A link farm is a website with a high number of links to different websites with no relevance or category logic, grouping, organization, or relevance to the domain name.

If you land on a site and there are hundreds of links all over with many unrelated topics, you’ve probably landed on a link farm. Link farms ARE spam and will be considered as such by Search Engines. The key purpose of link farms are to easily and illegitimately send signals to search engines to assist in ranking.

A few important things to keep in mind when it comes to link farms:

1. If you’re using link farms in any way for your SEO, STOP! It will not serve your clients end goal to rank well and long.
2. If you take a client on or have a website where you find your website has somehow been included in a link farm take corrective action to be removed.
3. And most of all, remember that SEO is ALL ABOUT RELEVANCE. Links farms are the exact opposite of obtaining the correct relevance signals to rank organically. The best and most legitimate way to build an quality SEO marketing campaign is through legitimate digital marketing initiatives like guest blogging, public relations, high level directory link building, internal blogging and user generated content, social media and keeping your business at the forefront of news and minds so that natural links are acquired.

It’s important to do everything you can to diversify your link portfolio and make your links appear as natural as possible. This means having different types of relevant links coming from various different domains and IP addresses.

That’s a lot of time spent watching moving pictures! YouTube currently receives 48 hours of video uploaded every minute and serves 3 billion videos per day.

Google+ Hangouts are changing who is producing videos and how they’re being used. Once Google lifts the restrictions on how many can join a hangout, which I suspect is coming with business pages, we’ll see more video content being created. More than just pranks and idiots filming evidence for their next arrest.

There are several things that can help your videos attain more visibility. First think about where visibility happens: on the search engine results pages (Universal Search), YouTube (or wherever you’ve uploaded your video), blog embeds, etc. To get a wide range interest you need to consider a ton of factors.

Video SEO Ranking Factors

• Keywords in title
• Number of views
• Number of comments
• Category & Tags
• +1/Shares/Tweets/Embeds
• Favorites
• Ratings
• Sentiment (Like/Dislike ratio)
• Channel views
• Number of subscribers
• Links
• Embeds
• Video Sitemap
• Channel login activity
• Speed & consistency of interest
• Quality description (click-thru factor)
• Flags (negative)

Keywords in Title

This example shows that a lot has been left on the table in terms of what other words should have been used to describe this video based on terms people would use to find the video. For example: theory, statistics, analysis, etc.

Category & Tags

The category here is probably misplaced since most people don’t find trend and variation as entertaining. For us nerds, maybe it’s properly categorized. However, the tags here do a better job at targeting words that users will be searching.

Pro tip: I always recommend multiple variations on spelling. For example: statistics & stats

Views, Ratings, Comments & Favorites

You’ll see there are over 34,000 video views so there’s some obvious interest by the public. This is important to show that it could become wildly popular vs. a similar video with 100 views.

Ratings are favorable with a few dislikes so the sentiment could be described as positive. Having a positive sentiment is not always the strongest indicator for rankings but generally the more people like a video, the better chance it has in obtaining each of the important ranking factors.

Comments are marginally active. With 34,000 views, many videos would demand a few thousand comments but this varies considerably.

Favorites are pretty good with 148. Much like comments, not everybody interacts the same way with video. Since there are more than a handful, it’s easy to see there is interest in sharing or saving this video for later reference.

Significant Discovery Events

Notice here that Event A and Event B created a large spike in views, comments, and favorites in the above chart? This is critical to understand who is going to help you get noticed and will naturally increase rankings as a result of video views, ratings, comments, favorites, etc.

Don’t be afraid to lookup what publishers are embedding videos and reach out to them to either (a) ask what videos they need for upcoming stories or (b) what types of characteristics they like to see in videos they’re planning to embed. Create a relationship and provide great video content to writers on a deadline.

