I have talked to many specialists in the SEO field over the last few days and we have all noticed that there is a real increase in the number of videos and images appearing in Google’s SERPs.

For most of the experts this is a sure sign that there is a big dance at Google. A dance which could change a lot of things for SEO as we know it. Some even argue that SEO is dead and DAO (Digital Asset Optimization) will take its place.

Is the promise of Universal Search coming true? Just search for “How to tie a tie” in Google and take a good look at the SERP.

SCREENSHOT:

So let’s analyze this page:

There are a total of 11 results with the following:

• 1 image results (3 images aligned next to each other)
• 3 video results with thumbnails (two of which do not originate from YouTube, something very new indeed!) and none with a “+” to expand the player within the SERP.
• 11 text results

This is great news for those who produced the videos that land on Page 1, but bad news for everyone else. The SEO game, which has been pretty much closed for the past few years is now wide open again. What a boom for the SEO market!

I’d really like to know more about the traffic that Google sends directly to Videojug as a result of their videos appearing directly in the SERP (as seen in the “how to tie a tie” example9.

Video SEO (VSEO) is becoming a real area of expertise and its going to be a major challenge for those who do not catch on to this revolution early on.

All you SEO gurus: get ready to tell your clients that they need to produce videos as it will have to become a key component of their e-marketing over the coming months and years. Video will become the tool for getting free traffic to your website in 2008 and beyond. Furthermore it will be a tool that, if used properly, can get you on the first page of Google (the dream of any marketer out there!!!).

Your customers expect video, and Google wants you to deliver it to them, so start producing videos now!

Users clearly LOVE video:

I’d like to hear what you all have to say about this… Comments please

Matt Cutler, VP of Marketing and Analytics at Visible Measures.

Thomas Owadenko: When did your company launch and where is it located?

Matt Cutler: Headquartered in Boston, Visible Measures officially raised the curtain on the company and our new product, VisibleSuite, at DEMO 08 in January. As part of this launch, Visible Measures introduced the industry’s first Internet video audience behavior measurement suite.

TO: Why did you launch it and what is your mission?

MC: While competition for online viewers is fierce and growing fiercer, confusion persists around how publishers, advertisers, and Internet video sites track, measure, and analyze audience behavior patterns. Many companies are competing to capture the attention of Internet video viewers but publishers and advertisers lacked a means to quantitatively measure audience engagement. Our solution: Internet video requires a new set of metrics to understand audience behaviors and more accurately predict and analyze the success of Internet videos.

TO: What is the strength of your products?

MC: With our product, it is now possible to capture and measure every video interaction in every video from every viewer, from play to pause to rewind to forward-to-a-friend and more. VisibleSuite provides high-value, high-impact solutions to the audience valuation and content monetization challenge. Built from the ground up to measure Internet video, VisibleSuite audience behavior measurement solutions provide video publishers and advertisers with precise performance data including how audiences find, view, interact with, and share each video. This allows publishers to make data-driven management decisions about their content portfolios, distribution strategies, and audience targeting. Advertisers can know not just that their placement was viewed, but how much the audience was involved in the message and then map results to specific campaigns.

To add capabilities in viral video distribution and analytics services, we also recently acquired Vidmeter, an Internet video distribution and analytics company that manages universal upload, syndicated tracking and rankings of user-generated video content.

TO: How many people work in your company?

MC: We have offices in Boston and the Bay area, and employ about 25 people.

TO: Who are your clients?

MC: Partners and early adopters include:
- Boston.com
- Brightcove
- DEMO
- Funny or Die
- Hill Holliday
- HoneyShed/Droga5
- Streefire.net

TO: Why did they choose you?

MC: We are the only solution on the market today that allows video publishers to make data-driven management decisions about their content portfolios, distribution strategies, and audience targeting. As they look to grow their total audience while increasing viewing time and viewer involvement, Internet video publishers can now use our technology to understand exactly how their online audiences engage with their video content.

And, with VisibleSuite’s ability to measure the behavior of their Internet video audiences, video advertisers can know not just that their placement was viewed, but how much the audience was involved in the message and then map results to specific campaigns.

TO: Who are your competitors?

MC: No direct competitors.

TO: SEO and Video? Myth or reality?

MC: Reality. As video becomes a larger and larger percentage of the content available on the Web, effective video search will become an important aspect of the general user experience. And as the audience discovers more and more videos via search, video SEO will likely emerge as an important aspect of marketing video content.

TO: What do you think about google universal and how it should be?

MC: Google Universal shows promise though is in the early stages of its maturation cycle. We support any approach that makes it easier for Internet video audiences to find content that they are interested in and they will find engaging.

TO: Did you raise money? How much and who invested or do you plan to raise?

MC: We recently closed a $13.5 million series B round of financing. The round was led by MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures with participation from General Catalyst Partners, the lead investor in the company’s Series A Funding announced in early 2007. The company plans to use the additional funding to fuel expansion and growth.

TO: What are the “top 3″ priorities for your company in the coming year ?

MC:
1) Continued research and development of our VisibleSuite and related product and service offerings.
2) Growth and expansion through customer acquisition
3) Market education and industry thought leadership around Internet video audience behavior measurement topics

Hey!Spread helps any producer to publish and track videos on different platforms. I invite you to read the interview I had with him. Hey!spread is evolving in the same space as Tubemogul, Divinitymetrics and Visible measures.

Thomas Owadenko: Hello, in a few lines, please introduce yourself (name, age…) and your track record?

