Implementing Mobile Video SEO

Optimizing for mobile video requires not only encoding your video correctly on mobile pages, but also using traditional SEO best practices for video. As mentioned in my previous post, encoding should ideally be done with H.264 — though WebM and Theora are also options — and accompanied by an appropriate audio codec like Vorbis, MP3, or AAC.

Don’t forget the responsible task list for pairing multimedia with mobile SEO:

• Asset hosting
• Keyword research
• Optimized title tags
• Compelling copy
• Actionable meta data
• Unique URLs
• Mobile HTML declarations
• Video sitemap
• Transcript files

Just as important for ranking video/video pages for your content is the ability to leverage your canonical site to boost visibility that will, in turn, provide ideal positioning for mobile searchers. This can be accomplished by first applying SEO to your canonical, main domain pages (designed primarily for desktop/laptop browser access). There are two options for leveraging these:

1. Via user detection that sends the visiting mobile device a “mobilized” CSS, which reorganizes the canonical page for a smaller screen and input type
2. Via user/browser detection that sends the visiting mobile device to an equivalent mobile site page specifically optimized for mobile accessibility

If resources are tight, the former is usually a more cost-effective means of presenting ideal page layouts to mobile users, but the latter is the best option if you can manage to fit it into your budget.

Since mobile devices are usually accessing the site on a slower, bandwidth-constrained network, serving handheld CSS to these devices doesn’t necessary offer a faster, more optimized experience if there are large images, gobs of JavaScript, and excessive text not ideal for a small screen.

If the latter is taken, equivalent mobile pages should, in turn, reflect the content (including video) of the canonical, main site page with a focus on compressing images, eliminating unused JavaScript, and trimming down excess text.

A Rundown Of Usage

Let’s say you choose option #1. Your development team will program user agent/browser detection on the bigger, desktop-optimized versions of your site (that rank based on past and current SEO efforts) to redirect mobile searchers to the equivalent mobile pages. Additionally, all mobile pages should have a canonical tag pointing the equivalent desktop page, and each mobile page should also detect desktop browsers and direct them to the bigger, canonical site.

This strategy guarantees an elimination of duplicate content while providing ideal user experiences for both desktop users and mobile users. If your site is exclusively mobile, it’s as simple as keeping your video encoded with H.264 and respective audio codecs.

If you’re juggling a canonical, desktop-size site and a mobile site, it’s best to cater to the widest audience possible — and that includes browsers not capable of HTML5 video and only Flash. Camen Design gives an excellent overview of how to address video for browser users of all types, and provides robust example code.

As mobile usage and video consumption grows, the more important their fusion becomes; and SEO continues to be the most effective way to bring visitors to that content.

Note:

There recently has been heated discussion (and a fair amount of hair-ringing) from Google’s announcement about dropping support for H.264 from its Chrome browser, instead opting for the WebM multimedia container format.

This change could delay forecasting and planning for the future of mobile video because so much of the Web has prepared for the coming of HTML5 and chosen to use H.264 as the codec of choice for some kind of standardization since many modern browsers supported it, but not WebM.

The reason they’ve done this is most likely due to the codec’s ability to take advantage of hardware decoders, accelerating performance on mobile platforms and optimizing device battery life.

Since so many developers have chosen H.264 — even Google’s own YouTube uses the codec inside a Flash container — the call to change to WebM may not be greeted by developers with open arms even if it is technically more open standard, because their workload would increase: they would need to code their videos three times, one in Theora for Firefox, and so on.

What about mobile video consumption on these devices? Huge. Mobile video is used by approximately 11% of global online consumers according to Nielsen’s report in August. Rhythm NewMedia’s key mobile video findings for Q3 2010 saw video retention on mobile devices higher (at 94% in the first ten seconds) than traditional online video (81%). Even full episode viewing on mobile devices grew 20%.

But mobile video isn’t all peachy. Devices and operating systems are splintered. Technological capabilities are splintered. Yet the conflict isn’t between devices—it’s an accessibility conflict. And your mobile video SEO efforts are detrimentally affected by the technical accessibility of these increasingly popular, powerful platforms. Video via websites won’t work on dumbphones, and it won’t work on previous generations of smartphones. It works on modern platforms with modern browsers, and the users you’ll find there are the users you want seeing your video content. According to the latest numbers, there are droves of these users and they’re hungry for content.

From Containers To Conduits

The last couple years have seen a heroic change in the way video is handled across websites. For a long time, the best method of getting video to a viewer’s screen was to put it inside of a run-time environment. Flash emerged as the preferred technology to do this, and its use as a plug-in to browsers has helped shape both the advertising and media industries on the web. But the proliferation of powerful web-browsing mobile devices has changed the situation, and has prompted an entirely new era for media consumption.

