Part 2 of my Video SEO series (Part 1 is here) deals with what video file format you should use and how to create it for publishing. So while some of this information pertains to  search engine optimization for your video, a solid chunk of it is really a how-to for publishing your web videos online.

Flash (.flv) has overwhelmingly become the posting format of choice for web publishers. All major video distribution sites (like YouTube) transcode whatever format you upload into Flash for publishing. There are three main reasons why Flash has become so popular:

1. Compatibility: The majority of internet users have the Adobe Flash player pre-installed in their browsers regardless if they are on a PC or Mac. Quicktime (.mov) files on the other hand may be difficult for some PC users to view, while Windows Media Player files (.wmv) may be difficult for Mac users.

2. Quality & Size: The Flash compression codec is able to ’squish’ the video file into a small file size while still maintaining a quality picture. How small and how good of quality will depend on your compression settings but generally speaking you will be able to find a compression ‘recipe’ that fulfills your needs. I’ll talk more about compressing Flash files for the web in a minute.

3. Player options: Using Flash gives you a lot of options as far as the look and functionality of the player you want to publish your video in. If you are using a video sharing site like YouTube or Vimeo you are stuck with the basic layout of the player but most have some color, and size customization options. If you are hosting the video yourself, there are even more skins and player options available. In addition to changing color and size, you can add a watermark or logo, add social media features and turn the embed code on or off. A couple of popular player options are FlowPlayer and JW FLV Player.

Read the rest of this entry »

What the heck is that man doing?

Like life, your content and marketing strategies are all about balance. You don’t want to put so much time into producing your videos that your written posts, interaction with your followers or other communication methods suffer. Video is a very important piece of the overall puzzle but in planning your video content strategy you must keep in mind all of the pieces.

[Sidebar: For more on leveraging web video on your site download my free 20 page report here.]

Creating video content can also seem a bit daunting at first, so the idea is to keep it simple until you get the hang of it. And you will get the hang of it. Start out with a simple introduction or product demo video and once you get the process down move up to a regular video post schedule. Ideally weekly or even bi-weekly, but if your schedule doesn’t permit make time at least once a month. Whatever works for you well enough and is not stressful. Making videos can be really fun to do but only if you are not forcing yourself to produce them on an unrealistic schedule.

Read the rest of this entry »

Lately search engines, like Google, have been becoming more video friendly. However unless you properly optimize your video content, it can be a challenge for search engine ’spiders’ to find them.

At first the complete video SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy may seem a bit overwhelming and time consuming. But you will find that most of the steps quickly become second nature and the increased traffic to your videos is well worth the work.

I’ve decided to break the ‘SEO Tips’ into bite size posts that I will release over the next few weeks. This way you can digest them one at a time and implement them organically into your workflow.

Naming Your Video Files:

This is a very often overlooked tactic; properly naming of your files is important as it is one of the first things search engines spiders look at to identify what it is.

Read the rest of this entry »

The first five to ten seconds of your web videos are the most important. If a viewer makes it past those first few seconds they are much more likely to finish watching the entire video. Therefore it’s critically important to engage your viewers as quickly as possible.

How do you do that? The first major factor is quality lighting, good audio and a clear visual image. I’ll cover those topics in several other posts, today I want to focus on video content that will peak interest and suck a viewer into watching the rest of your video. Below are a few ideas to help you get started.

Read the rest of this entry »