YouTube is much more than a video site. Google enjoys 63% of the search engine market and of that, YouTube (owned by Google) accounts for 25%. With Yahoo at 11% and Bing at 9%, YouTube is the second largest search engine. It has over 300,000,000 user accounts and is the second largest social media website after Facebook.

YouTube’s search algorithm includes: title, description, tags, number of views, user rating and incoming links. All of these elements can be influenced by either the video producer or the viewer, and will determine the placement in YouTube and Google’s search listings. YouTube and Google absolutely influence each other. The higher your video ranks in Google, the more views it will receive, and the better it will rank on YouTube. The better your video ranks on YouTube, the higher it will rank in Google.

Optimization with Keywords and Meta Data

Google cannot read the content within videos, so you must include as much supportive content as possible. You describe the content by the use of incoming link text (if you link to your video from your website), title tags, description, and any words found on the pages surrounding it. The correct use of keywords is the most important influencer to getting more views on YouTube. Optimize the YouTube page of your video in the same way you would for a regular web page. Make sure that the keywords and text that you use to describe your YouTube videos match the keywords which you want to be ranked on in YouTube’s and Google’s search results.

The title of the video needs to describe the video in as few words as possible. For maximum SEO, place keywords to the left. Treat the tags on your video like you would the meta keywords on your html page. Make sure you repeat the keywords from your title in your description. Include a clickable URL to your website in the first line of the description tag. For each video you post, create unique titles, descriptions and tags, even with similar videos, as this will create “unique” content for the search engines to crawl.

Embed the Video on Your Website

Embed the videos that you host on YouTube onto your own website to optimize ranking. Google’s algorithms takes into account how many times a video has been viewed, and any views from your website will be added to the views on YouTube. Create a separate text-optimized page for each video on your site as the content provided by the text on those pages will help the search engines determine the information contained in your video. If possible, don’t embed multiple videos on one page. This is viewed as duplicate content and hurts the individual ranking of each video. Surround your videos with a descriptions and link to your YouTube page using your keywords.

To Google, the number of links describes popularity and link text describes what the video is really about. One way Google can measure the accuracy of your content claims is by evaluate the link text used to describe your video. Not only the number of links but the quality of theses links matter to Google. Websites with high page ranking that link to your video will positively impact your ranking.

Thumbnails, Branding and Call to Action

Make sure to consider the thumbnails of your video. YouTube pulls thumbnails from the 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 marks of your video. Having a strong, attractive thumbnail will motivate the user to choose your video over the others. Remember first impressions count. Open your video with a title, logo and URL. Also consider using constant in-video branding and a call to action throughout the entire video. Keep in mind that YouTube watermarks the bottom right corner with their logo don’t use that area for branding. Close with a slide 10 seconds long with the same information that you used at the opening of your video to  remind the viewer of your brand and URL.

Use Subtitles and Captioning on Videos

Captions and subtitles make videos accessible to a wider audience. It’s optional but strongly encouraged to make your videos available to as many people as possible. “Google believes that the world of information must be accessible to all,” said vice-president of Google, Vint Cerf, 66, who has used a hearing aid since age 13. Captions are in the same language as the video’s audio track, and subtitles are in a different language. Also utilize the annotation feature to highlight certain areas of your video.

Social Networking and Video

After your video has been posted, embedded, and optimized, you need to place it where people will see it, and hopefully circulate it through their networks. Encourage participation by enabling all the features on YouTube. Ratings and comments will help with search ranking so be sure to enable these features. Another way to increase traffic to your video is by using the share link underneath the video. You can post to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, and StumbleUpon. You can also copy the link to share on IM or email.

If you have more than one video, create a channel. It is a public page on YouTube that you can brand with your colours and a background image containing your logo, URL and other information. Here you can create playlists, favourite videos, and subscribe to other channels. This will help to create a community around your videos, where people can subscribe, comment, and view your subscriptions and favourites.

As with any other social media on the web, you need to get involved by commenting on others videos, replying back to comments, and posting video replies to popular videos. If people like what you have to say they will follow your link back to your video channel.