Eric Fontaine: My name is Eric Fontaine. I am 30 years old. I did all my studies in Marketing and Strategy. Before launching my own company, I worked at Universal Music Group International and the mobile phone department for 5 years.

TO: When was your company launched and where is it located?

EF: Hey!Spread was launched in July 07. We are in located in Marseille, in the South of France.

TO: Why did you launch it and what is its mission?

EF: Actually, we always try to develop tools that can help people do everything video-realted as easily as possible. And we do it pretty well through our two services Hey!Watch, our video encoding web service, and of course Hey!Spread. On the one hand, video is the trendiest medium on the web and online video platforms pop up like mushrooms. And on the other hand, people are becoming video web producers and want to create the buzz around their video content. Unfortunately, spreading their content over all the platforms is something very boring and time consuming. That’s how Hey!Spread was born. From now on, promoting your video content over the best video portals can be done in one shot. Easy, efficient and quick.

TO: What are the strengths of your products?

EF: Actually, we do not only distribute content. We promote it and allow our client to highlight their video creations. We propose many innovative options like watermarking, encoding, real time monitoring, cross-posting, credentials-checking, job-restarting… All thees features optimize the distribution. It’s not a closed or blind service. The user is almighty. Besides, as we do for all our products, we propose an API. That way, companies can integrate Hey!Spread as a white label and offer it as a new feature. They can spread from one platform to another. It’s very successful.

TO: How many people work in your company?

EF: We are two founders. I, Chief Business Officer and Bruno Celeste, Chief Technical Officer. When there is a peak of activity, we hire external people.

TO: Who are your clients?

EF: We have many different clients. Live streaming video platforms, online video portals, User Generated Content websites, Web agencies and individuals. Actually, most of our clients combine our two services to have a global and powerful video tool.

TO: Why did they choose you?

EF: The main words that we heard are Flexibility, Reliability and Reactivity. Even if we are a small team, we do not need to sleep a lot. We want to be available for our clients at any time. We do not only want to provide tools. We also want to work closely with them to make their project successful. Proposing a good tool is not sufficient, people need human relationships too.

TO: What is your turnover?

EF: We have not closed our first year of activity, so we can’t provide that information.

TO: Who are your competitors?

EF: Actually, we do not have “real” competitors. I mean our tool was thought out for integration as a white label. Both Hey!Spread and Hey!Watch are technical and business enabler tools. Some other services propose the distribution of content, but only through their interface. We want to free our clients from any technical prison.

TO: SEO and Video ? Myth or reality?

EF: As video content is like text or images, we need to find it. But the way it is right now things are still a little confusing. You can use many methods to find videos, like classic search engines or directly on a well-known video portal like YouTube. The main problem is the same with the text 10 years ago: Relevance.

TO: What do you think about Google universal and how it should be?

EF: Google is a company that impresses. How can one not be impressed by two men building an empire based on free tools and Ads. Actually, they invented the current most used business model. The only problem is what is great for Google is not the same for all. Free is not a business model at all. I am sure that too many small companies suffer from this philosophy that everything must be free on the Web. So, each time the same story, you raise funds, propose a free service hoping you will have huge traffic and wait to be bought. I hate this idea.

TO: Did you raise money? How much and who invested or do you plan to raise?

EF: We are self-funded and very proud of it. We are often approached by VC’s but we want to be independent. We make money, we like our clients and they trust us. We keep the good work.

TO: What are the “top 3″ priorities for your company in the coming year?

EF: We are working a new version of Hey!Watch. We will develop 2 new services this year. We are currently negotiating some nice partnerships.

Since I spend a lot of time reading about the filmmaker profession I frequently stumble upon some real gems on the internet. Here are four websites which I find particularly useful and would like to share with you.

www.loftcity.com – Showcase your work online, produce online and win grants
Loft City call themselves the “First online TV & Film Studio”. Essentially it is a great platform from which to showcase your work, in the form of your personal online ‘loft’. You can also use their online virtual studio to edit your work. What is perhaps more interesting is that you can collaborate and produce together with other filmmakers from all over the world. You will be keen to know that they have issued a Call for Production in the areas of ‘New Frontier Video’, ‘Silent Movies’, ‘Viral Ads’, ‘Web & Mobile Miniseries’ and ‘Big City Life Documentaries’. This is your chance to win grants of up to US$ 3000! Hurry, though, because submission deadlines are as soon as March 20th.

www.filmmaking.net – Filmmaker community and essential resources
Filmmaking.net is a well-structured, clean site, full of resources for the new and independent filmmaker. What stands out most on this site is the “Internet Filmmaker’s FAQ” where you can find the answer to practically any question related to filmmaking. The categories range from ‘actors & casting’ to ‘visual effects’. Apart from the FAQ, the site is packed with information including events, festivals, competitions and also the ‘Toolshed’ where you can buy and sell pro equipment.

www.reelseo.com – Video Search Engine Optimization
As many of you might already know, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is currently one of the hot topics on the internet. However, it mainly revolves around the optimization of text content… ReelSEO brings you expert advice on video SEO, a very young area of expertise indeed. If you distribute your work online, this is the best place to learn how to optimize your videos’ visibility.

www.studentfilmmakers.com – Great resources also for pro filmmakers
Although the title mentions student filmmakers, the site actually offers resources and tools useful to professionals too! For example, there is a dedicated filmmakers’ network with which you can meet and chat with other filmmakers and videographers from all over the world, student and pro. If you like to participate in local or national film contests and awards, this is the place to find out where and when they take place. Finally, the forums offer countless practical tips on subjects from lighting to directing to stunt production.