Types of Videos to Produce

• Identify which keywords return video results in the universal results pages of the search engines
• Product videos
• Events
• Interviews
• Journalistic storytelling
• Screenshot (demo) videos
• Tutorials
• Production lines
• How things are made
• Announcements

Zappos product videos help consumers get a better description of the products they’re interested in buying. Along with images, there’s a very quick video where you can see products from every angle, as though you’re standing in the room having a discussion with a personal shopper. This comes as part of a Zappos strategy to launch 50,000 product videos in 2010.

Keyword Research for Video

• Standard keyword research using Google Adwords Keyword Tool
• Related searches (both search engines and video sites)
• Suggest/Auto-Complete Terms (the terms that drop down as you’re typing a search query)
• YouTube Searches & Related
• Keywords from your social media friends
• Industry terms

Video XML Sitemaps

Customizing your video XML sitemap is going to require a little technical knowledge. Don’t be intimidated out of taking this important step. Hire help if you must. Research the basics, test and tweak as you go. Make sure you submit your video sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools.

I am not going to get into content creation, how to make videos in this post, or other optimization tips. I will be doing that at a later date. These tips will only work for videos which you feel people would like to watch and search for.

Optimize the Title – In order to optimize the title, you should decide which keywords you would like to optimize for. Previous to creating the video you should have check the Google Adwords keyword tool as well as have decided what phrases are pertinent to your industry. (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)

Let’s say we are experts in making potato chips. We sell books and other material on the subject.

Now it’s time to decide on a title. Use the YouTube suggested search as well to help you see what some of the searches are on YouTube for your keyword.

It is advisable to check out what some of these searches return before you use any of these keywords.

Use of your site’s analytics data can also be helpful to get some ideas.

After looking at a few videos, evaluating the keywords from Adwords, YouTube suggest, and analytics, it’s time to write a title. This is not science and you may or may not change this title multiple times to test your results.

My title example:

Make Homemade Potato Chips – Recipe and Video Guide by Mom’s Chips

The first part of this uses high volume keywords as well as some variation on suggested search in YouTube. The second part of this title gives the reader a sense of value before clicking. They already know that you will show them the recipe as well as the walkthrough of how to make the chips. The third part is a push towards branding. This may or may not work. If you have a video with an introduction that brands you, you may consider leaving this out.

I hope this helps those of you that are on YouTube already or are looking to get started. Title creation is one of the most important things you can do to optimize your videos. As I mentioned earlier, more tips and explanations will be appearing on our blog in the next few weeks.

There were three really great speakers, but one of them, Gregory Markel from Infuse Creative, had some awesome information about ranking factors in YouTube.

Since video marketing and driving traffic to websites via YouTube is so exciting to me, I thought I would share some of the main takeaways from his presentation.

The very first thing that Gregory spoke about is what it takes to do well in YouTube. Most people think that by quickly shooting a video and putting it up on YouTube that they will be an instant star, or be able to drive millions of unique visitors to their website. This may have been the case in the past, but times are changing.

To do well at YouTube, you have to be focused in three different areas.

• Building and participating in the YouTube community in which you desire to do business in.
• Focusing on keywords that you would like to rank for and build authority.
• Obtaining links back to your video and having your video embedded in your site and other websites.

In the past, ranking in YouTube was as easy as simply optimizing the video for your main keyword. This was as simple as optimizing the title of the video and description. If you were good at that, you would probably be successful. If not, your video would quickly slip away, probably never to be found again.

Today, ranking well in YouTube is more complex. YouTube’s algorithm takes in to account many different factors. There are many different factors that Gregory talked about; I will touch on the few of the most important below.

Title, Description, Keywords, Links, & Tags

In order to rank well in YouTube, your video needs to be highly optimized. This means having your keywords in the right places (title, description, tags) and building links back to your video. These can be text based, anchor text links, or simply embeds.

View Counts / Frequency

The number of views your video has received shows that people are interested in what you have to share (if not manipulated). This helps build your authority and trust in the YouTube community. Also, YouTube looks at how often your video is viewed to make sure that your video content isn’t stale and outdated.