While the largest video hosting services are serving video through both a Flash container and via native HTML5 video, if you choose to leverage Flash, Silverlight, or a third-party video service independently, you need to ensure there is an alternative method of viewing the video in a container appropriate for video. Certain platforms are working with Adobe to improve the Flash experience on their devices, but the initial results aren’t promising, and can be even more frustrating for your visitors than is necessary. If you plan on providing video assets for mobile traffic you need to consider the bulletproof standards.

Consider the original call to action for video presentation change across so many high-profile sites: the iOS’s native browser, Safari. For reasons that don’t necessarily need to be addressed here, Apple refrained from supporting Flash in its mobile browser. But its browser, and its Webkit framework, permitted it access to the latest HTML5 spec that included native video and audio support. Webkit—originally derived from a fork of KHTML back in 1998—is a layout engine for rendering web pages. It has since been adopted by several entities, is comprised of powerful JavaScript and rendering cores, and enables support for the latest specs of HTML5 and CSS3. Leveraged by the native browser in most modern smartphone operating systems, Webkit helps power the way the web is perceived on devices running iOS, Android, BlackBerry 6 and WebOS.

Since many of the popular mobile device platforms support HTML5, more pressure from the development communities has been applied to video sites to leverage HTML5 containers and codecs. Now that Flash isn’t a necessary component for video, video coders need to consider the standardized options made available by HTML5 support (which guarantees that their videos will work on the most popular and capable mobile devices). Unfortunately, this isn’t as clear cut as it sounds, and I encourage you to read Mark Pilgram’s Dive Into HTML5, which covers encoding video and coding your site appropriately for video detection by browser capability. Mobile lucks out, though—we know what kind of video/audio containers and codecs are supported in Webkit browsers, and we can make absolute suggestions for using HTML5 video tags (namely H.264, AAC, and MP4).

Part two of this article, coming soon, will address mobile video SEO and ways to strategically leverage your parent site for your mobile site.

1. Move

No. You don’t need to “move” from a shower, to a boat, to a horse in one continuous shot. You do, however, need to move your audience emotionally. Start with a clear vision of how you want people to react to your video or interact with your video campaign and create accordingly. Set goals early on, because you’ll want to measure progress against goals to determine success later. Perhaps most importantly, have a story in mind and make sure your videos tell that story. If you plan to extol your brand’s virtues, do so in a humorous, controversial, scary, helpful or other manner that will elicit the type of response you seek.

Old Spice did this extremely well with “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.” They aimed for a humorous reaction and got it, but the brand also communicated its benefits to its audience and repeatedly drove home the brand name.

Keep quality in mind when setting out to move your audience. Old Spice completed its commercials with one-camera continuous shooting and very little computer generated imagery. This alone caused quite a stir among the public at large with many online discussions swirling around the complexity and reality of the footage.

2. Market

It’s critically important to follow best practices for file creation and optimization. Pixel size, download speeds and desirable video rendering are just a few of the factors to consider before posting videos to ensure that your videos are looked upon favorably by consumers, search engines and video sites. Follow these additional guidelines when creating and optimizing your videos:

• Just like at home, HD quality video with a 16:9 aspect ratio is best
• Use Mp4 file format with .h264 compression
• Audio compression should be MP3 or AAC
• Display rate 30 frames per second
• Keep it short and sweet (approximately 2 minutes)
• Nail your titles
• Use all of your description (don’t spam)
• Meta tag the video (don’t spam)
• Align the optimization (title, description, tags)

Creating a YouTube channel provides a home base for any video campaign and ensures the availability and accessibility of video assets. Then, make it easy to market and share videos and enable social tools—comments, likes, forwards, embedding—everywhere. Currently, Old Spice has more than 200 videos on its YouTube channel and leveraged the right communication channels to create views.

Email, social networks—even in-store point of sales promotions can drive views, but advertising in particular can provide a lot of great opportunities to seed content. Old Spice went all out on this, running its first “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” ad in the 2010 Super Bowl and following that up with on ongoing broadcast barrage, taking the campaign social later in 2010. Less expensive options abound, however, particularly online. YouTube alone offers a wide range of advertising opportunities: home page featured; click to play; in video; watchpage companion; profile channel icons; and audience targeting by interest, geographic location, content type, demographics, etc., not to mention the many cost effective opportunities to advertise online through search, display and other channels.

3. Mobilize

Once the video campaign hits the market, use Twitter, Facebook and other social networks to build and engage audiences. Support consumer discussion and do whatever you can to help the buzz continue to grow and spread.

For one day only, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” took comments/questions via Twitter and Reddit. He responded to the comments that got the most up votes through YouTube videos, and some of the results were stellar. One user asked the man your man could smell like to provide audio for various phrases, but provided very little detail on his plan. Old Spice delivered the audio as requested and what resulted was the Old Spice voicemail generator, a completely viral adaptation of the man your man could smell like and an entirely different platform over which the branded communications could travel.

