin shared a few videos, this is sponsored video:

And this one that he almost didn't post, which now has over 14 million views

People always ask Nalts, "what works?" and he said that he has no clue, because he thinks that Scary Maze Game is a terrible video, but things that people should take into consideration are a few basic elements: good thumbnails, title, brevity, being a little edgy, sometimes sincere or moving, you've got to hook them at the beginning and adding that human element, having a face or person that the viewers can connect with really works - and all of these elements are transferable to publishers.

Kevin said a key strategy is that businesses can use YouTube to drive views back to their own sites, which can increase conversion and brand awareness. Benjamin said, video SEO is the "neglected gold mine" in the online space and that using proper submission techniques to Google, video is 53 times more likely to generate a first-page Google ranking than using traditional SEO techniques. He shared an example of a search term, "social product development in action" which when searched, brings up their customer's same video as the top first-page ranking with the video on YouTube and on the customer's own site. Email marketing with video thumbnails is another area that's been incredibly successful for another customer, Military.com, which Benjamin showed increased their views 800% to 10 million views a month.

The panel closed with final comments with shameless plugs and advise. Nalts said to become your own audience, sit through videos and realize what's good and what's bad, where you irritated and captivated and subscribe to WillVideoForFood.com. Benjamin suggested that sponsorships can be a great way for content publishers to escape the CPM lock and reach a niche audience. Brand advertisers can sponsor the page for month rather than video, which can be much higher rate of return.

My thanks to Benjamin, Kevin, Peter and Teg for a great a panel discussion!

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Sunday, January 31, 2010

Online Video Platform Summit: Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability

One of the most challenging areas for online video publishers is to optimize their video to be more discoverable by search engines, and for businesses, this is critical to bring new traffic and customers to their web sites. Publishing video content in a way that it can be easily indexed by search engines has been proven to increase higher first-page Google rankings. It's not smoke and mirrors, and it's done through video search engine optimization (VSEO) which, as my good friend and publisher of ReelSEO, Mark Robertson says is, "video SEO purely an extension of SEO."

Search engine optimization (SEO) is defined as:

"The process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. SEO includes technical tasks to make it easier for search engines to find and index a site for the appropriate keywords, as well as marketing-focused tasks to make a site more appealing to users. Successful search marketing helps a site gain top positioning for relevant words and phrases." - Search Engine Watch SEM Glossary

While traditional SEO techniques are focused on text-based search, the rules are different for video search since it can't be discovered on its own by search engines. Nico McLane attempted to uncover the mystery behind VSEO in her Streaming Media article, In Search of Video SEO That Works, and concluded that the secret's in the sauce and no two recipes are the same. Mark Robertson says that despite the hype, there is still a general lack of understanding when it summed it up this way:

“Video SEO is not a means in and of itself, it is a strategy and a set of best practices that need to be combined with best practices for producing, publishing, and syndicating online video content. It is the application of SEO best practices when publishing online video content to ensure maximum visibility across search engines and ultimately, your target audience. Ultimately, the ROI depends on many factors but is similar to that which can be achieved with traditional, oragnic SEO.”

In a report by Forrester Research's Nate Elliott, he pointed out that search engines have been blending specialty search results (e.g., video, news, images, blog posts) into their standard search result pages for several years, and concluded that optimizing video content to take advantage of "blended search" is by far the easiest way to get a first-page organic ranking on Google. In fact it's 53 times more likely to generate a first page Google ranking than traditional SEO techniques.

In this panel session from the Online Video Platform Summit on optimizing video search and discovery, Mark joins Dr. Pete Kocks of Truveo, Lou Schwartz of Multicast Media, and Tom Wilde from RAMP, in a discussion moderated by Tim Siglin of Braintrust Digital. See this related post for detailed bios on each pressenter - Online Video Platform Summit SEO Panel - Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability.

Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability
Thursday, November 19, 2009 10:30 AM PST

Video discovery via search has seen rapid growth over the past few years with the explosive increase in the online video market. But it's not enough to achieve a high Google ranking; making video more discoverable through video search engine optimization (SEO) is key for businesses to maximize visibility, drive traffic to their sites, and reach a targeted audience. Panelists in this session will discuss the importance of increasing user engagement with video SEO—using keywords, metadata, relevant content, media RSS, and video syndication—and social media marketing through demonstration of use-case scenarios.

Moderator: Tim Siglin, Chairman, Braintrust Digital, and Contributing Editor, Streaming Media magazine
Dr. Pete Kocks, President, Truveo
Mark Robertson, Founder, ReelSEO
Lou Schwartz, Chairman and CEO, Multicast Media Technologies, Inc.
Tom Wilde, CEO, EveryZing, Inc.

