3 ways to get more out of video on your Web site

We’ve written before here about the growing importance of online video to your online marketing efforts. Video can help your customers connect with you more deeply and it can help them find you better in the first place. And with the introduction of cheap, good camera’s like the Flip and the Kodak Zi8 (what I use) it’s easier than ever to create videos for the Web. Here are a few tips for making the most of the opportunity:

Use text (lots) to describe your videos

Although Google and the other search engines have started to include video in their search results, the search engines still can’t interpret the content of videos. For that, Google relies on the text you use to describe your videos, for instance the tags and descriptions that you use when you post your video to YouTube or, of you have the capability, closed captioning within the videos themsleves. The more relevant and keyword-oriented — within reason — your tags, descriptions and captions are, the more likely it is that people will be able to find your videos more easily in search results.

Use a video sitemap

A video sitemap is a specially formatted file that quickly and easily tells Google and the other search engines about the video that’s on your Web site. It includes information that describes your videos — that text again — and the locations where people can find that video.Creating (and updating) a video sitemap is perhaps the most important thing you can do to help people find your videos in search results.

Non-technical people may want to get help creating and updating their video sitemaps or installing tools that will create them automatically (we use XML Sitemaps for Video to automatically generate sitemaps for our blog here).

Don’t forget about mobile

Flash™ has become the de facto standard for publishing video on the Web for some time — it was the first technology to make video truly accessible on the Web. But there’s a major problem with Flash™: it doesn’t work on most mobile devices, like the millions and millions of iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches and Blackberries that are out there.

If you are using Flash™ video, make sure you offer an alternative, like HTML 5 video, for mobile users. If you’re non-technical, you may need some help with this. Or if you’re using YouTube, make sure you enable mobile viewing (under Syndication options), when you upload or edit your video.