While other marketers have done a good job of interacting with the public on the web, Old Spice took the mobilize mantra to a new level. Even Sesame Street got in on the action, spoofing the original commercial with its own take: Smell Like a Monster. So lets just say that the campaign and the people behind it did a great job of mobilizing consumers, news sites, television shows and other organizations.

4. Mingle

Once others have mobilized around the campaign, it’s important for marketers themselves to get involved. Brands often mingle with the public by conducting surveys, asking for input, making their own contributions to contests, etc.

Without question, the most advanced mingling done by the Old Spice team came in July. In fact, Old Spice got more involved than any other brand to date that I’m aware of when the man your man could smell like began taking questions and responding with almost real time custom video responses. The brand/agency team created a war room to execute rapid video responses to questions, complete with copywriters, their go-to actor and direct access to decision makers to keep things moving quickly. The effort resulted in 186 individual video responses and significantly extended the video campaign’s shelf life and fresh factor, creating millions of additional impressions. Celebrities got involved too, with many of the video responses directed to them generating over a million views each: Ellen DeGeneres (1 million), Perez Hilton (1.9 million), Alyssa Milano (1.1 million) and Kevin Rose (1.3 million) among them.

Whether your team wants to go as far as creating individual multimedia responses or simply make a spokesperson available to chat for an hour here or there, be sure to consider the most effective ways for your brand to mingle.

5. Measure

You can’t determine the success of a YouTube campaign without the ability to measure progress against goals. Providing a nice gauge of performance against many basic video metrics, YouTube Insights offers a solid starting point but consider supplementing that with your own, more specific results tracking analytics as necessary.

For anyone sure about goals for their campaigns, here’s a short list of common but measurable and effective types of campaign goals to consider.

• Improving SERP real estate: How did you fare on brand searches on Google, Bing or others before the campaign, and how did the campaign change SERP performance? Goals should aim to improve your brand’s presence in natural, news, multimedia and other types of search results and should be as specific as possible.
• Video views or impressions per day, month, etc.
• Video popularity rankings
• Growth of social network fans, followers, interactions, etc.
• Web site traffic.
• Performance of a campaign’s YouTube channel.
• Sales growth.
• Industry brand rankings.

No surprise to the people who watched the campaign unfold or participated directly, the man your man could smell like campaign performed well against a wide array of metrics. The campaign earned almost six million views on day one alone and reached more than 40 million in its first week. The brand’s Twitter following increased 2,700 percent, and its Facebook fan interaction rose 800 percent. Overall web site traffic climbed 300 percent, and the brand’s YouTube channel became the all-time most viewed channel. The campaign generated 1.4 billion impressions in six months, and sales rose 27 percent over six months since launching (YoY). In July alone, sales were up 107 percent.

Mmmmm… that success sure smells great!

People usually find videos online in one of two ways: through search engines and video sharing/aggregation sites. Optimization shouldn’t be discounted outside of the big three search engines—ample consideration should certainly be given for optimization inside YouTube and other video sharing sites, especially considering comScore considers YouTube the second largest search engine. To secure high ranking listings for videos on target keyword searches in any of these channels, marketers must optimize, link and build independent pages on their own domains, intertwining them with YouTube’s powerful video presence. The following strategies will help:

• Take ownership of brand-oriented YouTube videos
• Optimize key site elements on video pages for targeted keywords
• Leverage controlled domains to direct inbound links and embed video files from sharing sites
• Submit a media sitemap (Media RSS) to search engines to organize and identify all video assets on the brand’s site

Take ownership of YouTube videos

YouTube is the most popular destination for video viewing on the internet, so marketers should consistently upload new commercials, brand-oriented videos and other clips to the site to ensure access for the general public. Optimizing for YouTube helps videos get found and enables marketers to be proactive with their efforts.

Proactive monitoring of videos also lets marketers manage their videos reactively. YouTube provides companies a “content identification and management system” that tracks branded content across its website. While this service offers several useful features, one in particular helps monitor the ownership of branded products and the distribution of videos containing infringement. This provides marketers another way to find and take ownership of content pertaining to a brand’s intellectual property (i.e. duplications of a brand’s commercials, videos, etc.) that has not been endorsed by the company.

Optimization of key site elements for targeting keywords

Optimizing a video for YouTube visibility will increase that video’s chance of being discovered on search engines and, subsequently, shared with other users. Ranking well on YouTube relies on a combination of social outreach (for flags, subscribers, ratings, views, shares, etc.), branded or user channel design, and organic linking. Much like any SEO program, this requires a dedicated effort. To best leverage YouTube for keyword optimization, adaptable elements of each YouTube video page need to be re-focused for target keywords. Although there are many customizable elements of a branded YouTube page, a few of the most effective include:

• Branded channel information
• Titles tags
• Branding box

Customizing channel information on video sharing sites like YouTube, where the brand describes its channel focus, should be optimized with target keywords pertaining to video content. Many search engines use approximately the first 150 characters of the beginning sentence of this site element as the META description. The META description tag is traditionally considered a space where a brand can describe itself in its own words, unrestricted by the expectations of technical search engine visibility. Since search engines index this tag, it should contain proper targeting keywords to help users decide whether to click the link.