Highlights from the Panel

According to Mark, there's been a shift in how people discover video and data shows a rise in videos discovered via search engines and a slight decrease of videos discovered on social video sharing sites. Videos dominate universal search and he says the key is:

"to create unique and valuable content, and to publish that content with best practices for SEO in mind. Nothing works as well for SEO as creating good, unique, and valuable content."

Tom Wilde said that "video" as a search term dominates with 85-90% of search coming from Google web search. Users look for video through search, but Tom identified the challenge of video discoverability as one of the key emerging problems of the web, and that rich media content misses out on monetization opportunities when it can't be discovered through search engines.

"Search engines have historically had very little to work with in terms of properly discovering and indexing multimedia content. The value of multimedia content is trapped inside of files, out of view of search engines."

Tom said that including text transcripts with the video and "content optimization" helps unlock the value of online video and exposes it to the web at large. Lou Schwartz cited the Forrester report, that video is 53 times more likely than text to appear on first page of search result. He also shared how metatags within the video, show up as text in search and makes the video more visible and discoverable. Tagging helps reduce the amount of flat text that you publish as html and focuses on specific topics that the search bots can pick up.

Dr. Pete Kocks said that search is more than keywords and is more behaviorally-based. He shared two important tips to improving video SEO:

Make sure your video has a fast load time.
You need to have a killer thumbnail

Several key factors can play into slow load times, such as player file size, video file size, true streaming vs. progressive download, pre-rolls, network congestion, bandwidth constriction, among others. Viewers will abandon the video if it doesn't load fast, Truveo ranks the order of all the major video sites and Pete says,

"We don’t really want to send somebody to a place that is a slow moving site. That’s also true, by the way, for all the major search engines. …It’s very important that the pages load fast…"

Since people tend to click on related videos, thumbnails shouldn't be an after thought, but part of your video SEO strategy, as Pete advises,

"If you’re creating a thumbnail for your video, you should spend a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what that thumbnail is. First and foremost, it’s what the user clicks. …"

Mark concluded that, the goal is not to optimize for search engines but for user experience, and as long as you're providing relevant text that's useful to the user coming to that page, then that's going to help with the video SEO

Related @ovpsummit Tweets

See these related videos:

See these related posts for more Video SEO tips:

Be sure to check out the Ooyala webinar on "Reel" Video SEO Strategies & Best Practices, February 4, 2010 at 11:00 am PST, featuring Mark Robertson, Pete Kocks and Sean Knapp

Here's what Mark had to say about the upcoming event,
"Video SEO has become somewhat of a buzz word these days for internet marketers and online video publishers alike. Having videos that rank well within search engines is certainly an attractive proposition.However, the true value of video SEO lies in positioning video content in front of a growing number of internet users who are actively seeking out that content using search. Just as with general SEO, Video SEO is about publishing content in a way that follows best practices to ensure and maximize indexability and discoverability. Join myself, Pete Kocks, and Sean Knapp as we discuss Video SEO strategies and best practices.To register for the webinar please click here."

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Streaming Media West Red 2009 Carpet Interview - Tom Wilde, RAMP on Monetizing Discovery and Engagement Through "Content Optimization"

In this 2009 Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet interview Peter Cervieri sits down with Tom Wilde, CEO of RAMP, the company formerly known as EveryZing, and the industry’s leading "Content Optimization" platform for media publishers. Tom also spoke at the Online Video Platform Summit on the SEO Panel - Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability, and is a recognized leader in the field of Internet search and online advertising. His newly rebranded company made the announcement at Streaming Media West with a new name, new and improved tools for video search and discovery, and new focus. The new Software as a Service (SaaS) platform platform is divided into four core solutions: RAMP:workflow, RAMP:discovery, RAMP:engagement, and RAMP:monetize, and is designed to help media publishers expand video search and discovery and ramp up engagement monetization of all types of web content though, "content optimization."

RAMP has an interesting history in that it's portfolio of technologies spun out of a company called BBN Technologies, one of the world’s foremost research organizations with more than $100M government funded research, in speech-to-text and natural language processing technologies and search for the Department of Defense. The technology was developed primarily for monitoring phone calls and broadcast television mediums. When the company was acquired by venture capitalists they decided to spin out some of the technology which was over 30 years of R&D and included 20 patents that his company acquired. Some of the problems that the government was trying to solve was speaker, topic and format independent technology, which has very similar requirements to that of big media companies.

RAMP began as PodZinger, a podcast search engine, and started trying to figure out how to create rich metadata from audio files to make audio podcasts more discoverable. PodZinger used speech-to-text technology to create a text index of the audio, which enabled users to find content anywhere within podcasts and jump directly to the point of their keyword. They moved to a B2B media merchandising platform solution soon after rebranding as EveryZing, and opened up their platform to include all forms of online multimedia content. Tom identified the challenge of video discoverability as one of the key emerging problems of the web, and that rich media content misses out on monetization opportunities when it can't be discovered through search engines.

