How to 2x Your Traffic This Year with Video SEO

Loren Baker https://www.searchenginejournal.com/2x-traffic-video-seo/234075/

THINKTANK WEBINAR·YOUTUBE

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January 29, 2018

Video is the massive untapped opportunity in 2018.

We’ve seen how video traffic has grown in recent years and according to industry studies, it is expected to flourish even more.

Cisco predicts that by 2021 about 80 percent of global Internet consumption will be video content, and from 2016 to 2021, global Internet video traffic will increase threefold.

Now is the right time to incorporate video to your brand’s SEO and content strategy.

Optimize your content for the world’s second largest search engine – YouTube.

There is so much potential for video SEO this year.

On January 24, I had the opportunity to moderate a sponsored SEJThinkTank webinar presented by Clayton Johnson, CMO at The HOTH. Johnson discussed how brands can start taking advantage of video in 2018.

Here is a recap of the webinar presentation.

Video Optimization: Why You Should Care

All these years you’ve worked hard on your website, creating a wealth of awesome content in order to rank in Google.

However, competition is fierce in the world’s largest search engine.

Ranking on Page 1 – let alone in Position 1 – of Google’s SERPs is extremely difficult.

Not all your articles will rank well on Google.

By keeping them as is, you’re essentially letting them go to waste.

To maximize the articles you already have, you just need to turn your content into videos and publish them on YouTube.

The popular video-sharing platform has an active worldwide user base of more than 1 billion, an immense market that’s worth investing into.

If you do video optimization right, you’re going to get great results from YouTube. You don’t need to have killer rankings as most of the traffic is from browsing and recommended videos.

Your 3 Video Optimization Goals

• Ranking in Google with videos.
• Ranking in YouTube via YouTube search.
• Getting suggested in YouTube.

How Video SEO on YouTube Works

Approaching video SEO on YouTube is a bit different than regular SEO on Google and other search engines. YouTube knows all the metrics and indicators of good content.

The goal is to keep people on the site, and if you do that, YouTube will promote you for free if you get your optimization right.

Video SEO: Things You Need to Do

1. Find Video Topics

Here are the top three ways to come up with a shortlist of video topics:

• Take existing content you already have and turn it into videos.This is the easiest win because you already have the content. Get a list of your top performing blog posts in terms of interaction and repurpose them into video.
• Analyze your competitors. The idea here is to look for competing channels, find what topics they are covering, and model that.
• Take your ideas and run them through YouTube autocomplete.YouTube will provide the most relevant topic ideas.

2. Get More out of Every Video You Create

YouTube looks at a lot of factors in determining a quality video. However, the most important ones are:

• Watch time.
• Engagement.

YouTube’s goal is to keep people on the site – so the longer you keep people on, engaged, and watching videos, the better.

Tips for Getting People to Watch

• Make sure to create a good title, description, and thumbnail to encourage viewers to click and watch your video.
• Focus on high CTR headlines – intriguing headlines that match with highly searched topics – and use bold colors on your video thumbnail.
• The first 15 seconds of your video has to be awesome to keep the viewer engaged. Make sure to hook your viewers in. Provide a preview or a teaser of what the video is about.

How to Keep Users Engaged

• At the end of the video, ask them to comment, like, and subscribe.
• Use cards to promote CTAs as well as other videos and playlists.
• Add an end screen to promote more videos or playlists on your channel.

3. Easy Video Optimization for More Traffic

Studies show that there isn’t as much correlation between keywords and actual rankings within YouTube. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t optimize for keywords.

Even though it may mean less for rankings, it still matters for understanding what the video is about and relevancy. Keywords should be on your video’s upload filename, title, and description.

Most channel traffic will come from YouTube’s Suggested Videos on the right sidebar, and this is where you want your videos to show up. In order to get there, make sure to maximize your video tags.

How to Optimize with Tags

• Use browser plugins such as Tube Buddy or vidIQ.
• Search your main keywords, find the videos ranking, and take note of the tags they are using.
• When you’re setting up your YouTube video, vidIQ will suggest relevant tags from other popular videos.

