Closed Captioning and Video SEO
These days, more and more people are putting videos on the internet, they can be anything from instructional and educational, to a live political event. There are also many more (millions) videos online than are simply accessed over the internet - i.e.: they can’t be seen. The main reason a sites video content is not properly indexed can be attributed to: lack of simple cross-promotion as well as improper search engine optimization. So what are ones options to improve video index ability?
One of the options is to add closed captions to your video - this is a easy way to ‘contextualize’ the content of the video and get some targeted or non-targeted traffic to your website. This tactic also makes your video accessible to those with hearing impairments and PCs without speakers (an added bonus too!). One can also effectively use multiple translation techniques for providing multiple language captions to drive more traffic.
So, what is closed captioning?
Closed captioning is basically a technique of displaying different synchronized captioned text only when requested by a user. Closed captioning is not just the text that displayed right at the bottom of the screen representing the dialog in the video; it will also include any environmental sounds like that of humming birds, ringing of phones, sound of knocking, thunder, rain splashing etc. A closed caption will inform the viewer when music is played or where the following picture is from, about laughter, tears and even a speakers gestures etc.
According to common web accessibility guidelines or best practices, captions should always be synchronized in such a way that it is equivalent to the spoken word and should also be easily accessible to anyone who requires it.
Normally, closed captioning will make you think of what is referred as ‘embedded captioning’. This basically means that captions are added directly to the multimedia file. There are certain user benefits of all closed captioning as we will see below:
User Benefits
The users as well as the provider of the video with closed captioning have a lot to benefit from the entire process. By adding closed captioning, one will be able to make your video more accessible to different types of users and people who in a given scenario might not be able to understand the video.
Video SEO Benefit
More often than not, online accessibility issues as well as SEO principles are inter-connected. You may have seen many times that some of the SEO techniques are exactly similar to the accessibility guidelines followed by webmasters. This is mostly due to the fact that spiders rely heavily on all text related elements within a page. Simply said: Make it easy to index people!!!
Closed captioning is great for accessibility and even for driving traffic - but it will not be completely search engine optimized especially after being embedded within a multimedia file. To enhance SEO for video captioning, the best route to follow is having a media transcript, so that both SEO and indexing issues are taken care of. The media transcript will have all the content that is there in the video and can’t be read by search engine spiders. By following this method, you will be able to ensure that your target audience gets to see the video as well as understand the content and also benefit from SEO.
Why Use 301 Redirects Over 302 Redirects
There are many factors that affect search engine optimization and some of them are of minor concern while others are major concern. One such factor is the 301 redirects, which are considered as a major concern in search engine optimization. 301 redirects are associated with several different situations but there are two specific situations that most people consider using them, and they are:
The norm is that all websites should at all times redirect all those URLs that are associated with their domain and don’t have the “www” extension (like “http://seointelligence.com”) to those pages that do start with the “www” extension (like “http://www. seointelligence.com”). This kind of a situation is called as the canonical redirect. This is an important aspect of search engine optimization because most of the search engines are still not smart enough to tell the difference between a non-www and a www version, and therefore are not able to figure out if the non-www version is related to your domain or not (I know, lame right?).
There are times when you might decide to move all your website content or the content of specific pages within your website to another URL. Most people would do this if they are trying to improve upon their existing site architecture, or even when corporate websites are being re-vamped and upgraded with more products or services.
In both the above situations, you need to use a 301 redirect, because any other type of redirect can be dangerous. In fact, the meta-refresh technique that performs redirects as well as the 302 redirect can be potentially harmful when it comes to website ranking on the top search engines. Hence the 301 redirect is often seen as the permanent solution for moving content as well as links to other pages or to a new URL location. On the other hand, the 302 redirect is considered to be a temporary solution for moving content to a new URL or page.
Normally in a situation where a search engine like Google or Yahoo! comes across a temporary redirect, it will most definitely assume that the redirected URL is the actual owner of the content. This basically means that all the link credits that are associated with the redirected page will not be associated with the new page. Apart from this, there is a high probability that you might even get flagged because the search engines will identify you as a potential spammer because spammers normally use temporary redirects like the 302 redirect for stealing traffic.
On the other hand when top search engines see a 301 redirect, then they automatically assume that this is a permanent redirect. Search engines will also assume that all the credit for each of the links associated to the redirecting page will belong to the new page. As a result of this assumption, search engines are able to index the new pages quickly and of course you will definitely not be flagged.
So it is always better to go with a 301 redirect and maximize search engine optimization so that you can get long-term returns!
