If you are a search engine specialist, or most any online marketing specialist, they you likely that search results are increasingly including more than just text links. One of the newest opportunities for search engine marketing specialists to take advantage of getting their video content included in Google’s general (aka, "blended") search results. Forrester analyst Nate Elliot publishes the results of an in-house study claiming that for search engine visibility, an indexed video stands about a 50x greater chance of ranking on the first page of search results, than any given textual page in the index.  What that means is if you are a search engine optimization specialist, or any type of online marketer looking to get quality traffic and conversions from the search engines, then you really should be treating video image thumbnails as a serious opportunity. In this presentation I show you basic overview of what’s involved with optimizing the image thumbnails for your video image content, with examples right from Google’s blended search results. You’ll get to see: • Why Image Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialists and SEO specialists in general should pay attention to video image thumbnails in blended search results, • How my own publication (ReelSEO) has been successful with image optimization of video thumbnails, and; • Tips for how SEO professionals can get started with optimizing their own video content for image search results (and blended search results featuring images).

1. VIDEO THUMBNAILS the new SEO opportunity GRANT CROWELL, ANALYST December 7, 2009

2. The way to get more images optimized in Google universal search is by optimizing video!

3. Videos Dominate Universal Search Results Videos Dominate Universal Search 38% of users who searched Google were served video in Universal search engine results pages Source – “Google Universal Search Results Searcher Penetration by Result Type” – ComScore – Jan 2008

4. OPPORTUNITY WITH VIDEO THUMBNAILS PROMINENCE Video thumbnail images prominently appear in Google Search Results as much as 6 results all together in just one part of the page. POPULARITY “Video” is a popular search term RELEAVANCY More descriptivecontent thanimage results in aSERP LESS COMPETITION

6. Added to Google 11/4

7. Traffic goes directly to ReelSEO.com

9. Added to ReelSEO on 12/22/2009

10. Displayed in Google’s blended search results on same day!

11. Traffic goes directly to ReelSEO.com

13. The text on the page adjacent to the video The video caption “Dozens of other factors to determine the video content.” Google’s criteria for video thumbnails

14. Easiest = Link to Video File – traffic to video file vs. page Best = XML Sitemaps Google supports both MRSS and XML video sitemaps MRSS feeds Need location of video file Video file = same domain XML sitemaps Allows you to specify player, and whether to “allow play” in Google Video Tips for Sitemaps Robots.txt - include sitemaps and allow URL crawling Publish both video sitemap and regular xml sitemap (video + page) Titles are given disproportionate weighting Tell search engines which thumbnail to use Contact search engines for specific guidelines – many outdated Getting your Video Thumbnails into SERPs

16. Available via universal search resultsVideo Sharing Sites YouTube is the biggie, but… There are MANY more! How Blended Video Thumbnails get Indexed

17. Video Site Map (Done in WordPress with special plug-in) MRSS feed Regular, consistent video content Search-optimized web pages with regular content Linking ReelSEO’s success with video thumbnails

18. Video content (Duh!) Website video content is best. Optimize the web pages with the video content. Create a Video Site Map (with the optional “thumbnail” tag) You can also do an MRSS feed for good measure (with the MRSS thumbnail tag) Make all of your thumbnail images 80 x 60 pixels. (Place them in a separate folder on your site for easier organization.) WHAT YOU NEED…

19. #1 Tip: Submit a Video Site Map to Google!

20. ReelSEO Links:How to create a Google video sitemapVideo sitemaps in Google – MRSS or Video XML

21. VIDEO SITE MAP EXAMPLE

22. VIDEO SITE MAP EXAMPLE “Thumbnail_loc” tag

23. MRSS FEED EXAMPLE Media:thumbnailtag

24. GOOD or BAD Example?

25. GOOD or BAD Example?

26. GOOD or BAD Example?

27. GOOD or BAD Example?

28. Build video content Build a video sitemap Optimize the thumbnail images for 80 x 60 size (or 4 x 3 dimensions) Have your video sitemap include the special code for your images Submit the video sitemap to Google Tell Google which thumbnail you want, and make sure its relevant to the search results! RECAP!

29. Thank You Grant Crowell, Senior Analyst grant@reelseo.com Twitter.com/reelseo Facebook.com/grantcrowell LinkedIn.com/grantcrowell