4. Multiply Your Reach with Video Promotion

You need to promote your YouTube video right after publishing it. This can help increase view velocity, which will help your video to show up more on search.

YouTube Video Promotions Tips

• Email it to your list
• Push to social media
• Embed in your blog
• Paid traffic

Video Production Challenges & Solutions

Producing Videos Isn’t as Easy as It Sounds

It can be really expensive to produce videos in-house. Industry standards can even reach up to $1,000 per video minute.

An HD camera can also cost thousands – let alone lights, studio, actors, editing, editing software.

On top of that, there’s the simple fact that most people don’t want to be on camera.

Helpful Video Production Solutions

If you don’t have the time or resources to produce videos in-house, you may want to consider outsourcing this to service providers specializing in this area.

You can also check out solutions such as HOTH Video.

HOTH Video takes your blog content and turns it into high-quality, engaging videos.

How It Works

1. Come to The HOTH’s website and provide your seed content.
2. A professional scriptwriting team will edit your content into a video script.
3. The team will shoot an HD-quality video of a professional actor in a studio with your script.
4. Professional b-roll and title cards will also be added.
5. The final cut version, as well as the YouTube description, will be sent to you ready for upload.

Key Takeaways

• Optimizing for YouTube is fairly simple compared to the long process it takes when optimizing for Google. YouTube will even promote your video content for free if you optimize it right.
• About 25 percent of Google searches have at least one video in them, so you can also rank in the SERPs with your optimized YouTube video.
• When looking for video topics, you can take easy wins. Just turn your best content into videos.
• During the video creation process, remember that it’s important to keep watch time and engagement up.
• Make sure to use tags if you want to get into Suggested Videos, where most of the traffic is
• Multiply your video’s reach by promoting on your blog, email, social, and paid search.

Video Recap: Video SEO: How to Double Your Traffic This Year with YouTube & Video SEO

Watch the video recap of the webinar presentation and Q&A below.

Watch the video recap of the webinar presentation and Q&A below.

Check out the SlideShare of the presentation as well.

Video SEO: How to Double Your Traffic This Year with YouTube & Video SEO from Search Engine Journal.

Taking your business global using market Finder

https://blog.google/topics/small-business/taking-your-business-global-just-got-easier-market-finder/

SMALL BUSINESS

Taking your business global just got easier with Market Finder

Marco Giorgini

Product Marketing Manager

Published Nov 1, 2017

Thanks to global e-commerce, there have never been so many opportunities available to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). However, there are also challenges in the global market. Reports show that though exports provide an average of GBP £287,000 (the equivalent of about $350,000) in extra revenue to UK businesses, SME owners who haven’t exported to a new market still don’t know where to start.

SME owners are experts when it comes to local customers, but are less knowledgeable about finding new markets and everything that entails: culture, buying trends, export legalities, and payment options for their product in other countries. This is a key problem; our 2017 consumer survey shows that UK SMEs cite international marketing and operational barriers as the biggest barriers to success abroad.

Today, we’re announcing Market Finder, a new tool that helps businesses identify new customers, plan for success, and grow their export sales online. It also offers freely available guides, videos, and tips—making it as easy as possible for businesses to take the first steps into the export market.

Step 1: Finding the best markets for your business: Once you enter your website into the Market Finder tool, it will suggest which export markets are best for your product or service. It shows the number of monthly Google searches for your product as well as a potential market’s gross domestic product. Market Finder analyzes consumer internet use, demographics and disposable income, giving clear indicators and valuable insights into a market’s growth potential.

Step 2: Preparing your business for a global market: Market Finder sets you up for international success by getting you export-ready. Extensive localization tools, guides and tips show how to communicate effectively to a new market, whether it’s language, customs or preferred payment methods. Logistics resources outline the rules of international delivery and transportation for your chosen market. Payment guides explore the many payment options available globally—and pinpoint which ones are best for each market.