Universal SEO Strategies
SEO or search engine optimization can be localized or universal. In either case, there will be certain ‘local specific’ and ‘universal specific’ strategies involved in our best practices. When we say Universal SEO strategies, it doesn’t mean that these search utilities or strategies will work across all platforms - this is mainly for Google at the moment (the most prevalent at Universal search adoption). The question is: What will be the core focus points for universal SEO strategies moving forward?
In reality, universal search will need to focus more on social media, and less on old fashioned ‘SERPs’ strategies. This is primarily due to the user interest for creation of content, and leveraging the huge amount of multimedia content that is being created over the web on a daily basis (i.e.: YouTube, Twitter etc.). In this new age of search engine optimization and social media, more and more marketers are using social networking websites and portals for driving targeted traffic from networking sites to their websites.
Implementing Universal SEO strategies will enhance all of your legacy search engine optimization related campaigns, and help you stay current. Universal SEO typically encompasses the creation of multimedia content like videos, podcasts, image tagging, and blog interaction, you may also be submitting them on many different social media websites like Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and Reddit (or Sphinn - wink wink). Some of the strategies also emphasize submitting assets/pages/etc on niche search engines like Podzinger, Technorati, and Blinx (although most of this happens with good content management tools like WordPress).
One of the important aspects to remember while creating any type of multimedia content is that it should be tagged, and categorized/cataloged in a correct manner (Hierarchy and Taxonomy are KEY!). Most multimedia content used on the Web can be optimized with pre-established SEO techniques like creating user-friendly and keyword-rich content, good website navigation, unique Meta tags, and as always everything depends on the implementation of a strong linking strategy.
Here are some of the universal SEO tools that will help your to submit multimedia content to some of the vertical databases of Google:
Google Video: You will need to optimize images, use keyword-rich and descriptive file names for the video files. You will further need to create a title tag driven by keyword, description tags, and also a video sitemap. To launch your video, you will require a web page in which you can add optimized content to enhance SEO and use anchor texts wherever possible. Once this is done, you can submit to Google Video as well as Blinkx and various social networking websites.
Google Image: Most e-commerce websites will have images for each of their products. You can even add images for websites selling services or concepts and other ideas. Images will help your customers in finding your website through the Google Image Search. You will need to optimize all your images using keyword-rich and descriptive file names along with ALT tags. You should use accurate descriptions of each of the images so that it also benefits visually impaired people.
Google News: You can submit your company or business or product launch press releases to be displayed as “news”. To derive optimum result, you need to issue press releases that contain current information about any new product added to your catalogue or regarding a product or service launch or even events related to the industry.
SEOintelligence Tool: SEOintelligence offers a state-of-the-art and cost effective search marketing tool that offers code and link strategy recommendations for various search engine including Google and Yahoo!
Siloing and Link Building
The primary aim of Search Engine Optimization is to enhance your online visibility by improving the keyword ranking. With ranking you might find at times that your overall rank is good based on the general keywords but your rank might not be as good for specific ‘long tail’ keywords - it can be vice versa too. This is an issue that is mainly caused due to inferior page to page links or “interlinking” as I call it. If you use indiscriminate linking from one page to another then basically you end up diluting the entire organizational theme of your website and hence it becomes difficult to rank your keywords naturally in different search engines.
‘Siloing’ is the solution offered towards this kind of link dilution, which is sometimes referred to as unfocused linking (I know I don’t make this up). Siloing can resolve the poor linking problem and help you to achieve a high rank on search engines for specific as well as general keywords/specific keyword phrases - basically you get the best of both worlds. This is done mainly by using a themed vertical page construction or linking. The best way to achieve high ranks for keywords is by incorporating silos right into the website structure.
There are mainly two types of silos and they are:
1. Virtual silos
2. Directory based silos
Both the ‘virtual’ and ‘directory’ based silos are capable of creating a keyword theme using linking, but they achieve this method using very different methodologies. The ‘virtual silos’ are capable of creating content as well as subject relationships by cross-linking them so that a theme can be created. On the other hand, a directory based silo will create a relationship through linking different directories to a group.
If you use the directory silo method then it will build relationships between different pages by grouping similar-content pages under one directory and the directory theme will be then tied to the main directory structure (simple and most common). Most directory structures will need a minimum of five content pages that will support the topic that your directory is trying to address. One thing that you need to remember is that all directory silos will need to be extremely well structured as well as organized.