Search engine users will often read the contents of the snippet when they see a title tag that interests them. META description tags should be periodically reviewed to determine whether revising their contents could increase click-through rates. Use succinct marketing sentences for the YouTube META description, with the intention of promoting higher click-through rates.

Search engines also tend to give title tags high authority when it comes to the text used in describing a Web page or video. Title tags take the form of the clickable link in SERPs, and serve as the description for the page as seen atop the browser window (or browser tab). On SERPs, target keywords used by the searcher will appear in bold in the title tag, and since this line of text happens to be larger in size than the META description below it, its influence on click-through conversion is important enough to continually address. Marketers should use target keywords at the beginning of the title tag and place all branding elements at the end of the tag, since search engines tend to distribute more importance to the words at the beginning of the title tag.

In addition to these staples of the branded channel page, video marketers can take advantage of YouTube’s branding box, which enables them to specify promotional text and provide links associated with the brand. Within the branding box, the title can run up to 100 characters in length, and the main body text up to 4,500 characters, including the implementation of links and specific HTML markup. Using this box as an additional conduit improves target keyword density and conveys a succinct marketing or informational message about the purpose of the marketer’s brand and products.

Leveraging controlled domains and embedding content

Marketers may host video assets either on their own domain, or—as many organizations do—use YouTube as a video host. If a marketer chooses the latter option, all video assets get uploaded and distributed to YouTube, whose viewership is massive and social. This isn’t an exclusive option—these same videos can also be embedded on the marketer’s site.

Embedding a video on a separate domain automatically creates an incoming link to the video on the hosted domain (in this case, YouTube). This passes incoming link equity authority from the separate domain for that particular video on YouTube, but also illustrates more information about the video’s content to search engines.

To implement this strategy, marketers should build individual pages for each available video, surrounding the video with descriptive text, optimizing title, META descriptions, and an <H1> header tag, and using target keywords in the URL structure. Individual pages for video enable incoming links to point to specific video content with target keyword anchor text and, as a result, can attract inbound links from other relevant websites. The number of inbound links with optimized anchor text a page receives greatly contributes to its visibility on search engines. Ideally, these videos should be embedded from their host site on YouTube.

Marketers may embed videos in one of two ways, both of which require that all relevant video assets—particularly commercials, informational videos and brand-related content—are hosted on YouTube. The first option includes building separate pages in the commercial directory for each video asset. Target keywords need to be picked for each available video asset, using “video” as a modifier to the target keyword to ensure they match relevant search queries. The second option includes embedding relevant subject videos into established, optimized pages on a brand’s own domain. This permits the flow of strong link equity and an optimized page to not only host the relevant video, but also point to the same video on YouTube. Thus, each video asset, and all future video assets, should be placed on relevant landing pages.

Create a media site map (media RSS)

Once these basic optimization steps are in place, it’s time to let the engines know these resources exist. Another effective strategy for optimizing video assets includes creating a media sitemap for videos hosted on a marketer’s website. This organizes and identifies all video/media pages on a website via syndication. Since it’s difficult for search engine crawlers to access and identify videos on a website—oftentimes because they are hidden behind JavaScript for Flash—a Media RSS allows them to parse videos directly. In addition, it provides search engines with richer metadata, enabling them to better understand content for better ranking and—particularly on Bing—generate its “smart preview” feature.

Revisiting and implementing these important optimization strategies can help marketers improve communication with search engines and enhance visibility of their video assets.

Shock and awe

Viral videos successfully create a sense of surprise and curiosity, exactly the types of reactions marketers hope to elicit from an audience. Generating this type of buzz through video helps brands promote their company or product in more creative and innovative ways than traditional advertising which is why hitting viewers with a shocking or humorous video can capture an audience in a matter of seconds. Then, a viral video must awe audiences with quality content that is surprising, engaging and, at its core, worth sharing. Marketers that find a way to make audiences care about the content of their video yield better results. Consider, for example, this funny clip from The Cartoon Network’s “Brain Rush” television show using simple b-roll footage.

Credits: Chris Gomersal, Donald Alexander, David Reed—Moxie Interactive

This clip left viewers wondering one thing: Why is this guy losing it? The rationale varies and conversations ensure, but the video, which was posted on targeted websites and via blogger and influencer outreach, earned more than one million views and appeared on 17 unique video-sharing sites. Some users even created original content using the video to create dance remixes. The buzz generated around the humorous and shocking nature of the video not only yielded great results by promoting viewership for “Brain Rush,” but also enabled greater fan participation.

Respect your audience

Viral videos that find the most success online are those that grab the attention of their audience and engage them beyond an initial viewing. To do so, marketers need to earn respect by creating good content that viewers can connect with. Often, this means the audience suspends their disbelief; a viewer can sit back and say, was that for real?