Step 3: Getting your business in front of customers: Market Finder provides training resources on digital marketing to ensure that users looking for your business can find it. For instance, it shows how to create AdWords campaigns that are effective and geared to your chosen market through a series of accessible case studies, guides and videos.

Market Finder was launched at a Google event today, where Greg Hands, Minister of State for Trade Policy, representatives from the London School of Economics, the UK Federation of Small Businesses, and Google discussed how Market Finder facilitates exporting products and services to new regions for small businesses.

Greg Hands emphasized the importance of digital technology in reaching global customers: “Today, 3.7 billion people are online around the globe, so every business, no matter how small, should be going digital to reach new customers around the world. The new Market Finder tool is just one part of the huge range of support we offer as an international economic department, so British companies can seize on exporting opportunities and make the UK a global trading nation.”

Chris McDonald, Enterprise and Innovation Chair at the Federation of Small Businesses, spoke about the need for a stronger focus on exports in the UK: "Digital innovation is blurring the distinction between goods and services. By fully exploiting new digital technologies such as Google’s Markets Finder, more small firms can compete effectively in the global market, with no business too small to export."

4 key principles of marketing strategy for your business

Here Brian Tracey explains the 4 key marketing strategies fro business.
Including:

• How do I get customers? 
• How do I determine my target markets? 
• What's my competitive advantage? 

If you run a small business, you need to know this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZLMv5aexto&t=332s

I cam across this brilliant article on SEO today:
https://www.copyblogger.com/seo-still-matters/
Written by JEROD MORRIS | July 25, 2017 | 23 COMMENTS

3 Important SEO Steps to Take Right Away

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What if we’re thinking about SEO all wrong?

You won’t be shocked to see such a question posed on this site — one that harbors posts in its archive with headlines like SEO is Dead and What if You Could Simply Eliminate SEO from Your Life?

Don’t get me wrong: we’re not anti-SEO.

Heck, we were recently awarded a U.S. patent for the Content Optimizer we developed that now powers the SEO tools bundled with our premium WordPress hosting.

We’re just anti some of the misguided notions and incomplete narratives about SEO that masquerade as good advice.

And one of the most fundamental mistakes I see people make is not fully appreciating the full breadth of each of the three terms that comprise S-E-O: Search. Engine. Optimization.

Notice the placement of that first period after “Search.”

It’s time to think beyond traditional notions of “search engines”

It’s easy to group the terms “search” and “engine” together. And for a long, long time, it made sense to do so.

When we used to discuss “search engine optimization,” we were mostly talking about searches typed into Google, perhaps Bing, or (going back further) Yahoo.

But now it’s 2017.

The new search

Gone are the days of only typed searches. People now conduct more and more searches with voice commands. A recent article on Forbes, 2017 Will Be the Year of Voice Search, makes a compelling case.

And who knows what will happen when we all have chips implanted in our brains that can read our thoughts. We might just be able to think our search and get results via the screens on our contact lenses. 

Bottom line: our notion of “search” is changing.

The new engine

Gone, too, are the days of Google being the be-all and end-all as an engine for search.

YouTube has long been hailed as “the world’s second-most popular search engine.” If you’re producing videos, they need to surface for relevant searches on YouTube.

The same concept applies to Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes). You better believe I thought long and hard about my optimization strategy for the world’s most popular podcast search engine when I launched this show recently.

And think about how many searches Facebook must be getting these days. Even Twitter too. Your social posts are one step removed from your website content … but still one step closer than the person searching was a few seconds prior.

Bottom line: our notion of which “engines” are worth our time to target is changing.

And let’s not forget about optimization

It’s still critical:

You need to structure and deliver your content in such a way that allrelevant engines will be able to locate it, understand it, and serve it up in that critical moment of high-impulse and action-oriented curiosity when people perform searches for relevant terms.

And while there are always subtle tweaks you can make to improve your chances of ranking higher based on the particular algorithms each engine uses, many of the factors different engines use are generally quite similar.

