Why Aren’t More Search Marketers Doing Video SEO?

Erika Blackwell, contributing guest reporter for ReelSEO at the Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008 conference asked the panelists on the session, Video Search Optimization: "What do you see as the main obstacles to why more search marketers aren't doing Video SEO?"

Their answer: Optimizing for video-based sites, like YouTube, is still a foreign concept to them. Most search marketers, and companies doing any search marketing, are still stuck on "traditional" optimization of web pages with traditional SEO rules.

I still recall earlier this year when I got into a "tiff" with a conference organizer of a major search marketing conference, on why they had no panels on video for many months. His response was that they're wasn't any interest then. Times have changed quickly, as the last conference I covered with them, several video SEO panels were on tap.

So part of this is really an apprehension by SEO's firms and companies who have become comfortable in the space of text-only optimization, without venturing into the realm of multimedia. A good part of this can be to the challenges of planning, conceptualizing, scripting, budget, encoding, hosting, metadata insertion, Media RSS feeds, Video Site Maps, and a new set of submission and tracking tools for bona-fide professional optimization of Video.  And that's outside of the area of what SEO's, or even all marketers, are used to doing. It requires the integration of video production and marketing people, unless you're one of the fortunate few to have worked with these people yourself.

Truth is, video is not a media for SEO specialists to naturally pick up. But then again, SEO is not a marketing strategy that's natural for video agencies to pick up, either. That's why at ReelSEO we're committed to educating and bringing both of these groups together, which is essential to having a good Video SEO campaign.