However, a video’s content should strike the right balance between creativity and transparency. Audiences often criticize and react negatively to those videos in which a stunt is too outrageous or simply comes across as too far-fetched. Viewers are willing to put aside skepticism in return for entertainment, but not when that entertainment offends their intelligence or fails to connect with the brand’s message. Marketers can respect and engage their audiences by letting the viewers discover the different facets of a video on their own. The resulting feelings of ownership and connection can lead to viral conversations around the video content, its authenticity, and so on.

Take a look at the video that Performics sister agency, Moxie Interactive, created for Verizon Wireless to generate conversation around their brand:

Credit: Justin Archer, Nicola Smith

The Verizon video earned 794,216 views in 6 weeks on a variety of video share sites and picked up more than 400 comments, many of which praised both the content and the brand.

Find the right balance

It’s “awe” for nothing if brand connections don’t exist. The aforementioned Verizon Wireless video clip is a textbook example of why video content that remains relevant to a brand and the message they wish to convey connects with viewers so well. “The Network” commercials on television are already well known and intriguing, so turning that same encounter into a real-life experience serves as an extension of the brand and beautifully blends structured and viral marketing tactics.

Sometimes, however, videos can backfire simply because they lose the brand message for the sake of virality. In 2008, for example, the creators of the movie Wanted put together a video to promote their film depicting an office worker flipping out and destroying his office space. The video garnered more than 6 million views on video-sharing site Break.com and remains popular two years later, but no one knew the video was created to promote Wanted—so it fell short as a stealth marketing operation. To connect the brand message with viewers, marketers need to provide entertainment to the audience while finding the happy medium between a heavily branded video and a non-branded video that fails to convey the intended message.

Promote with honesty

The most effective way for marketers to find success with viral videos is to be clear about their message and reach out to their audience using reliable channels. Marketers should use the same distribution channels, including blogs, social networks, paid search and email, as they would with other marketing messages. But it is imperative to be transparent about who they are when doing so. Reach out to a fan base, talk about what was created and solicit honest feedback. Users will appreciate the honesty and, coupled with creative and striking content, will champion a brand’s efforts and do their part to make the video a viral success. As long as marketers create videos with relevancy and valuable content, with careful consideration for distribution through key channels, they can reap the benefits of successful video virality.

Once marketers take these four pillars of viral videos into account, they have to make sure their videos can easily be found. To ensure viral videos are searchable, marketers should create a unique and permanent URL for each video and optimize the filename and metadata of the video file. Optimizing the title, description, headers, keyword density and surrounding video captions on the HTML page that hosts the video will also ensure the video is found more easily. Finally, marketers should create a video sitemap to submit the engines before uploading the video to YouTube, MySpace and other video sharing sites.

Achieving true virality requires a lot of creativity, careful planning and a clear goal, and with these four pillars in mind, marketers have an effective approach for realizing quality viral performance. Most viewers don’t mind overt advertising when it comes in the shell of something genuinely entertaining, so if marketers create a video with good content and a clear underlying brand message, they stand a good chance of achieving viral success.

HTML5 improves search engines’ understanding of the structure and content of a video and provides greater accessibility. HTML tags like the “section” tag, which enables marketers to explain the topic of page sections, and the “nav” tag, by which a mobile device browser can make a link, help search engines more accurately categorize content and links.

Similarly, simple browser coding makes HTML5 videos more searchable and indexable. At the Google I/O conference on May 19, Google announced it was joining with other web companies in launching webM, an open web media format project, and open-sourced VP8, a high-quality, web-optimized video codec the company will contribute to the project under a royalty-free license.

According to webM, VP8 delivers high-quality video while efficiently adapting to the varying processing and bandwidth conditions found on today’s broad range of web-connected devices. VP8’s efficient bandwidth usage aims to deliver lower servicing costs for content publishers and high-quality video for end users. The codec’s relative simplicity makes it easy to integrate into existing environments and requires less manual tuning to produce high-quality results. These existing attributes and the rapid innovation expected through the open development process make VP8 well suited for the unique requirements of video on the web. With VP8 and other codecs that can be supported by an HTML5 player, marketers can assure their content will be viewable on virtually any platform, from iPads to Smartphone devices to web browsers.

So why should marketers embrace HTML5? A better question might be “why shouldn’t they?” given the many benefits offered by embracing the technology. Let’s consider a couple of advantages demonstrated during the Google I/O conference by Sports Illustrated editor Terry McDonell.

McDonell unveiled a magazine application in development that featured HTML5 video running within a frame of text. The visual capabilities alone are impressive, but the Sports Illustrated project also demonstrates how HTML5 enables more web-friendly graphics and greater interactivity. The video also illustrates how HTML5 video ads can provide a more dynamic user experience.