The only way to ensure that your directory silo has been implemented correctly; you will need to group similar-content into different directories. To understand it better, let us take an example of salami and cheese. You will need to create a separate directory for each of the themes, which are one for salami and one for cheese. You will have subsequent pages in the directory that are content rich in order to support your overall directory theme. Now if there are two types of cheese: feta cheese and Parmigiano reggiano then both the different types of cheese will be categorized under the main cheese page. We can extrapolate this idea with Salami, and build out pages based on type: Genoa, Hard, Soppreseta etc…see it’s easy and I’m getting hungry.
On the other hand, you can create a virtual silo theme through linking. In a virtual silo environment the page names are unimportant because the relationship between the pages might not necessarily be in under the same silo. The silo will always be defined by each of the pages it is linked to. Thus in a virtual silo, you are basically creating a theme that is based on links vis-à-vis a directory structure in directory silo.
SEO and Your Privacy
I try not to forget the pervasive power of the Internet. I also try not to forget to thank Mr. Internet for allowing the free exchange of information in such an easy and user-friendly manner. Being an SEO expert, I truly understand not just the value of this wonderful medium, but I also know how this can quickly become a bane. Yes, a pain….! As the amount of information available on the internet increases, so does the does the accessibility to any user’s personal information. The thin line that defines and guards the privacy of people is diminishing quickly and social networking websites have contributed significantly towards this cause.
While most people believe that the information they upload over the Internet is safe, it is far from the truth. The truth is that Internet privacy is in huge jeopardy, and the SEO experts are leading this fight against this practice.
SEO Privacy
Ever since the advent of Web 2.0, the privacy of the denizens of the virtual world has been at risk. SEO specialists and Internet experts are concerned about the large number of footprints being left on social media sites and their impact on privacy. The medium of internet is run with information, so much so that everywhere you go online, you tend to submit information – knowingly or unknowingly.
It puzzles me as to why people so carelessly put out their private information such as credit card information, residential address, or social security number on websites without sparing a thought about the safety of such sensitive information. Putting information on the Internet makes you susceptible to identity theft and lots more. Adding fuel to fire is the fact that companies don’t have any incentives for protecting the rights of their users. There are no monetary benefits being offered that can encourage these companies to ensure that the privacy of the users is not breached.
Social networking websites are considered as the biggest leaks here, especially Facebook and MySpace. One day thousands of Facebook users woke up to find that their account information had been replaced with information and private messages from other users’ accounts. A lot of noise was made and users started questioning the privacy policy of Facebook. However, the website maintained that this glitch was caused due to an internal error and nothing to worry about. Nevertheless, in my opinion, social networking websites are not completely unscrupulous.
Search Engines & SEO Firms
One of the most noticeable instances of the breach in user privacy has been with Google. Google was in the News recently for “logging” their user data. Google logs all the search info for close to 2 years when this data must be stored, if necessary, for a max. 18 months. Due to a series of complaints from the US and the EU, an inquiry into Google’s practices is going to be launched (do no evil ehhh?).
SEO firms have also been brought under the circle of dubious practices. Many of them have failed to ensure the privacy of their clients. However, at SEO Intelligence, we guarantee the privacy of our clients and assure you that if you choose to use our services, we will not sell your information to anyone including telemarketing companies. You can read our privacy policy to be 100% of our practices.
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The ‘LINK’ Between SEO And Nested Tables
A Short ‘Nested Table’ Story: A friend of mine was getting his business website designed and asked me for advice. Knowing that I am an SEO expert, he wanted to take full advantage of my knowledge and experience, and I was happy to provide it. His web designer had suggested that they use nested tables as part of the website design and he was confused naturally, and, rightly so. As I explained to him, website architecture has a direct impact on the action of search engines. Your website architecture, or web site design in ‘layman terms’, is responsible for search engines to interpret the information available and decide whether it’s relevant or not.
Therefore, as I continued to explain the importance of Architecture to my friend, emphasizing the importance of getting things right in the beginning, so even the ’scoping’ phase becomes very important. Remember: SEO opportunities must be utilized when initially conceptualizing website design, it’s not something that should be an ‘afterthought’. After all, you wouldn’t like to redesign your website for SEO once you find out that your “cool looking” website design isn’t SEO friendly, would you? Trust me people; I have seen it happen, many times!
The rule of thumb here is: Search Engines don’t see your website pages the same way a human does. This one point is also the single most important criteria for designing a SEO friendly website. Your interpretation of this rule of thumb will determine the outcome of many of the decisions you make when get your website designed, need to give optimum performance and ranking in SERP or search engine results pages.
The search engine robots or spiders that crawl through your pages (i.e.: the googlebot) scan your pages according to the code and then break down this information to figure out the relevance of the page. Essentially, spiders are infamous for not scanning the entire page; they prefer to simply scan the first half of your web page. So, you should remember to put the most important information as close to the top of the page as possible. You must also make sure that you don’t lose the content within nested tables nor have it camouflaged in a chaotic structure that makes breaking it down next to impossible.