Comments & Thumbs Up and Down

YouTube loves when videos create interaction among its members. When you have a video with lots of comments and lots of thumbs-ups, this also shows that your video is interesting, provides value, and isn’t outdated or stale. On the other hand, when you have a lot of thumbs down, this can negatively influence your rankings in YouTube.

Age

Just like search engines love websites that have some age behind them, YouTube loves aged videos, as long as the video content isn’t outdated and stale. If you have a good video that is still relevant, and has been around for a long time, this will help you rank better in YouTube.

Video Responses

Video responses are above and beyond the normal responses that you might get on your video. Many times, comments on your videos are just spam. Just a few seconds of typing and you can pump out comments that have no real value behind them. Video responses are a bit different. Taking some time to shoot a video and responding to another video, shows that you have something real to share. Because of this, the video responses help rank your site better in YouTube.

There were many other things that he mentioned, but for the sake of us all not having to read a full discourse, I will stop there. Next, I want to discuss how to find good keywords and tags.

Optimizing Keywords & Tags

Before you even think about uploading a video to YouTube and turning it loose, you need to do some research to understand what people are searching for in YouTube.

First, you should research your competition thoroughly. Take a look at the videos that rank well for your desired keywords. See how they craft their titles, descriptions, and how they set-up their tags. You will want to follow closely, but not copy.

Second, you will want to use YouTube’s very own keyword suggestions tool. I’ll bet many of you didn’t know that YouTube had a suggestion tool. If you start typing slowly in the search box, you will see a populated drop down list of variations of other searches that are popular in YouTube. That is a good list to consider when trying to pick your keywords.

As with any SEO campaign, picking the right keywords from the very beginning and optimizing well for those keywords are key to your success.

Community Factors

One very important factor to ranking well and having success in YouTube is what Gregory calls community factors. I will list the most important community factors below.

Make Great & Unique Videos

Today, anyone can create a video and post it on YouTube. However, not many can actually produce videos that are unique and full of great content. These are the videos that have staying power and can truly help people with what they are searching for.

Include Call To Actions Early In The Video

As with any piece of promotional material, you want a clear call-to-action to guide your viewers to what you really want them to do. Include your call to action early in your video for maximum effectiveness.

Post Video Responses To The Most Popular & Relevant Video At YouTube That Day

Posting video responses to the most popular video in your industry will not only help you gain trust and authority in the eyes of the community, but it will help your videos get more views.

Use Some, But Not All The Same Keywords As Your Competition In Your Titles

Using some of the same keywords in your titles that your competition uses will help land your video in the “related videos” area of your competitors. This will help you get more views and build your authority.

Post Your Videos On Thursdays or Fridays

Believe it or not, most of the video views that YouTube receives are on the weekends. Uploading your videos on Thursdays or Fridays will help your video get additional views and help boost your video to the top of the YouTube search results.

Video marketing is going places. The web is evolving. Search is evolving. Adding video to your other methods of search engine marketing can really add a huge boost to your business.

Please respond if you have other insights that will be useful for us.

I don’t blame you for being skeptical, but it is possible to obtain the #1 listing in Google in a manner of minutes. How? Video.

Video is one of the fastest growing forms of content on the web. Ironically, while the hours that we spend watching video on the web continues to increase, so also are the hours we spend watching TV. This may be one of the reasons that search engines rank videos highly. Search engines have always been about giving the public what they want. Apparently, the public wants video.  As internet marketers, we need to shift our paradigm of search so that we are playing ahead of the game and not behind.

First, before we dive further into online video and why you need it on your site, let me make one thing crystal clear. You do not want to abandon the written word in your internet marketing efforts. I am simply pointing to video as a means of content generation that you cannot afford to ignore, because the snowball is gaining speed as it rolls down the hill.

What should you take away from the fact that although internet video consumption grew over the last several years, so has TV consumption? We are becoming more wired as a society. We are so wired that some people cannot resist the urge to reply to a text message while they are driving. We use our phones to write and check email everywhere we go. How many videos have you seen where someone walks into a pole because they are looking at their phone and not where they are going? We spend a lot of time online while we are in front of the TV. We use any means available to stay connected to every little piece of information that we can get our hands on – ah…wait a second. Maybe that’s it. INFORMATION!