So your goal, as a content creator, is simply to make your content as optimized for being found in relevant engines for as many different types of search inputs as you can.

That is search engine optimization on the modern and future web.

And if you’re thinking about SEO in any other way, you’re making a critical mistake.

SEO still matters

You’re also making a critical mistake if you’ve started to believe that SEO no longer matters. It does. Perhaps even more so, and in a more wide range of ways than before.

And it will matter for as far out on the horizon of the internet as I can see.

In some form or fashion, it probably always will — which is why continuing to hone your SEO skills is so important.

So, let’s discuss three critical (but pretty simple) steps you can take right away to improve each of the three elements of your SEO practice.

These are steps that will help you maintain a smart, consistent SEO practice that delivers reliable results into the future.

Step #1: Listen (carefully) to your audience

The first step — which relates to search — is to make sure you actively work to understand the language your ideal audience uses.

That is how you ensure your content has as good a chance at surfacing for text-based searches as it does for spoken searches and, eventually, for thought searches.

Certainly, using tools to search Google’s keyword database is helpful.

For example, the Content Optimizer tool that is built into StudioPress Sites, which I mentioned earlier, can help. This type of analysis provides a valuable window into the terms and phrases people actually search for when looking for content related to your topic.

But remember: this is just one context.

What about when people talk about your topic? What about when they ask casual questions?

This is where social media can be a great listening tool. This is where going to meetups and talking to real people in person can be helpful. This is where free-response audience surveys can provide great insights.

True masters of search engine optimization are masters of listening and empathy.

When you know how your ideal audience talks about your topic, and what kinds of questions are most pressing, you have the knowledge you need to create titles, subject lines, and body content that will be relevant for a wide variety of different semantic contexts.

I know you’re a content creator. Starting today, be an even more active listener than you already are.

Step #2: Focus on more engines

The second step you should take is to brainstorm all the different engines where people may be looking for the type of content you create … and then figure out a way to get yourself into a new one.

For example, consider YouTube. Do you have any videos uploaded to YouTube that answer the kinds of questions that a subset of your ideal audience is almost surely typing into YouTube?

If not, get one in there.

Seriously, start with just one. Do it as an experiment.

The production doesn’t need to be complex. Just take a portion of a blog post and turn it into some text and basic imagery that has a voiceover or background music. If you want some help doing this, check out a site like Lumen5.

Then choose your title wisely and provide a useful description, so that YouTube will know what your video is about and display it in results for relevant searches.

Try it out and see what happens. Then keep identifying new engines where you can add your content.

Step #3: Make sure your website is search-friendly

The third step you should take, which will help immensely with your optimization, is to make sure your website has the most solid foundation it possibly can.

Because when it comes to any search context (text or voice), and when it comes to any engine that may deliver your website as a result (think Google or Bing, but also social media), you need to make sure the hosting and design infrastructures of your site have all the basic elements in place:

• Your site needs to load fast — a factor that actually influences several different ranking factors because of how it impacts a visitor’s experience.
• Your site needs to be mobile-responsive (or even mobile-first).
• Your site needs to be safe and secure.
• Your site needs to be coded clearly and cleanly.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

It’s not just about the words on the page. It’s also about every single element of the page that will impact the experience that search engine robots and real-life visitors will have on that page.

That is why, for example, StudioPress Sites was built to be fast and secure.

And that is why, for example, the Genesis framework was built to be mobile-responsive and as clean as possible, in terms of code.

I chose those as examples because I use them for my personal websites. And sure, I work for the company who makes them, so that’s easy for me to do. 

But I am a serious website owner. My side projects are important to me. If I thought I was compromising my site’s optimization just to use Genesis themes or StudioPress for hosting, I wouldn’t.

Take this opportunity to review your current theme framework and hosting. Double-check you aren’t making any optimization tradeoffs either.

A question for you

So there you have it.

We discussed the critical shift in your SEO mindset that you should make right away, which will help you get better results today and well into the future.

