How to SEO for a Video - Youtube or on-Site?

[PixelPusher]

I wonder what is better for seo purposes:
1.) embedding a video in FLV-format on the site itself along with a video-sitemap for google
2.) uploading the video to youtube (or any other video sharing service) and embedding the youtube-player on the site.

what would you recommend and what are the pros and cons?

[kenlinks]

You can do both of them but i suggest you the second one .. Well you can still do both the things in order to gain more backlinks ..

[ebuzzmaster]

Hi - my company recently published both ways, specifically to get the visibility in YouTube for people not familiar with the company, and on our site to encourage people to add the video to their site, giving us a backlink with our personalized player.

[Terry Van Horne]

YouTube hosted, streamed on your site. If you have a lot set it up like you would any HUB on a site. I like to embed in relevent text and/or have a page with transcript for each video. The transcript is likely the best way to get your video indexed for search. It is also neccessary for accessability to handicapped users.

[ron angel]

Originally Posted by PixelPusher

I wonder what is better for seo purposes:
1.) embedding a video in FLV-format on the site itself along with a video-sitemap for google
2.) uploading the video to youtube (or any other video sharing service) and embedding the youtube-player on the site.

what would you recommend and what are the pros and cons?

I prefer, and find that it is better for seo to embed site url in clip
converted to wmv which is the simplest & most common format ( I find 512kb best size to clarity ratio) then place on my site server & text link to it. This method gives me full control over clip & if downloaded and used by somebody else embedded site url give free advertising for the site. flash & flv codecs are not needed to playback as all windows users have windows media player they can watch direct or download file to hard drive.
copy's of the clip can also be placed on youtube & other similar sites as well if required. If you do not have site band width then the flash & youtube type option would be better but not so good for seo.

[sonisoni]

Try to get more sites like youtube. Upload your video on these free sites.. That will help you in getting more traffic.

[PixelPusher]

Thanks for the replies so far. A further question: many of our clients are small businesses, which act locally. Do you still think adding a video for a client like that to youtube or other video sharing services is a good thing?
Besides, which good video sharing sites do you know other than youtube?
I know vimeo, sevenload (germany), myvideo (germany) - any other recommended?

@ron angel: u prefer wmv? wow, well I think I won't, because i don't want to loose users with mac os or linux... Flash Video has a lot better dispersion than wmv.

[flhu]

I don't know how effective it would be RIGHT NOW this second, but youtube does allow for assigning geo-locations to videos, and eventually they may incorporate that info into google maps, which can't hurt.

[Terry Van Horne]

Originally Posted by flhu

I don't know how effective it would be RIGHT NOW this second, but youtube does allow for assigning geo-locations to videos, and eventually they may incorporate that info into google maps, which can't hurt.

Yeup... I agree with that! There is nothing to say they don't already take subscriptions to your feed, friends and comments into the Universal Search ranking algo, or do it in the future. Too often SEO's are so busy trying to reverse engineer they don't look forward and wonder "where could this go?" I do... I think reverse engineering leads to just following the herd and that often ends badly or being effective for a short period before SE's negate the technique.

[ron angel]

[/QUOTE]
@ron angel: u prefer wmv? wow, well I think I won't, because i don't want to loose users with mac os or linux... Flash Video has a lot better dispersion than wmv.[/QUOTE]

modern macs can view wmv with not too many problems.I have just had a quick look at my site states for October the ratio of windows (all versions) to mac is 22 to 1 so excluding linux & other
operating systems there are 22 viewers of the site windows based to every mac viewer probably a higher ratio over a year. Noting that you are Germany based reminds me that some years ago I saw the backstage of a German circus which was run entirely using an Atari system which is similar to dos with a gem interface they were not thinking of upgrading either. my site is otherwise fully mac compatible & I have tested with different mac operating system browsers.If anybody wants to check their sites compatibly browser wise a quick free test which covers most systems browsers can be found at http://browsershots.org/

[mariajohnson9]

Here are SEO Tips for Video Optimization.
Hope this would help

[hostchecker]

Thanks this is a helpful thread. i am about to upload some youtube videos

[PixelPusher]

Originally Posted by mariajohnson9

Here are SEO Tips for Video Optimization.
Hope this would help

Thanks for the nice link. I guess after thinking about it again and again, I would favor both techniques, means putting the video directly on the site and publishing it on video sharing sites as well.

[Steven Glover]

You could always use Progressive Enhancement by utilizing SWFObject. This is a great way to display your video player on the site while adding some nice keywords for the search engines and some good text for people who don't have flash installed or possibly turned on. I love SWFObject.

You can read more about it here swfobject - Google Code

[coolbudy]

Try to get more sites like youtube. Upload your video on these free sites.. That will help you in getting more traffic.

[PixelPusher]

Originally Posted by Steven Glover

You could always use Progressive Enhancement by utilizing SWFObject. This is a great way to display your video player on the site while adding some nice keywords for the search engines and some good text for people who don't have flash installed or possibly turned on. I love SWFObject.

You can read more about it here swfobject - Google Code

Good point - we use SWFObject for sites with flash-content.

[Steven Glover]

Originally Posted by PixelPusher

Good point - we use SWFObject for sites with flash-content.

Yes it seems to work very well and if you don't abuse it you can really help bolster your keywords.