As the internet becomes more inundated with multimedia, companies that rely on search engine optimization (SEO) may want to consider how to make sure they’re optimized for things like video, and one expert says it might be time to consider a SEO strategy for YouTube videos.
In a column for ClickZ, Julie Batten says that YouTube is many things to many people, but some see it for its search potential. With that in mind, she says companies that have video clips on YouTube should be including the site in their search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.
While there are a number of things users can do to better optimize the videos they post on YouTube, Batten says the videos still need to be compelling if they hope for the video to become viral.
"All things being equal, the more activity your video has, the higher it will rise through the ranks. No amount of optimization or tagging will help a video that is about as exciting as watching grass grow," she says. "And the more engagement you foster with your video, the more likely people are to link to it as well, further enhancing your SEO efforts."
The most recent figures from comScore shows that YouTube is actually the second most popular search engine in the U.S. According to the August 2009 U.S. Search Engine Ranking report, YouTube accounted for more than 3.5 billion searches last month. By comparison, Yahoo performed 2.8 billion searches while Microsoft had more than 1.3 billion.