To be honest, I have realized that many website designers love to use tables as part of website design. For the designers, using 3-4 tables helps in the page layout. But, there is a catch. The search engine spiders don’t like tables, especially nested tables. Why? Because, these spiders tend to get lost in the tables and sometimes even give up on these pages altogether without trying! Even if the spiders do find the information, they tend to believe that it is too deeply nested to have any importance at all. Additionally, using nested tables in website design tend to pull down the visibility of the content and waste space at the top of the code, which is a tragedy, because that’s what most search spiders are interested in anyways!
Many SEO experts, like yours truly, also believe that nested tables are one of the leading causes of slow pages. So, my final advice to you is to use CSS that works just as well.
Get Quick Responses From Search Engine Robots With These SEO Do’s and Don’ts
If you have ever been told that you can’t make fortune on the Internet, because you aren’t an SEO expert, you are simply being misinformed. At SEO intelligence, I have always believed that search engine optimization is for everyone, from the amateur to the expert. Perhaps, that is why we have a whole range of SEO tools on offer and at a very small price. Because we understand the SEO Do’s and Don’ts, we have created an entire range of products that adhere to these demands.
Using SEOi’s SEO tools, you’ll enjoy search engine optimizing your website without feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and annoyed. How do we know this? Our customers have told us so. Drawing on our vast industry experience, we are providing you a basic set of SEO rules that can get you started quick and easy…and driving on the road to money!
SEO Do’s:
• Be Your Natural Self – Yes, natural is good. Even search engines love natural behavior. Most importantly, bear this in mind when you get an irresistible proposal to pay very less for effective SEO software that assures you guaranteed results and top page ranks.
• Links, Links, Links – The more you have the more popular you are. Just like location is important in the offline world, links are paramount in the online world. We consider links to be the foundation stones of any SEO strategy. Our tools such as ‘Competition Tracker’ and ‘Report Manager’ helps you keep tabs on your competition, while making available all stats for your further action. If the quality and the quantity of links that direct visitors to your website are good, you will be able to improve your search ranking. Keeping creating new links using link exchange, article submission, affiliate marketing, text ad links etc.
• On and Off Page Optimization – Your SEO strategy should be made keeping in mind the likes and dislikes of humans. Why? Because search engines like, pretty much what the audience is looking for. Use the available resources such as Overture to find valuable keywords and key phrases to optimize your website content. Also, keep your website navigation easy, uncomplicated, and clear for people to make their way around your site.
• Delegate & Automate – SEO is not a one man process at any time. You can’t be devoting hours everyday to doing research, getting the numbers, and doing the math. Let software’s do that for you. Using our Keyword Competition Report you’ll always know which keywords to target, while SEOi Web Stats will provide you the best built-in web analytics that will allow you to monitor, analyze and react to your website traffic in real time.
SEO Don’ts:
• Never use hidden text or links
• Avoid using masking or underhanded redirects
• Never send automated requests to Google.
• Avoid loading your website pages with irrelevant keywords
• Never get tempted to create multiple pages or sub domains with duplicate content
• Avoid, avoid “doorway” or portal pages to tempt search engines, or other similar approaches
• Remember, the SEO DNA is always the same, but there maybe variations in the genes to create the best and most comprehensive product possible.
Perhaps SEOi’s SEO tools can help you in your pursuit for SEO brilliance. Click here for a 14-days free trail.
July 4th Search Engine Logo Theme Ratings
Happy July 4th to the SEO and SEM Community!!!! We at SEOintelligence wanted to share all the glorious themed Search Engine and community site logos. Have a great Holiday Weekend and see you all Monday!
First Place Goes to Google:
Second is Yahoo - not as good as Google, but a fair stab at it!
Third Place is Ask - one of my Favorite entries, very original and ‘artsy’:
Fourth Place and LAST place is awarded to MSN, who has a poor showing of Independence Day Cheer in their logo:
*Looks like the MSN Butterfly is flying into battle and knows it will get burned up in the colorful explosions of Fireworks…lol - morbid I know.
Have a great Independence Day everyone!
Click here to get a free 14 day trial of SEOintelligence today!
SEO Best Practices: Are You Using Them?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization can hardly be defined as a simple or easy practice. No wonder, SEO professionals, claiming to be experts, are raking in the moolah by using sub standard practices and unfair means to achieve higher rankings for websites on search engines.
