MIMA Summit 2009

Summit Presenter Blog Feed

TopRank’s SEO Halloween Costume Contest

Lee Odden

The TopRank team loves to have fun – for holidays, on team outings, at conferences, etc. Because tomorrow is Halloween, members of the TopRank team decided to dress up for a costume contest.

And it’s up to you to decide the winner!

Please vote on your favorite costume below.

Safari Thomas

Dana as Minnesota Strawberry Shortcake

Bad Angel Julie

Michelle the Football Star

Monkey Audrey and Veterinary Nurse Amie

Mike as Zombie Soupy Sales

Sue After Being Attacked by Scooby Doo

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Lee Odden

Opt in and opt out

Seth Godin

Every year, tens of thousands of people die because organ donor status in the US is opt in. If you want to be an organ donor when you're dead, you need to go through steps now to opt in. The default is "no."

Press releases, send by the billions, seem to have become opt out. If you don't want the barrage of nonsense, PR firms appear to believe that one by one you must alert each and every publicist in the world of your desire to not hear from them.

401 (k) plans tend to be opt in. If you do nothing, you get nothing.

Talking to the police after getting arrested is strictly opt out. Nothing to sign, you just talk.

Cheese on your pasta used to be opt out, but now it appears to be becoming opt in.

Bacon should never be opt out. Sorry, but that's just the way I feel.

I think there are a few general principles that could save us time and money and hassle:

If there's a public good involved from a certain behavior, the default should be opt out.
If the pressure or cost of opting out is high and it involves a civil right, then opt in is a better choice for our society. (Obviously a potential conflict to the first rule).
If a business benefits in aggregate and the consumer is penalized on average, then it's smart public policy for it to be opt in.
If your business is going to depend on this connection as an asset, opt in is the way to go. Opt out email is another word for spam.

So, I'd make organ donation opt out, public religious observance opt in, newsletters opt in and smart financial choices opt out. Anything that tricks a consumer into paying for something ought to be double opt in. And without a doubt, email (and commercial transactions of all kinds) are opt in. Smart for both sides.

No need to sneak around. Ask first.

Seth Godin

5 Basic Tips for Video SEO

Lee Odden

Improving search result for video If you’re attempting to improve search rankings for your web pages, these days it’s no longer an option not to optimize digital assets. With search engines incorporating video, images and news into standard search results, marketers have the opportunity to achieve increased visibility by implementing video SEO principles.

These 5 basic tips for video SEO are a good starting point for marketers looking to improve the “searchability” of their videos.

1. Optimize with keywords.
Just like any type of text-based content, video SEO involves optimizing with target relevant keywords — both for search engines and for user experience. Use keywords in:

File name
Title
Tags
URL
Link text

Beyond that, include a paragraph of optimized text that provides a brief description of the video. Again, the benefits are twofold: You’ll improve the user experience and your search rankings.

2. Distribute videos on video-sharing sites.
In addition to posting videos on your own site, video-sharing sites are effective tools for gaining visibility and additional links. Remember these few points to maximize results:

Don’t forget that videos hosted on YouTube and other video-sharing sites should be optimized for keywords
YouTube channel pages — and those of other video-sharing sites — should be optimized, as well
Use a video distribution service like TubeMogul to deploy your videos to the top sharing sites

3. Implement a linking strategy.
Video is judged by the same linking standards as all other forms of digital content. So building both internal and external links is crucial for video SEO. Ideas for a linking strategy include:

Cross-linking to other videos
Linking to videos from relevant web pages
Linking to videos in blog posts
Tweeting the video
Linking to videos from social media pages
Bookmarking the video

4. Encourage viewers to share your videos.
First thing is first — if you want users to share your videos, you must create content worth sharing. If your video isn’t interesting, relevant, entertaining or informative, users aren’t likely to share it, let alone view it. From there:

Allow and encourage users to comment on the video
Make it easy for users to share your video on You Tube, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace
Offer video content in multiple formats so users can choose the one that best suited to their platform and connectivity speed

5. Re-purpose your videos.
As with text content, the more optimized video, the better. Get creative in order to re-purpose videos across the web:

Embed videos in blog posts
Break up long videos and create multiple shorter ones
Use transcriptions of videos to create blog posts or content for web pages
Take screen shots from videos and post them to Flickr and other image-sharing sites
Turn offline content, such as training videos or videos of a conference keynote speech, into optimized digital assets for your website

What basic video SEO tips do you find useful?

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Lee Odden

5 Basic Tips for Video Optimization

Lee Odden

These 5 basic tips for video SEO are a good starting point for marketers looking to improve the “searchability” of their videos.

File name
Title
Tags
URL
Link text

Beyond that, include a paragraph of optimized text that provides a brief description of the video. Again, the benefits are twofold: You’ll improve the user experience and your search rankings.

Don’t forget that videos hosted on YouTube and other video-sharing sites should be optimized for keywords
YouTube channel pages — and those of other video-sharing sites — should be optimized, as well
Use a video distribution service like TubeMogul to deploy your videos to the top sharing sites

Cross-linking to other videos
Linking to videos from relevant web pages
Linking to videos in blog posts
Tweeting the video
Linking to videos from social media pages
Bookmarking the video

Allow and encourage users to comment on the video
Make it easy for users to share your video on You Tube, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace
Offer video content in multiple formats so users can choose the one that best suited to their platform and connectivity speed

5. Re-purpose your videos.
As with text content, the more optimized video, the better. Get creative in order to re-purpose videos across the web:

Embed videos in blog posts
Break up long videos and create multiple shorter ones
Use transcriptions of videos to create blog posts or content for web pages
Take screen shots from videos and post them to Flickr and other image-sharing sites
Turn offline content, such as training videos or videos of a conference keynote speech, into optimized digital assets for your website

What basic video SEO tips do you find useful?

Subscribe to this Feed

Lee Odden

What's a Brand to Do?

Scott Monty

Say you work for a brand. Customers have more access to you than ever - and you've got a wealth of choices as far as channels go: traditional marketing, online & interactive, gaming, mobile, social media, etc.

But for your customers that are interested in interacting online, what do you think they want from you? And what should you do when you connect with them? Look no further! eMarketer Daily has very helpfully published a piece on Lightspeed Research's "Global Web Index."

Actions Brands Can Take that Are Most Relevant to US Internet Users, August-September 2009 (scale of 1-5*)

What do customer want from the brands they love? Information, mostly (well, after a good discount, anyway). Ultimately, they want value. They're not there to be "friends," or to get your time-wasting app - they want something that's relevant to them that helps push the relationship forward.

Something to think about when thinking about your online strategy.

Chart courtesy of eMarketer.

Posted via web from The Full Monty