And we’ve discussed three steps you can take immediately to put that new mindset into practice:

1. Search: Listen better and empathize more.
2. Engine: Identify new engines where your content should appear.
3. Optimization: Make sure your hosting and website design have a solid foundation.

So, the question is …

Now that you’re motivated by your fresh, new mindset, which step will you implement first?

Comment below.

Perhaps the public proclamation of your intention will inspire you to actually put it into action. 

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FILED UNDER: Search, StudioPress Sites

AUTHOR

Jerod Morris 

Jerod Morris is the VP of Marketing for Rainmaker Digital. He manages ongoing education at Digital Commerce Instituteand also hosts The Showrunner 

Don't start online marketing until you're read this beginner's guide!

A Beginner’s Guide to Internet Marketing

• EMAIL
• FACEBOOK
• LINKEDIN
• TWITTER
• REDDIT
• GOOGLE+
• POCKET

You still can’t get a degree in Internet marketing — but it’s a crucial skill for early startup success.

“The Valley skill set that should be in highest demand and greatest scarcity is neither engineering nor design, but rather internet marketing.” – Dave McClure ranting about what startups are missing.

Makes a lot of sense, right? Internet marketing has only been around for a little over 15 years while design and engineering have been around for far longer. Given the relative infancy of Internet marketing, there still isn’t a solid training/education available. That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of information out there — you just need to be able to find the right resources by filtering through a lot of noise on the net.

Where To Start

The hardest part about doing things is starting. Internet marketing is no exception. The trouble in this space is that there are a lot of people writing content for the sake of gaining search engine rankings or for quick affiliate marketing wins.

The big takeaway with learning Internet marketing today is being able to discern signal from noise — getting the right information from the right people and taking action on it. I’m going to cover the areas that I think are most important in Internet marketing below as well as link to one blog that you should be reading if you want to learn more about it. I’m only linking to one blog for each category so you can focus on that blog and not get overwhelmed.

Blogs To Read

SEO

Organic search (SEO) is still the top growth channel in most cases today. It takes the most time and effort, but if you can execute well it brings the most long-term value.

One blog for SEO: Moz Blog – on top of having “The Beginner’s Guide to SEO,” the Moz blog has a lot of advanced SEO tips plus a helpful video series every Friday called Whiteboard Friday.

PPC

Pay-per-click (PPC) has evolved quite a bit from just text link ads in search results. Now there’s access to social ads, retargeting, video ads and much more. It might seem overwhelming, but if you have the basics down for AdWords, you should be able to transition into other forms of pay per click.

One blog for PPC: PPC Hero – PPC Hero has great how-to posts that provide lots of utility to the reader — their popular posts are a good place to start. They also have a series of guides and whitepapers. Bonus: I also recommend Brad Gedde’s Advanced Guide to Google AdWords. You can either pick up his book or the video training.

Analytics

If you’re not looking at the numbers, you’re not going to get anywhere. Average order value? Bounce rate? Engagement? Traffic? Conversion Rates? All inside your analytics.

If you’re at a tech startup, you’ll probably be paying attention to lifetime value, churn and more.

One blog for analytics: Occam’s Razor – Avinash Kaushik is the Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google and really knows analytics. Most of his blog is Google Analytics related, but it’s great for anyone that is just starting out.

Email

Email is still one of the best acquisition channels today. Just think about it — it’s essentially the world’s biggest social network.

One blog for email:  E-mail Institute – Includes a plethora of email marketing best practice tips.

Copywriting

Writing great headlines is one of the easiest ways to generate more click-throughs and eventually more conversions.

One blog for copywriting: Copyblogger – Great for improving your copywriting skills. Take a look at the headlines for their posts and try to mold them into your own. They say that the headline is worth $.80 of the $1 you spend on your content because if people don’t click on it, your content is almost worthless.

Social Media

At the end of the day, social media is all about connecting with people that care about what you do. There’s new platforms coming out every year and it’s hard to keep up with what’s going on.

