Optimizing Multimedia Content for the Search Engines

Optimizing Multimedia Content for the Search Engines

By Karon Thackston © 2010, All Rights Reserved

When the Web first became a mainstream medium well over a decade ago, it was full of static content and images. Words dominated, but were quickly followed by still photographs, clip art and the like. With the invention of Flash software, we were able to include moving presentations that added interest and depth to our sites.

Podcasts (audio files in MP3, MP4 and other formats) took over the ’Net with the introduction of iPods and other type devices. We now had the ability to read, see and hear information online as well as on our handhelds. Video entered the scene shortly thereafter and opened a whole new world of relaying information through real-life images recorded as they happened. Surfing became a multisensory, multimedia activity.

Search Engines Are Blind and Deaf

At the point of their emergence, and for some years later, none of these mediums would contribute to a page’s search engine rankings. That’s because engines are text machines. Every thing they do, every path they follow, every bit and byte they index is in the form of text. In essence, search engines are blind and deaf.

They can’t see the pretty pictures or videos, neither can they hear audio. But they now have more flexibility in ranking multimedia – if it’s properly optimized – than ever before. This includes the ability to index Flash elements, presentations and pages now and – soon- the words spoken in videos.

Flash Is Not a Rankings’ Killer

Many still consider Flash the “enemy” of the search engines because of past problems with indexing. While this may have been true years ago, it no longer poses much of a problem. Adobe released specific Flash code to Google and Yahoo! in 2008 that gave the engines the ability to index the content in Flash files. The operative phrase is “the content.” This does not include the images. Remember, search engines are text machines.

Google posted the following on its Webmaster Central blog:

We’ve improved our ability to index textual content in SWF files of all kinds. This includes Flash “gadgets” such as buttons or menus, self-contained Flash websites, and everything in between.

[We can index] all of the text that users can see as they interact with your Flash file. Also, the words that appear in your Flash files can be used to match query terms in Google searches.

[However], placing the text within an image will make it effectively invisible to us.

We do not index FLV files, such as the videos that play on YouTube, because these files contain no text elements.

What You Need to Know

When indexing for Flash, it’s important to understand what can and cannot be “read.” The following can be spidered by the engines and make excellent places to incorporate keyphrases:

• Titles of Flash presentations
• On-screen content
• Content in banners
• Words on menus
• Buttons labels
• Other forms of content (text)

“Text” is the pivotal word. If you can read it… if it is a typewritten word that is visible, chances are the search engines can now index it.

If you haven’t done so already, now’s an excellent time to go back through the Flash elements on your site(s) to ensure user-friendly/search engine-friendly text is included.

The Future of Optimizing Video

What about videos? Will they ever be indexed by the engines? Yes. In fact, this has been happening in a limited capacity for about two years. The speech within videos was first spidered in 2008 with the rollout of a new gadget called Google Audio Indexing (GAudi for short) which has enabled Google to index the spoken words (audio) from videos. Think of it like Closed Captioning for search engines.

Doing its first experiment using the YouTube Political Channel, GAudi was able to index and rank the videos based on the relevance of spoken keywords, YouTube metadata (such as title tag, description tag, etc.) and freshness of the video. While there is still a lot of tweaking to be done, the results are extremely promising.

Don’t Delay… Start Now

You may be thinking, “That’s great! When the time comes, we’ll start incorporating keyphrases into our voice scripts.” I encourage you to start today. By changing your copywriting practices for sales/promotional videos, instructional videos and others now, you’ll be one step ahead of the competition once GAudi is incorporated fully.

Create a Video Optimization Plan

The official rollout of GAudi is still unannounced which gives you plenty of time to update your video copywriting plan. Currently, it is the page on which a video is hosted that gets optimized. The title tag of the page, the description, any relevant metadata and any introductory copy would include keyphrases.

As you think toward the future, you’ll also want to also incorporate keyphrases into the voiceovers of your videos. Easy ways to include keyword mentions are to:

• Use descriptive keywords. Although keyphrases are generally nouns, they vary from broad to specific. Rather than use a generic term (“vacuum” or “bike”), include search phrases such as “Electrolux 575 vacuum” or “Schwinn 10-speed bike.”
• Place keyphrases near benefits statements. GAudi will take viewers to the exact place within a video that includes the searched keyphrase. Stating benefits in association with keyphrases will give the viewer an immediate, positive impression of your product/service.
• Position keyphrases within relevant quotes. Because GAudi will probably become a favorite tool of bloggers and the media, you’ll want to arrange keyword-rich quotes within your video scripts. When those looking for voice bites search your videos, they’ll discover interesting and pertinent material.

Once you’ve tweaked your videos and Flash presentations, you can sit back and smile smugly. You’ll enjoy better rankings while others foolishly continue to proclaim, “Flash and video are rankings’ killers!”

Karon Thackston is President of Marketing Words, a copywriting agency specializing in natural-sounding SEO copy and copywriting training. More information, including Karon’s blog, can be found at www.MarketingWords.com.

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