Since the advent and widespread adoption of broadband internet service, the number of videos viewed on the internet each day has swelled dramatically and is projected to continue growing at an extreme pace in the coming few years.  Statistics aside, this means that every day, various user-driven websites serve video content that is watched by millions of people around the world. 

To anyone familiar with internet marketing or SEO, this is obviously a huge potential marketplace to target so it’s no surprise that just about everyone is trying to cash in on the popularity of the various video marketing services these days (including the video sites themselves, with various monetization schemes).  This can take any number of forms, from video production and channel creation, all the way to PPC ads.  For the link builder, though, the benefit of these services is very clear:  Popular sites that accept and stream user video (YouTube, MSN, MySpace, Revver, etc…) are great places to acquire some links because they have plenty of authority and enormous amounts of traffic.

Obviously every video site is a little different, so there’s no single tactic, or set of link building strategies, that works to build links with all of them, but there are generally 3 places it can be done:

Each Video Page – The person who posts a video has a number of fields to work with, including a description field which can, and often does, contain a link back to the entity that the movie references.  As a link builder all you need is a user account and some sort of video to post and you can start inserting links.

User Profile Pages – Members of video sites are often given a place to create a profile page, much as they would do on a social network.  Nearly everything on that page is under the control of the user, so links upon links can be posted there.  Additionally, if you find another user who has relevant videos and profile information, you can certainly ask them for a link on their profile as well; you may have to give something in return, but usually a fair exchange can be had.

Video Comments – On many of the sites in question, there is an option to post comments about a video that has just been watched.  You’ll almost always be required to have an account before commenting, but if you plan to do video marketing of any type, you’ll already have one anyway.

Keep in mind that link building using video sites is a bit complex compared to some other sites, so care needs to be taken to ensure that the community and its administrators don’t ban your account.  The same could be said of many other social networking forums as well, so the principles of politeness and adding something that benefits the community apply equally to every video site.

As a final note on link building with videos, be warned that the NoFollow movement (which is equivalent to web fascism in the minds of most link builders, including this one) has gained quite a bit of steam as of late, and many of the links you can get on these media sites will have that tag attached.  That fact may make it seem relatively worthless to try for these links at all, but that’s simply not the case:  Think of online video outlets as a counterpart to social networks, and remember that brand exposure to a living, breathing audience is just as important as creating avenues for search engine crawlers.

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Most SEO professionals understand the importance of creating a variety of outlets for their online marketing efforts. Press releases can be great marketing tools, and can be one of the more effective ways of getting information out there for clients and creating powerful link juice, but coming up with great press release ideas can be confounding.

• Earning recognition of the company, product or executives by a publication
• Announcing that you’re available to speak on particular subjects of interest
• Issuing a statement of position regarding a local, regional or national issue
• Announcing the results of research or surveys you have conducted
• Making public statements on future business trends or conditions
• Announcing a public appearance on television, radio or in person
• Announcing that you’ve reached a major milestone
• Restructuring your business or its business model
• Forming a new strategic partnership or alliance
• Establishing a unique vendor agreement 

• Introducing a unique strategy/approach
• Setting up a customer advisory group
  
• Obtaining a new, significant customer
• Expanding or renovating the business
• Participating in a philanthropic event
• Announcing free information available
• Sponsoring a workshop or seminar
• Celebrating an anniversary
• Announcing a partnership

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• Grab readers with an interesting title of seven words or less
• Summarize the story in the first paragraph with a powerful hook – why is this news so important – what makes this newsworthy to readers?
• Make sure you include the who, what, where, when and why
• Stick to facts, not fluff
• Avoid sounding like advertising – this is news, not a sales pitch
• Include your contact information and a link at the end of the press release

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Just how successful your articles are depends on a number of factors. The articles have to be interesting, well written and contain enough helpful information to have real value to readers, but they also have to be marketed properly. All of the articles in the world won’t help you if you post them in places where they won’t be found by the right audience. A fascinating, informative article about proper surfboard maintenance isn’t going to help you if it’s lost in a general article directory or posted on a website where most readers are avid mid-west gardeners.

1) Find the right editorial calendars. Look for the editorial calendars of online publications. Most online publications provide an editorial calendar that outlines what the main topics will be several months in advance. Reviewing these can not only give you an idea of when to submit articles you already have, but give you some great ideas for future articles. For instance, www.eweekmedia.com, an IT publication, is focusing on Mobile and Wireless in early May of 2008. In April 2008, there’s a feature titled “Security Focus: Email Security Challenge.” 

Whatever your business’s niche, check the magazines and review editorial calendars and make sure you match your articles to their focus – and be sure to pay attention to their submission deadlines! Editors love to run articles that dovetail with a particular focus.

2) Find niche publications. After you’ve checked out the editorial calendars of the magazines you’re already familiar with, look for publications you aren’t familiar with. For example, if you have an ecommerce website, search for “ecommerce magazines” and you might just find this: www.world-newspapers.com/e-commerce.html.

When you search for Surfing magazines, you can find magazines that include online magazines focusing on female surfers, North Carolina surfers, New England surfing, Australian surfing, competitive surfing, long board surfing…well, you get the idea! Even a niche like surfing can be narrowed even further, so be sure you look for any potential niche magazines that you can really tailor your articles toward that will love you for sending them some high quality content.

3) Find niche article directories. There are good niche article directories out there that either supply niche businesses with quality content or can point you in the direction of respected online publications that are looking for content. Lets say your site is about human resources, here is an example of article dedicated to HR http://www.businessknowhow.com/bkhmanage.htm.

You can do basic searches for “human resource article directory” or whatever your business niche is, and you’ll turn up various directories where you can get your articles published.  Do some homework, however, to make sure that you utilize the best directories for your own articles. A few things to look for in an online article directory are:

• Read several articles in their supply of articles to check the quality. The articles should be well-written, with plenty of information and excellent grammar. If the quality isn’t consistent, then the directory doesn’t set high standards.
• Does the site indicate how many articles are actually downloaded each month? You want to compare figures from directory to directory to see how much of the traffic to the site is actually downloading articles.
• How recently has the site been updated? If there hasn’t been new content added in more than a month, then the directory may not get regular visits from publications. It also means there aren’t very many authors. The more authors, the more frequently articles are added. Publications are looking for fresh content – and fresh content means content that’s new and different every time that a visitor logs onto a directory. Look for sites that are changing every day.
• And of course you might check their pagerank, backlinks, traffic stats, etc. to judge the quality of the link juice or traffic they might send your way.

If you use these three methods of getting your articles out there, you’ll quickly see a difference in your website traffic and inbound links. Any other suggestions from our article experts out there?

[tags] article marketing, article directories, niche markets, website traffic, inbound links [/tags]

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