One blog for Social Media: Social Media Examiner – Provides valuable, actionable social media posts to emulate.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a new buzzword but the practice has been around for ages. The short explanation is that content that brings utility to your readers helps build brand awareness, likability, trust and more. Like SEO, content marketing takes a lot of time, money and effort to see results but it compounds over time.

One blog for content marketing: Content Marketing Institute – Up-to-date tips and tricks on doing content marketing effectively.

Startup Marketing

Startup marketing is a different beast from typical marketing. It’s very metrics driven and requires a lot of testing through different channels. It’s also a different mindset because there’s a finite amount of time to hit numbers. Most startups need full-stack marketers (re: growth hackers) to help with growth but there unfortunately aren’t many around today. You’ll also learn about customer development, product market fit and driving growth with little to no budget.

One blog for startup marketing: Startup Marketing – Sean Ellis’ blog covers a lot of these different topics well. You’ll also want to note that he’s now blogging on the Qualaroo blog (his startup).

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketers are sometimes seen as shady, untrustworthy marketers, but I have found that untrue. They’re actually some of the most creative marketers because they tend to just make things happen by doing anything it takes to get the job done. Learning how to do affiliate marketing is just one piece of the puzzle. If you’re trying to grow a startup and you start an affiliate program, you’ll need to learn the ins and outs of managing an affiliate program.

One blog for affiliate marketing: Affiliate Marketing Navigator – Geno Prussakov’s blog on affiliate marketing. He’s a leader in the affiliate marketing space and has written a highly rated affiliate program management book.

Video

Let’s look at some YouTube stats since it is the world’s second-largest search engine:

• 600 million views come from mobile devices every day
• 500 years of YouTube video are viewed on Facebook every day. 700 YouTube videos are shared each minute on Twitter.
• Over 800 million unique visits to YouTube each month

Video will continue to grow as people shift more of their attention online. It’s a good idea to get in now while it’s still the Wild West.

One blog for video: ReelSEO – For video advertising and YouTube tricks.

Start Out With One Channel

Clearly, there are a lot of channels and a ton of information to dive into, so here’s my recommendation on how to actually get started: Choose the topic that you find most interesting and dedicate your time to it. Don’t spread yourself thin.

For example, I started off with SEO and created a few websites to test out different strategies/tactics. Once I started getting a hang of it, I tried running some affiliate marketing campaigns. One thing led to another and I was eventually helping large publishing sites and Fortune 500 companies with SEO.

But that wasn’t enough. I decided that I needed to branch out into other online marketing areas so I could become a well rounded marketer. So I picked up PPC. I learned more about Analytics. Then I learned how to do social media effectively. Then I layered on copywriting and so on.

Keep Learning

A good full-stack marketer understands that they need to keep learning because things move so quickly in the Internet world. Become complacent and you’ll quickly become average. Keep testing, keep reading, keep asking questions.

Although I wanted to keep the number of blogs recommended to one per channel above, I felt that it would be helpful if I shared some of my other favorite sites:

• David Skok’s Entrepreneurship blog – Posts on growing a SaaS companies, includes great metrics.
• Quicksprout – The blog of KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg co-founder Neil Patel. He covers topics from entrepreneurship to Internet marketing. He also has created some exceptional free ‘advanced online marketing guides’.
• KISSmetrics blog – Widely viewed as a the best all-around online marketing blog.
• Inbound.org – The Hacker News of Internet marketing. A good place to find the latest information.
• And if there’s one post you need to read on acquiring customers, it’s Paul Graham’s essay on doing unscalable things to grow your business.

There’s a lot of information about Internet marketing online and it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to learn everything at once. Start small and then branch out into other areas. Don’t be afraid to take risks every once in a while and you’ll be well on your way into becoming a full-stack marketer.

To me, a full-stack marketer is a growth hacker. But that’s up for debate since there are multiple interpretations about what a growth hacker actually is and isn’t. What do you think?

https://businesscollective.com/a-beginners-guide-to-internet-marketing/ 

A version of the post originally appeared on the author’s blog. 

SEE ALSO:How to Recruit Top Talent in a Tech Startup