As McDonell says, “the advertising can be so good in this context that it can become content itself. It can help you evaluate products and when you’ve made your decision, it can help you find the place to buy them,” as seen with the WonderFlex L300. Rich video runs seamlessly with text, which broadens the possibilities for the creativity of “print” ads, combined with the accountability of online media. The format of HTML5 provides instantaneous playback on all-access video and low power consumption, while drag-and-drop capabilities enable users to customize their experience. The search capabilities showcased within the Sports Illustrated video also give users more access to videos from multiple sources.

To effectively move toward implementing HTML5, marketers should determine whether their videos are ready for the platform and choose the appropriate codec. Google has built enough momentum for VP8 by simultaneously announcing support in most browsers and by most companies that the format can’t be ignored. Marketers should also be sure to design videos with enhanced content in mind. Using the appropriate tags ensure that videos get properly indexed and stay searchable. Tying in all relevant content to the video subject matter, like related articles or photos, will help make the video content more interactive and customizable, as seen in the Sports Illustrated video. Enabling social media capabilities will also allow users to share content, thereby further exposing the content to more users and additional screens. Of course, it’s also important to keep in mind some standard SEO video best practices like including optimized text, page titles and descriptions in any HTML5 video object.

Considering the growing prevalence of HTML5 and the accessibility it provides, it’s important for marketers to adapt to this evolving video format and take advantage of the new capabilities in order to keep up with competitors and stay visible with their audience. By serving consumers at every possible touchpoint through the adoption of HTML5, marketers can ensure that they stay accessible and engage consumers on every available screen.

The Web continues to evolve into an increasingly visual medium, and Google’s new interface offers video marketers more ways to show, not tell. Users can now begin refining video searches by clicking on the videos icon in the left-hand rail of Google’s SERP. Users can then sort video results in Google by duration, time period (past hour, past 24 hours, past week, etc.), relevance, quality, closed captioning and source. A Google search on the term “iPad,” for example, gives searchers the options to filter results for videos less than four minutes or more than 20 minutes in length, view videos in high quality, or see only videos posted on cnn.com. These features give people the ability to pinpoint the videos most relevant to their preferences and presents video marketers with new options to better optimize and manage their videos.

Although it may be too early to tell exactly how Google’s left-hand rail navigation system will affect searcher behavior, video marketers should kick the tires to glean insights on ways these additional filtering options will impact video SEO efforts. Marketers can find more creative ways to build and optimize videos by paying particular attention to the filtering options on Google and acting accordingly. Some of the features of Google’s new interface enable marketers to cast a wider net and reach more people, while others give them the opportunity to customize their video publishing specific to the habits or preferences of their target market. I’ll take a look at the opportunities to excel through customizing video publishing by duration, publishing times and intervals, reaching more consumer destination sites, and remembering that many of the old rules still hold true in the new environment.

Marketers can generate videos of different lengths for all types of searchers. By doing so, they will reach a wider audience or cater to different preferences. For example, if someone were to search for instructional video about the iPad, the user can choose between a quick how-to video or a longer, more detailed video with step-by-step instruction. Providing videos of varying durations will help meet the needs of more searchers.

Marketers can also take advantage of Google’s new interface by refreshing content more frequently to ensure it passes the various time filters. Depending on the audience, marketers should bear in mind the time of day their typical target viewers might search for video. Considerations regarding user geography or high-traffic Web-browsing periods may affect the frequency or exact timing a marketer posts videos. In an ideal world, video marketers would publish new videos every hour on the hour, but that’s not realistic due to lack of content and the huge amount of resources it would take. Instead marketers should consider what is more realistic for their operation. Can they publish videos daily? Weekly? Monthly? Once marketers make those decisions, they can optimize a video search program that will naturally develop in time.

Again, for those marketers interested in casting a wide net, it’s important to consider posting videos to more than one site for searches refined by source. Publishing a video on YouTube, Hulu and/or MySpace instead of just posting it to one site increases the chances of the video getting more views and reaching the desired audience.

Relevance remains an important factor in video search and serves as the default option on Google’s left-hand rail, so marketers should continue to make use of descriptive text to ensure their videos get indexed properly.

In short, marketers should test the various filtering options as an indication of how Google sorts through all video content on any given keyword and figure out the most effective strategies to take advantage of the new interface and best serve the user. While the addition of left-hand rail navigation may seem like one small step for Google, it is one giant leap for improved SERP usability on the industry-leading engine.

More than 300,000 iPads sold on the day the product was launched, so it’s essential that marketers meet the high demand for video consumption and make sure they’re adapting content to take advantage of this phenomenon. Most web-based videos currently use Adobe Flash, but the iPad supports videos using HTML5. It may prove to be a mistake for Apple not to provide functionality for both the existing Flash videos and the emerging HTML5 videos, but these are the realities to which marketers must adjust. The new <video> tags in HTML5 will make it easier for search engines to locate video content and the HTML5 coding structure should make it easier for engines to label it, resulting in better indexation and ranking of videos.