We always talk about being on information overload so why would we possibly want more? Though I could theorize why that may be the case, it is irrelevant for now. The important thing is to understand that the facts all point to a society that wants more information and they want it on their terms.

Understanding this, why wouldn’t you want to give your audience what they desire? Give people a reason to stay longer on your site because you have video. Some of the most successful internet business launches to date have happened through video content. Ask yourself this: “Do more people prefer to watch TV or read a book?” There is no question that we prefer to watch TV. While we are a society that craves information and we are willing to get it however we can, we prefer watching over reading when given a choice.

That being said, you should consider video in your content building strategy. It will not replace all of the text on your website, but it will certainly add value and lengthen site visits. If you market your videos correctly they will likely attract new visitors that will become loyal followers of you and your business.

Now that you understand why you should care about video, you should make sure that you know how to perform SEO for video so that you get the most out of every video you produce. Watch for a follow up post with tips on how to accomplish this.

This sounds pretty simple, but it is actually not that easy. Not just any video posted on YouTube will be viewed by millions of people. The trick is to make a video that people are going to talk about, email to their friends, and link to on their blog and their social networking profiles.

So the benefit of a viral video for marketing purposes is when the video promotes a product or service offered by a company. The video might be about a product or just mention the product or service in part of the video. Once the video is viral it becomes another avenue to inform millions of people about your business.

To make a video into something that people will talk about you need to make it something they will remember. This can be done by making it unique, or making it informative. Another good way is to add an element of humor to it and make it something people will laugh at. Silly humor often works well for making a video go viral. Another option is adding the element of shock to the video. Shock works well when it is something placed at the end of the video to try to scare the viewer.

A video on YouTube that has used one of these methods to go viral is called “Charlie the Unicorn”. If you have not heard of this video then you are one of the few who has not. The video has now been viewed over 40 million times. The reason for the popularity of this video is its simple, silly humor. People watch it, laugh and then tell their friends and co-workers to watch it.

So the trick to making a viral video is to include one of those elements in the video. However I am not going to tell you how to include it. That is something you will need to figure out on your own. But once you get it all figured out it will be well worth it. Just look at what it did for Charlie the Unicorn. The video has nothing to do with internet marketing but it still managed to get mentioned on our SEO blog.

When people think of videos and the internet, most people think of the viral videos. After all, who can forget about the classic exploding whale video? Or the long-time reigning champion of Youtube, Evolution of Dance? Or that slam dunk Lebron James recently made from the free-throw line? The real question most webmasters are thinking, however, is how to utilize these videos for the benefit of their website, to draw traffic and improve their visibility, and most importantly make money. Here are a couple of basic guidelines to help your site out if you are thinking about incorporating video into your overall internet marketing strategy.

1. Do Keyword research. You don’t want to just throw up a video out there, and hope that it brings in the right traffic. Putting up a video without doing any research is like doing target practice blindfolded. Just like a website, a video will need to have a direction and focus.

2. Use titles and Descriptions. When it comes down to it, this is the most important aspect of your video, next to the video itself. Because search engines aren’t able to watch a video like we can to figure out what it’s about (yet), it relies heavily on the title and description. Make sure to fill these out, and be keyword oriented.

3. Link build. Just like any website, links have a big impact on videos showing up in search engines.

4. Mention the link. Don’t forget to post the link or mention the site as often as you can. If you can get in the description, great, but don’t forget to show or mention the link within the video itself. A couple of ideas is to show the link at the bottom of the video, and repeat, verbally, the domain several times.

As you start to implement your video strategy, remember that videos are only as good as the traffic they generate to their site. If the traffic coming from videos is poor with high bounce rates, it might be a good idea to revise the video. It’s better to get less, but more targeted traffic than to get a video with thousands of views.