YouTube has a enormous presence on the Internet and is very closely tied to Google. Make sure you put as much attention into optimizing your video content as you would any other online content. The proper optimization will make sure your video is accessible to the largest audience possible.

Take some time to investigate landing pages and you’ll see that close to 100% of results will be talking about using stand alone web pages to drive conversions coming from email or sponsored listings. The purpose of these landing pages is to “Buy Today!” and “Sign Up Now!” –  to convert every visitor into a buyer. Often these pages don’t even link to the main website. Its entire reason to exist is to sell.

I want to talk about the other kind of landing page – the kind that is built for search engines. The purpose of these pages is to earn a high organic ranking for a specific product or service. This gets you click throughs from organic search engine results that lead directly to your website.

Because Landing Page Topics are Targeted, They Rank Well

Imagine you run a hair salon and under your “Services” page you list all the cuts and styles you specialize in. This serves you fine for customers looking for “Hair Salon Services” as their search terms. But what about people searching on “up do” for their upcoming formal event? If you have a page dedicated to everything you’d ever want to know about up do’s, you have a shot at pulling in those customers.

This is what the experts mean when they say Google loves great content. Position yourself as an expert, not through empty claims, but by informing the world about your knowledge area.

You Can’t Cheat The Keywords

You can throw as many keywords as you want into a random paragraph in the footer of your website but Google sees you. Google looks at the context around your keywords and when it sees a full page dedicated to useful original content on one keyword topic it says, “Hot damn! That’s what I’m talking about!” A well written landing page will always outrank a keyword storm.

Don’t Forget About Making the Sell

Just because the purpose of our landing pages is to inform (and therefore rank) doesn’t mean they doesn’t have to sell as well. Your landing pages need to include call outs about buying the product or service from you. Putting these in the sidebar is ideal. The up do page for our hair salon could have call outs like, “Up Do’s in Only 1 Hour”, “Call Us Today”, “Walk Ins Welcome”, or “Call For a Free Consultation”.

Other Uses: Landing Pages for PR and Social Media Campaigns

Try writing a landing page on a high profile project or client and create online buzz by driving traffic to it from your PR and social media campaigns. Not only can the page rank for your keywords, but it gives you more content to Tweet and Facebook about!

You, The Expert

Remember, it’s not so much about ranking on page 1 of Google or converting every visit into a sale. It’s all part of the bigger marketing build. You want to show every visitor that YOU are the industry expert, the go-to guy, the one to watch. Landing pages show the world why you are an industry God and why everyone else is just a hack.

It’s a fact: consumers use search engines to research on and offline purchases.

Approximately 87% of online Canadians use search and 13% of North American Internet users report frequently clicking on sponsored listings.

Search engine marketing is hands down the most successful method of online advertising. For one simple reason: you are advertising your product or service to people who are actively looking for your product or service. Display ads, online sponsorship, or email campaigns simply do not have the same targeted consumer synergy.

What are sponsored listings?

Sponsored listings are keyword driven cost per click ads that run down the right hand side of search engine results. You can also find them at the very top of the search page. These listing have been paid for by organizations seeking click throughs. Ads are displayed based on the keywords entered into the search engine and the position of the ad is determined by the “bid” made for the ad. Organizations determine how much they want to spend per day on ads and their sponsored listing is displayed until the click throughs spend the daily budget. Then the ads stop until the next day.

We know from experience using search engine marketing for our clients that, even with a small budget, website traffic increases of 25% or more can be obtained as a direct result of sponsored listings.

Why sponsored listings work

I often hear clients say that they never click on sponsored listings because they think of them as spam. I say one person’s spam is another person’s treasure.

Sponsored listings work because you are providing a relevant link to a relevant site directly to the people searching for it. I want to buy a widget and look, ABC company is advertising widgets for sale! What organizations need to realize is that often the search results in the sponsored listings are more relevant to the user than the organic search results.

For example, let’s say I’m looking to buy a how to book on Photoshop. I type “photoshop book” into Google. The organic results are very specific – they list titles of books about Photoshop. In the sponsored listings, however, I see a link to the “Computer Books” section of Chapters/Indigo. I suddenly consider that I’d like to see a listing of all the books on the topic from a reputable source and I don’t want to click through the Google results one by one. I decide to check out the Chapters page. See how it got me?