A complicated as well as an in-depth process, SEO requires plenty of experience, understanding and comprehension of the very core factors that drive the process. A dynamically changing industry, keeping up with the latest trends in SEO can be overwhelming. Which is why, I have compiled a list of SEO best practice for you all. You must remember to treat these as a general guideline and not a complete or comprehensive listing.
NOTE: When talking about SEO, it is incorrect to assume that your site’s ranking on search engines will automatically improve without the need to make changes to your website. Beware of any SEO firm that lays claim to the fact that they can make your website perform better without any modifications!
I am merely listing down the best practices in SEO in a straightforward manner so that you can derive your own meaning based on your requirements and essentials. Let’s get started:
Come Up With An Eye-Catching Title for Your Content Page or Copy or Post
• If you already have a brand, use it in the title tag. Using a branded title tag can be a powerful SEO technique.
• Keep the length of your titles to a minimum of 20 characters and a maximum of 65 characters, including spaces. A longer than 65 characters title has lower chances of being index properly by search engines. It also means wastage of space.
• Since, content is king with SEO, it becomes vital for you to include the valuable keyword (s) in the title of your page or post. You are likely to get better results in searches if you include your primary keywords in the page’s title as well as subtitles.
• Something that you must always remember is to think like a common internet searcher when you work on a title. Take time to compose the best title and bear in mind the search terms your visitors are most likely to use to find your website.
• Use the primary keyword in the heading of the page. This becomes the main headline of your page on the search engines’ indexes.
Come Up With The Best Meta Description For Your Content Page or Copy or Post
• Be honest with your content. Never use a misleading Meta description, as it can damage your website traffic from search engines in the long run.
• The Meta description should not be longer than 160 characters and must be descriptive in style.
Create the Best URL / Permalink
• A URL structure that includes the title of your page and describes your content will help increase targeted traffic to your website.
• KISS. Keep it short and simple, as far as URLs are concerned. Long urls must be avoided.
• Try to use descriptions rather than numbers. Keywords are much more effective than numbers.
These SEO best practices have been discovered as part of our hundreds of client experience - over many years.
WordPress And SEO
If you haven’t heard of WordPress then you probably belong to the Dark Ages. WordPress comes straight out of a box and embraces search engines like a long lost friend. Everything about WP smells of SEO…from features to functions to pages, categories, you name it! Search engine spiders will crawl your blog site like there is no tomorrow and gather and index information pertaining your website on their database for easy referencing.
WordPress software comes with plenty of in-built features that aid SEO. It also have specific SEO tools, besides the ability to use ‘.htaccess’ to make static URLs or permalinks. Some other features include blog rolling, pinging, several 3rd party plugins, hacks etc that can be used for better SEO.
Once you customize WordPress for your use, it is possible that you hurt the search engine friendly features. Therefore, it is important for you to ensure that optimal performance of your WordPress is maintained to attract the spiders. Here’s how:
Keep A Good, Clean Code – Ensure the code is error free and validated by search engines.
Content Speaks Aloud – Did you know search engines don’t ‘SEE,’ rather ‘READ’ a site, any site? Yes! It doesn’t matter if you have the prettiest website on the Internet. What matters is only your content. The content on your website should be informative, interesting, error free, clean, and educative (if possible). Use proper keywords where necessary. Good content SCORES very high on search engines.
Searchers-Oriented Content – Whenever you write content for your WordPress website, make sure you write it keeping in mind your end user – the searcher. Think about the keywords he/she can use to search for you. Use these keywords or key phrases in your Page title, the heading, subheadings and sprinkle them lightly through the content as well. Research the various search engines to understand how your content is scanned and try to fashion your content in the same manner to find favor with search engines.
Content Is King – Even when using WordPress, you must understand that search engines plough through your content and pretty much, ignore the styles and CSS. That’s why most of the WP themes have been designed keeping in mind that the text stays as close to the very top of your unstyled WP page as possible, while sidebars and footers are kept at the bottom.
Tip: Most search engines just scan the top third part of the page before moving on to the next one.
Adding Keywords, Links, and Titles To The Content – By using keywords, links, and appropriate titles to your content you increase your chances of attracting search engine spiders. Your Meta tags, page titles, and image labels should all be keyword driven.
Link Popularity – Solid links to your site are worth their weight in gold with search engines. It’s all about whom else is linked to you and blogrolls, pingbacks, and trackbacks are some of the in-built features of WordPress that help you achieve this. Type link: www.yoursite.com into Google to check the exact number of incoming links your website has received via Google.
As a last word – WordPress is one of the most Search Engine friendly program and you must take full advantage of its built-in SEO features.
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