RAMP Content Optimization and RAMP Platform Solutions suite is more of big media company play with startup fees roughly in the low tens of thousands, with monthly fees usually between $5,000 and $15,000. Licensing costs can be paid either on a monthly or annual cycle, based on the amount of content that is processed. Many media companies use RAMP's speech-to-text algorithms to auto-generate transcripts and tags for third-party content. Customers in specific market verticals include news, sports, local, infotainment, print publishing and web.

On Vator News, Tom said that the re-branding was,

"largely driven by the completion of our solution to a business-to-business SaaS provider to media companies. Everyzing was an older consumer destination name and we didn't feel it was reflective of what we do now and what we're doing going forward. RAMP has a nice set of meanings; ramp up your traffic, ramp up your sales, it's easier to remember."

According to Tom, 2010 will bring more focus on social media, mobile and managed services and he noted that the pervasiveness of video across all verticals will continue to grow.

In his Red Carpet interview he said,

"In the end, virtually every company of significant size out there has to begin to think like a media company. They have to produce media because that's how the marketing conversation will happen through video and through social. So I think all of this converges in the future, where there won't be any major company that isn't behaving like a media company."

See Mark Robertson's post on ReelSEO for more on RAMP's Content Optimzation Platform. Also see Andy Plesser's interview with Tom on Beet.TV where he talk about how companies like CNBC, Thomson Reuters, FOX have implemented the service and OVPs like thePlatform, Brightcove, and YuMe have partnered with hosted solutions.

About RAMP
RAMP is an advanced Content Optimization SaaS platform providing publishers’ workflow, discovery and engagement solutions to drive monetization of online content to users’ search and browsing behavior. RAMP offers publishers an open, flexible and modular capability to optimize large amounts of content, including text, audio, video and images, within dynamic publishing environments. As a result, publishers’ content becomes positioned for discovery and precise targeting, both on search engines and within publishers’ own websites. Users rely on such precision to discover and engage with content, thereby increasing the commercial viability of content for publishers while curtailing publishing costs.
Leading publishers using RAMP include – FOXNews, NBC, DowJones, Meredith, and others. For more information visit: www.RAMP.com, or contact us at info@RAMP.com.

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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Online Video Platform Summit SEO Panel - Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability

Video discovery via search has seen rapid growth over the past few years with the explosive increase in the online video market. But it's not enough to achieve a high Google ranking; making video more discoverable through video search engine optimization (SEO) is key for businesses to maximize visibility, drive traffic to their sites, and reach a targeted audience. Panelists in this session will discuss the importance of increasing user engagement with video SEO-using keywords, metadata, relevant content, media RSS, and video syndication-and social media marketing through demonstration of use-case scenarios.

Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability
Thursday, November 19, 2009 10:30 AM PST

Moderator

Tim Siglin
Chairman
Braintrust Digital

Tim Siglin is a contributing editor for StreamingMedia.com. He serves as Chairman of Braintrust Digital, a digital media production company, and is a co-founder of the go-to-market consulting firm, Transitions, Inc. He has been involved full-time with strategic consulting and digital media integrations fields for almost 20 years. Besides writing as a contributing editor for StreamingMedia.com, Siglin has also recently created a new blog, covering digital media workflows, with emphasis on metadata and online video in the corporate, higher education, web development production industries. The blog can be accessed at www.workflowed.com

Braintrust Digital is a media production and design company specializing in creation and delivery of content through traditional and new media. Braintrust also provides AV integration services for select clients that require high-quality viewing experiences on corporate, religious and educational campuses.

Transitions, Inc. - a business and technology development firm - assists startups and hypergrowth businesses in the financial services, digital media and advertising / marketing industries.

Speakers

Dr. Pete Kocks
President
Truveo

Pete Kocks oversees the ongoing development, growth and operation for Truveo, the leading video search engine. He joined Truveo shortly after the company's founding in 2004. Prior to Truveo, Pete helped launch three software startups in the fields of video surveillance, database monitoring, and application hosting.

At Presidio Technology, he led the development of a distributed video surveillance system with a unique approach to indexing video streams. As CEO and co-founder of BayGate, he led the development of a database monitoring system from inception to deployment in the mission-critical datacenters of dozens of large corporate customers. BayGate was acquired by Portal Software in 2001. As one of the first employees of Digitivity, a startup that developed and brought to market a Java application server, he guided the technical and business relationship with Citrix systems that ultimately led to its acquisition by Citrix in 1998.