SEM for SEO – 2 birds, really effective stone.

But wait, there’s more. Running a sponsored listings campaign can improve your organic results (SEO). What’s that, you say?

That’s right. Google tracks everything. If, for example, the majority of users looking for “photoshop book” click on the Chapters ad instead of anything in the page 1 organic listings, Google will start ranking the computer book page for Chapters higher in the organic listings, maybe eventually even on page 1. Why? Remember that Google’s mission is to provide the best search results. Period. And if users are telling Google that the Chapters page is more useful to them than the other results, Google will pay attention.

Google also tracks how long users stay on the clicked through sites, so it’s not enough to send users to your site – it needs to be engaging when they get there or Google won’t increase your ranking!

Avoid the Fire and Forget

The biggest mistake people make with their search engine marketing is they set their keywords, write their ad and let it run as is for months.

The key to successful search campaigns is optimization. Write multiple ads for one campaign and check back to see which one is outperforming the rest. Once identified, test variations of it to figure out what messaging specifically is making it successful. See if similar messaging works for your other campaigns.

Tie your ads to an action and make sure to send them to a page that offers that action, like Start Search Today!

SEM is a marketing priority

Search engine marketing is so effective, it’s the one piece of advertising we insist on for our clients. We simply don’t allow them to make the investment into a new website without the commitment to drive sales through it using a search campaign.

It’s just that good.

The brand is the heart and soul of the company. It describes who you are, what you do and how you do it. It’s important that the entire team work in unison to present the brand consistently across all marketing channels.

Having and following a Brand Manual will help build both brand equity and awareness. It will explain the message of the brand, helping to express your company’s culture and character. This will result in greater control of its representation in the market.

When dealing with marketers, advertisers, designers, photographers and printers, the brand manual will ensure that they fully understand your message. You will avoid inappropriate use and positioning of logos, careless handling of style elements, incorrect colours, and an inconsistent message. It will safeguard the true design and character of your brand.

Elements a Brand Manual address are:

• Brand description – The story and values of your company and brand.
• Logo – A visual list of the proper usage of the brand and logo. Placement and sizing should remain consistent within each communication vehicle (e.g., website, email campaigns, stationary, brochures, etc.)
• Tone – It’s what you say and how you say it. Are you straightforward and reassuring or cheeky and playful?
• Color – Colour plays a large role in memory retrieval and increases brand recognition. You want to make sure that a consistent colour palette is used.
• Images – The look and feel of all images should be similar in style and support the brand positioning. Does the brand utilize photographs or illustrations?
• Typography – A description of what fonts are used in, how often, and in what contexts.

Using a Brand Manual will protect the consistency of your brand, improve customer confidence, increase your profile and enhance your competitive advantage. You will spend less time worrying about the details, giving you more time to focus on the big picture.

The main objective of a logo is to be instantly recognizable, inspire trust, gain loyalty and to position an implied superiority. It is one aspect of your company’s brand and must be relevant but strikingly unique from other logo’s in the same market niche.

Key considerations for your logo;

Simplicity

Your logo should make a statement about your company, starting with a concept. The simpler the logo the easier the intended message will be to communicate. Your logo can have some detailed features but it should be simple enough to make a quick and powerful impression.

Remarkable

Your logo can strengthen your company’s image and give you an advantage over the competition. Distinctive features are necessary to construct a logo that people will remember, and engage your audience. When viewing your logo you want future customers to quickly recognize it, comprehend your message and distinguish you from the competition, most importantly, they should remember you.

Flexible

Your logo should work across a variety of media such as web sites and in various printed applications. For this reason a logo should be designed and supplied in vector format, to ensure that it can be scaled to any size. The logo should work both in horizontal and vertical formats.

Colour

Colour has a strong emotional effect on people because of association. For example green is associated with the environment as well as associated with sickness and green with red indicates Christmas. You want to make sure you have the appropriate color and shade to reinforce your message.

The next time a customer needs your kind of business, your company will be chosen because of it’s brand recognition.