One of HTML5′s biggest impacts on marketers is its native video support. For marketers, this means that video becomes more ubiquitous. HTML5 makes video a native browser experience for users and publishers. It allows users to consume and publishers to distribute video without the need for browser plugins. Major players in the television and video industry like CBS and ESPN have already made changes to their sites to support video playback on the iPad, as well as other devices that do not support Flash and other video plugins.

Marketers looking to reach consumers on this new screen need to build iPad-ready web sites by using HTML5 code to be more accessible and give consumers a positive user experience. For online video marketers interested in SEO, the main objective has been to make sure that the search engines could easily find and identify all of the content on their sites. HTML5 provides marketers with new ways to tell search engines about their content.

HTML uses tags to classify different types of content on a web page. For the first time in HTML5, sites have a video component which provides control for the way video is displayed and organized. That component eliminates the need for browser object tags. In addition, with HTML5, size obligations no longer exist for video, which should make online video marketers excited, specifically those marketing on a device like the iPad. In HTML5, videos have a width and height, much like images, so marketers are no longer forced into the standard Flash video sizes.

HTML5 offers another new element known as the <nav>tag which marketers can use to specify navigation menus, such as sections of links to other material with little or no original content. Search engines can then use these tags to understand site structure better, as well as display the navigation in various ways. For example, a mobile device browser like on the iPad can make links within “nav” sections accessible by swiping the screen left or right.

While content is key, marketers also have to understand the best technical and most flexible ways to present it. Video will continue to be a significant part of SEO as HTML5 should makes it easier for search engines to index and rank it. HTML5 will play an important role for marketers planning to advertise across multiple screens: televisions, computers, smart phones and the iPad. Video marketing continues to grow and get smarter in the way information can be published. So, in order to keep up with the latest consumer devices and search engines trends, publishers must give serious consideration to creating HTML5-compliant web sites and more premium app offerings.

With so many of the early round games taking place on weekdays, many devoted fans search for ways to follow the action away from home, whether online at work or from their mobile devices. The increasing popularity of online video among sports enthusiasts has led broadcasters and programmers to provide more March Madness content at the touch of fans’ fingers.

Many fans rely on the Internet to track all aspects of March Madness, evident in the heavy search volume experienced this time each year, but how do they find the video and other content they desire? More than a quarter of Americans following the NCAA March Madness tournament go directly to the source at NCAA.com, while 17 percent will type in the URL for their favorite team on the court, according to Unicast. Twenty-two percent of fans looking for more information or ways to stream videos online turn to the search engines to gather the latest on the big tourney. Taking proper steps to make sure video, scheduling news and other extensive content is visible in both paid and natural search listings can make or break a brand’s ability to attract new rabid fans.

CBSsports.com, the official broadcaster’s site for March Madness, provides fans with the ability to stream any in-progress game online, even though CBS may be broadcasting a different game on television. Unicast also found that college hoops fans turn to other sources for online March Madness videos, citing ESPN.com (69 percent) and Yahoo Sports (42 percent) as favorite destinations for clips and highlights. With ten percent of March Madness fans catching coverage from a mobile device, several mobile applications have been developed specifically to cater to sports fanatics, giving them access to video highlights, final scores, and even the ability to trash talk with friends by connecting to Facebook or Twitter. CBS Sports’ March Madness on Demand paid app ($9.99) also offers live streaming video of all March Madness games right to a user’s mobile device.

The ubiquity and availability of online video enables viewers nearly everywhere to connect with their favorite sports online. For example, the global scale and interest of the recent Winter Olympics meant that many viewers around the world in different time zones were able to access various events on the Web. NBC, the official broadcaster of the 2010 Winter Olympics, met this need and capitalized on their Olympic coverage by providing plenty of content and videos of the games on NBColympics.com. NBC says it garnered 710 million page views and 46 million unique visits as it served up 45 million streams during the network’s coverage of the Vancouver Winter Games. The network also cross-promoted search engine Bing, telling audiences to search “Winter Olympics” on Bing for important dates, schedules, news and videos.

Online video also provides fans of niche or regional sports the chance to keep up with their teams more easily. For example, ESPN360 allows devotees of such sports as cricket or lacrosse (along with mainstream U.S. sports) to watch games in real-time, replay previous matches and access content remotely. This type of instant and convenient access to online video and information proves particularly crucial to dedicated fans that may travel frequently or live abroad.

As consumer sports media consumption increasingly shifts online, marketers continue to rally their resources to reach those millions of fans. The extra distribution is no longer optional for marketers, but instead, too substantial to ignore. As of March 9, CBS had already sold out its ad inventory for March Madness On Demand, its live streaming of all 64 games of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, according to Mediaweek. Marketers should meet this rising demand by utilizing search and other online media to grow their audience and attract consumers to their content.