Pete holds a doctoral degree from Stanford University where his research focused on systems modeling and computation. He received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Mark Robertson
Founder
ReelSEO

Mark Robertson is the Founder and Creator of ReelSEO.com, The Online Video Marketer's Guide, which provides news, tips and trends on the online video industry and video marketing. Mark speaks regularly at conferences, webinars and industry events sharing his extensive experience in online marketing, particularly in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Mark was previously the Director of Search for Freedom Communications and has worked with many newspaper and broadcast stations for optimization online content.

Lou Schwartz
Chairman and CEO
Multicast Media Technologies, Inc.

Lou Schwartz's vision and leadership have been the driving force behind the growth and success of Multicast, a company that has not only pioneered the way video content is managed, distributed and consumed over the Internet, but has also helped many satisfied clients define winning business models. Since co-founding the company in 2000, Mr. Schwartz has led the organization and its strategic direction.

Prior to launching Multicast, from 1993 to 2000, Mr. Schwartz practiced corporate and securities law guiding numerous companies from the earliest stages of private seed financing through the public offering of securities. While practicing law, Mr. Schwartz completed mergers and acquisitions aggregating in excess of $3 billion. Mr. Schwartz received his bachelor's degree from Pennsylvania State University and law degree from Mississippi College School of Law.

Tom Wilde
CEO
RAMP (formerly EveryZing, Inc.)

Tom Wilde is a widely recognized leader in the field of Internet search and online advertising, and prior to becoming EveryZing’s CEO has held numerous leadership roles in the field including SVP/GM of the Consumer Division at domain portfolio company NameMedia, senior vice president and general manager of MIVA Inc.’s North American division, responsible for both MIVA’s U.S. online advertising network as well as the company’s consumer business, and senior operating roles managing Terra Lycos’ global search & publishing divisions. Tom has also served on the IAB Search Engine Committee and holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Sunday, July 19, 2009

Streaming Media Webinar on July 30th: Video SEO - The "Reel" Story on Getting Your Online Video Discovered

There has been an increasing attention on search engine optimization (SEO) and for marketers it's the best tool for customer acquisition. There's also been a shift in how people discover video and data shows a rise in videos discovered via search engines and a slight decrease of videos discovered on social video sharing sites. According to an eMarkerter report, the spend in US search marketing will reach nearly $23.4 billion by 2013 and "marketers will be spending more on search engine optimization (SEO) than on contextual advertising." Marketers understand that SEO is crucial for their company to achieve a high search ranking in results relevant to their brand, products or services.

In a recent post, I highlighted a presentation by my good friend Mark Robertson, Founder of ReelSEO, about the importance of SEO for video titled, Video + SEO – Not Smoke and Mirrors, Just Best Practices for E-commerce Video Publishing. Videos dominate universal search and the key is "to create unique and valuable content, and to publish that content with best practices for SEO in mind," says Mark. "Nothing works as well for SEO as creating good, unique, and valuable content."

Mark will be sharing his opinions and expertise on video and SEO as a featured speaker along with Marcien Jenckes, Co-President of Grab Networks on an upcoming live Streaming Media Webinar produced by Streaming Media magazine and StreamingMedia.com on July 30, 2009. Register now for this free web event.

Also for more on Video and SEO please read Nico McLane's excellent in depth article, Streamingmedia.com: In Search of Video SEO That Works, in which she says, "we need to break down what VSEO really means, what it looks like, and how to devise an ROI measurement for the effort." According to Nico the secret to good video SEO strategy is in the sauce "but nobody's sharing their recipes." The article first appeared in the June/July 2009 issue of Streaming Media magazine. Click here for your free subscription. And also read Mark's follow up article on ReelSEO, In Search of Video Search Optimization that Works - Beyond the Hype, in which he reached out to Everyzing CEO, Tom Wilde, who also participated in Nico's article for more insight on the subject.

As online video distribution becomes a mainstay in today’s technological world, companies continue to struggle with how to spread video easily and profitably. When done right, video SEO is an effective tool to help achieve that goal. But the right requirements and processes remain unclear, and there are many solutions emerging that claim to be the fix.

Please join online video and search experts as they discuss the “reel” deal when it comes to video SEO. Attendees will learn best practices for optimizing videos for search, including:

Automating metadata extraction and analysis for SEO
The importance of contextual relevance and HTML content
Creating search-worthy URLs, titles, tags, captions and MRSS feeds
Exposing keywords to search engine crawlers automatically
Leveraging search-friendly distribution outlets like YouTube
Available solutions to help you maximize your video SEO efforts

From developing backlinks to automating metadata generation, this webcast will provide you with the know-how to successfully optimize your online videos for search and grow your audience.

MODERATOR

Dan Rayburn
EVP
Streaming Media

PRESENTERS

Marcien Jenckes
Co-President Grab Networks

Mark Robertson
Founder
ReelSeo.com