Altogether, seven-in-ten Americans planning to follow March Madness online or on a mobile device indicated they would turn to more than one destination on the Web (including the branded Web site, search engines and other online information sources). Online access to sports videos, whether highlights or complete live games, gives fans the coverage they want, when and how they want it. This offers brands the opportunity to connect with consumers, starting with video search and hitting them at various points along the way to provide them with the up-to-the-minute “madness” they crave during college basketball’s most exciting time of the year.

Advertisers that had the most success in engaging audiences used their TV spots to drive audiences online to search for videos, watch their favorite ads again and learn more about their brand. Search and online video have become an increasingly important piece of the marketing mix for any traditional ad campaign, but the stakes are especially high for Super Bowl advertisers hoping to gain traction online and extend the lifecycle of their ads. In recent years, the measurement of a successful Super Bowl ad now takes into account its performance online, including number of downloads or views and consumer comments about the advertisement.

This new, sophisticated approach to Super Bowl ads and video is more in tune with the advertiser shift of investments to online platforms, where ads typically experience stronger return and performance. According to Forrester Research and the Association of National Advertisers, nearly 73 percent of advertisers surveyed said they will move dollars to online marketing and 59 percent will spend more on search engines.

So which savvy marketers successfully expanded buzz around their Super Bowl advertising and which fell flat in the weeks following the big game?

Leading consumer products group brand Doritos came out on top with the most popular ad “House Rules” on the web after the Super Bowl, acquiring more than 9 million views and nearly 10,000 comments in the week after the game, according to third-party measurement firm Visible Measures. Once the game is over, online video can become the flagship element of the campaign and this kind of tremendous visibility and commentary helps brands improve their organic ranking on the search engines.

Doritos’ online marketing success stems from their concept of using consumer-generated content to engage a wider audience from start to finish. The Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” contest challenged consumers to create and submit their own Doritos brand commercial. The four winning ads placed in the top 15 most-viewed ads in social video and, to date, have been viewed more than 16 million times.

Doritos maximized the entire lifecycle of online videos by engaging consumers on the web through their contest in January, calling for video entries and public voting online, airing the winning submissions on Super Bowl Sunday and, finally, posting the videos to the Doritos web site for additional viewings, resulting in additional consumption on the back-end. Statsit, a company that helps measure the effectiveness of advertising using social media, reported that Doritos received a week’s worth of mentions on Twitter in just three hours during the big game.

The Snickers spot, “Pick Up Game”, featuring Betty White and Abe Vigoda, also garnered a lot of buzz in post-Super Bowl online views with 3.5 million hits, making it the second most popular Super Bowl ad. Snickers included its web address in its Super Bowl commercial and prominently placed links to the ad on their home page to encourage repeat viewings, with options to post the video to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The ability to link to online videos from social sites and sustain the brand buzz also helps advertisers enhance long-term SEO performance.

Super Bowl ads that failed to connect with audiences this year include one for web-hosting company GoDaddy.com. The commercial featured racing star Danica Patrick and encouraged viewers to logon to GoDaddy’s web site in order to view the “too-hot-for-TV” conclusions.

Online video site Hulu, which posted video clips of all the Super Bowl commercials shown during the game, offered data for ad performance in various categories. In the category of TV spots they disliked the most, many Hulu visitors identified GoDaddy’s ““Spa” commercial. Visitors commented that they found the GoDaddy ad lackluster; that it promoted the “GoDaddy girls” more than the company’s services, it wasn’t kid or family-friendly, and—here’s the kicker—the teaser in the ad didn’t motivate viewers to visit the GoDaddy site for to find out more. Now more than ever, consumers are aware of the viewing and engagement options available and they expect brands to understand their behaviors. Online viewing, learning and sharing is a key component to brand engagement and GoDaddy clearly missed the extra points this year.

As consumers increasingly move online to view and respond to media, advertisers should be sure to provide the desired channels to keep the conversation going and sustain user contact. Online video sites like YouTube and Hulu enable fans of brands’ commercials to post comments, upload video responses and embed videos in their blogs. The platforms exist and continue to grow in popularity, so savvy marketers must create a strong impression by making their online videos widely available and direct viewers to their ads through various touchpoints in the marketing mix. At the end of the proverbial game, brands will dominate more of the search engine results page (SERP) as a result. These are important considerations for marketers to keep in mind when considering substantial media buys for next year’s Super Bowl or other major sporting events like March Madness and the World Series, though the strategy applies to everyday commercials, as well.

Marketers spending big money for advertising on events like these will reap greater benefits by delivering ads that stretch their dollars by being more creative in online media and driving consumer engagement online. Online videos extend the lifecycle of those commercials and help marketers realize the full return on their investment.

For another analysis of how Super Bowl ads performed from a search perspective, see Vanessa Fox’s Scoring Super Bowl 2010 Commercials: How’s the Search Visibility?.