Distilled's Phil Nottingham explains how you can do to effectively and cheaply integrate video into your content strategy - covering the creative and technical aspects of link building with video content.

1. Incorporating video into
your link building strategy
PHIL NOTTINGHAM

2. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Phil Nottingham
SEO Analyst– Distilled
phil.nottingham@distilled.net
@philnottingham
Central School of Speech and Drama
Freelance Film & Theatre Practitioner
NDS
Distilled

3. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
We’d love to do video. The problem is
budget. We don’t have the time, money or
skills to do it properly. It’s just not
something we’re able to do at the
moment.
A Number of Clients.

4. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Bullshit.
Phil Nottingham, 2012

5. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
So.. Maybe you can’t be Evian
It doesn’t need to be technologically revolutionary to get links

6. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
57 Unique videos in a day
Camera £600
Tripod £30
Software £300
All In £930
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDCBEEAFF5571810B

7. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Sourcing freelancers with limited budget
http://www.castingcallpro.com/uk/ http://www.fivesquids.co.uk/
http://www.lfs.org.uk/ http://www.cssd.ac.uk/
http://www.mandy.com/ http://www.spotlight.com/

8. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
So…how can
you build links
with Video?

9. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
How and when do people link to video?
• Embed Content
• Rarely
• Only when it’s directly relevant and valuable
• Link to video files
• Specific and targeted content
• Creatively interesting
• General site links
• When there is a wealth of good content
Make no mistake, getting links to videos is tough. In and of itself – not a tactic.

10. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
People link to content with videos
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-makes-a-link-worthy-post-part-1

11. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Having a video compared to just text will
almost triple the average number of linking
domains
Casey Henry, SEOmoz

12. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Zappos – Product videos done right

13. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
50000 Product Videos
Pages with high quality videos get natural links

14. 7830 Links
from 1497 Domains

15. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Distilled Linkbait guide
3rd most linked to page on
Distilled.net (after the
homepage and blog )
826 linking root domains
http://www.distilled.net/linkbait-guide/

16. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Dentsu London – Making Future Magic
892 Links from
253 Root domains
Wired
Huffington post
Gizmodo
File on Vimeo.com
2108 from 704
domains
http://www.dentsulondon.com/blog/2010/09/14/light-painting/

17. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
The same is true across the board
http://www.homestarrunner.com/ 87,531 from 4275
http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/ 77,060 from 2445
http://www.collegehumor.com/ 758,000 from 9728
http://www.starwarsuncut.com/ 3,323 from 789
http://jibjab.com/ 53,732 from 2961
Video aggregation sites do particularly well

18. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Integration within wider content strategy

19. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
We should be doing video. Our
competitors are doing really well with
video and it’s something that we need in
order to compete. Lets create some viral
videos.
CEO of client X

20. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Video = Content
Video = Form

21. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Common Practice (this sucks)
Form Gap Analysis – “we need to do video”
Form Idea Development – “what can we do a video about?”
Content Creation – “make video”

22. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Good Practice
Content Gap Analysis – “we need more tutorial content”
Form Idea Development – “what’s the best format for that?”
Content Creation – “make tutorial video”

23. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
The content
should define
the form

24. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
When is Video the Appropriate form?
Would this content lose something if it
were just text and image?
Use video, but know what to use it for.

25. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Good – Will it Blend?
8364 Links
2230 Domains
Filming & Studio £1000
costs
Production £300
iPad £400
Blender £100
All In £1800
Can you imagine this content working as just text and images?

26. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Shit – GAIQ videos (Sorry Google)
This content feels cumbersome and difficult to digest as a video

27. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
How do
people
experience
video?

28. Text Video
1 second Perception Perception
5 seconds Appraisal of Meaning Emotional Response
Buy in Point
10 seconds Evaluation of Meaning Appraisal of Meaning
15 seconds Emotional Response Evaluation of Meaning

29. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Why do I need to know this?
Good Content Shit Content
Integration of form elements Form elements are
towards specific goal mismatched or disintegrated
Audience Become Active Audience Remain Passive
You must actively engage an audience on both a perceptual and a conceptual level

30. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
What can
video do for
you?

31. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Three Distinct Focusses
1. Notoriety
2. Traffic and Conversions
3. Links

32. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Provide Value – Aesthetic, Creative, Educational

33. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Content that won’t get links.
• Promotional Trailers
• Company Testimonials
• Salesy Content
Don’t try to sell your product and get links with the same content.

34. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Types of Video Content
• Promotional Trailer
• Screencast tutorial
• Product Demonstration
• Informational Tip
• Aesthetic Imagery
• Interviews
• Creative viral focussed content
• Live event Recording
• Infographic
• Advert

35. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Types of Video Form
• Animated Content
• Performed Content
• Recorded events

36. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Production

37. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Filming
• Always film in 1080p25 or 1080p30 PAL
• Film in a well lit environment
• High quality audio is more important than high quality
video

38. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Editing
Doesn’t actually need to be flashy – keep it simple, but high quality
Best Editing Apps:
• Final Cut Pro – with Motion and Compressor (Mac only)
• Avid Media Studio (PC and Mac)
• Adobe Premier (PC and Mac)
• Adobe Aftereffects (PC and Mac)

39. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Export settings for YouTube
Setting Value
Codec h.264
Frame Size 1920x1080
Key Frames Automatic
Pixel Aspect Square
Bit Rate Unrestricted
Audio ACC/MP3 at 256kbps
You can lower the bitrate if you want for YouTube, but it’s normally not necessary

40. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Export Settings for Vimeo
Setting Value
Codec h.264
Frame Size 1280x 720
Key Frames Automatic
Pixel Aspect Square
Bit Rate 5000kbps
Audio ACC/MP3 at 320kbps
Always upload in HD for Vimeo, even if you have a free account

41. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Export settings for self hosted
Setting Value
Codec h.264
Frame Size 1280x 720
Key Frames Automatic
Pixel Aspect Square
Bit Rate 2014kbps
Audio ACC/MP3 at 320kbps
If you’re self hosting, be wary of file size!

42. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Technical
Implementation

43. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Hosting – For Blended Results & Links
Third Party Self Hosted
To build links effectively, the content needs to be exclusive to your site.

44. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Hosting – For Social Shares
Never seed promotional or non-creative content on these sites

45. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Hosting – For Links & Social Shares
Month 1:
Month 2:
(Enable Community Pass)
Once the links dry up, put the content everywhere. Keep the version on your site
secure and you should still rank 1st for your own video.

46. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Embedding on Your Domain
• HTML5 video player with flash fallback
• Don’t use iFrames – Google probably wont crawl them
• Include social buttons
• Set playback to auto HD
• Don’t set to Autoplay – It annoys everybody
• YouTube embed parameters
• Indexable transcripts! – *cough*keyword stuffed*cough*
http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/player_parameters.html

47. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Embed codes for link building
• Don’t use standard embed codes within third party players – no
links
• Place custom codes underneath video embed codes
• Use iFrames
• Partial Anchor Text
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/VIDEOID?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0"
frameborder="0" width="640" height="360"></iframe><br><span style="font-size:
12px;">Linkbuilding protips from <a href="http://www.yourdomain.net/">Brand and
partial anchor text</a>
Ensure your embed code will build links back to your site, not the video hosting
company

48. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Wistia Superembeds – completely
customisable display options
http://wistia.com/product/superembeds

49. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Vimeo Pro Settings for Link Building
Privacy Embedding

50. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Video Schema Markup – get ahead of the game
• Help get the stuff indexed
• provide rich metadata to the engines
• Rel=“Actor”? – Who knows.
• Appropriate attribution
http://schema.org/Movie

51. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Many high authority news sites are creating
video only sections, and are crying out for
content.
Lexi Mills, PR Consultant, Distilled

52. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Video News Releases
• Big media sites love accompanying video content
• It’s easier for an editor to watch a short video than read through a load of text
• There is less direct competition
• Doesn’t need to be “BBC quality”
• Ensure you send an MP4 – Not WMV or Quicktime.
• Don’t put any branding, effects or lower thirds on the file
”Communicate your key messages in such a way that it's
newsworthy, the points are made quickly, and there is a slight
punch to it”
http://www.media-attention.co.uk/VNR.htm

53. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Video as Infographic
9494 links
From 248 Domains
Content on Vimeo.com
4,879 links from 515
domains
http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/stuxnet-anatomy-computer-virus

54. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
“Phil...I think I’ve also made that mistake.
I've done loads of videos on YouTube & people
have embedded them, but I have no links as
they all link back to YouTube….”

55. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
If you have done this…
Find people who linked to you on
Vimeo/YouTube and get them to add a link
to the relevant page on your site
Same works for anyone who has embedded the video

56. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Mozilla Popcorn = EPIC
http://mozillapopcorn.org/

57. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Video XML sitemaps
• Allow Google to read your video metadata
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=80472

58. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Video Sitemap Template - Vimeo
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9” xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
<url>
<loc>http://www.yourdomain.com/page-containing-video</loc>
<video:video>
<video:thumbnail_loc>http://www.yourdomain.com/thumbnail-
image</video:thumbnail_loc>
<video:title>Video Title</video:title>
<video:description>Video Meta Description</video:description>
<video:player_loc allow_embed="yes"
autoplay="ap=1">http://player.vimeo.com/video/videoidnumber</video:player_loc>
<video:duration>Length of video in seconds</video:duration>
<video:publication_date>2012-02-29T18:30:15+00:00</video:publication_date>
<video:family_friendly>yes</video:family_friendly>
<video:tag>Target Keyword 1</video:tag>
<video:uploader info="https://plus.google.com/userid">Name</video:uploader>
<video:live>no</video:live>
</video:video>
</url>
</urlset>

59. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Video Sitemap Template - YouTube
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9” xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
<url>
<loc>http://www.yourdomain.com/page-containing-video</loc>
<video:video>
<video:thumbnail_loc>http://www.yourdomain.com/thumbnail-
image</video:thumbnail_loc>
<video:title>Video Title</video:title>
<video:description>Video Meta Description</video:description>
<video:content_loc>http://www.youtube.com/v/VIDEOID</video:content_loc>
<video:duration>Length of video in seconds</video:duration>
<video:publication_date>2012-02-29T18:30:15+00:00</video:publication_date>
<video:family_friendly>yes</video:family_friendly>
<video:tag>Target Keyword 1</video:tag>
<video:uploader info="https://plus.google.com/userid">Name</video:uploader>
<video:live>no</video:live>
</video:video>
</url>
</urlset>

60. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Video Sitemap Template – Self Hosted
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9” xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.1">
<url>
<loc>http://www.yourdomain.com/page-containing-video</loc>
<video:video>
<video:thumbnail_loc>http://www.yourdomain.com/thumbnail-
image</video:thumbnail_loc>
<video:title>Video Title</video:title>
<video:description>Video Meta Description</video:description>
<video:content_loc>http://yourdomainc.com/videofile.mp4</video:content_loc>
<video:duration>Length of video in seconds</video:duration>
<video:publication_date>2012-02-29T18:30:15+00:00</video:publication_date>
<video:family_friendly>yes</video:family_friendly>
<video:tag>Target Keyword 1</video:tag>
<video:uploader info="https://plus.google.com/userid">Name</video:uploader>
<video:live>no</video:live>
</video:video>
</url>
</urlset>

61. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Outreach

62. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Video directories & Resource Sites
• They are out there.
• followed links, but you need good, creative
content
http://blip.tv/
http://www.videojug.com/
http://www.wonderhowto.com/
http://www.imbroadcast.com/
http://bizuns.com/videos
http://www.dailymotion.com/en
Simple screencast tutorials can get tons of links if solving a problem

63. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Viral Videos – influence the influencers
Videos go viral when
key influencers provide
a context for
engagement
Friday,
Friday…A
AARRRRG
GHHHHH
http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_allocca_why_videos_go_viral.html
http://www.slideshare.net/katemorris/brainstorming-and-designing-viral-content

64. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Using YouTube to
build links

65. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
WARNING – A LITTLE BIT GREY HAT

66. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Hijack videos without “as seen on” attribution
• Find highly viewed videos without “as seen on”
• Embed on your HQ Blog – with surrounding text content
• Get tons of referring links through a 303 redirect
http://www.youtube.com/social/blog/distilled

67. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Embedding custom YouTube Playlists
• Curate the playlist on your site, rather than on YouTube
• Have accompanying text and resource content
<iframe width="560" height="315"
src=http://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO1ID?playlist=VIDEO2ID,
VIDEO3ID,VIDEO4ID,VIDEO5ID" frameborder="0"
allowfullscreen></iframe>
http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/player_parameters.html

68. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
YouTube 3d
The content
isn’t even that
good.
Over a million views
http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=157640

69. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Checklist – Content Creation
1. Content should define form
2. Integration of Audio, Visual and Concept – do they all complement each other?
3. Unique Ideas – scale the production elements
4. Do the videos grab attention in the first few seconds?
5. Correct export settings (see appendices)
6. Submit Video XML sitemap
7. Use Schema.org movie mark-up
Questions? Send them to @philnottingham

70. PHIL NOTTINGHAM
Checklist – Getting Links
1. Choose third party hosting solution
2. Ensure it’s embedded in HTML5 player with flash fallback
3. Add social buttons to your player
4. Custom Embed Code for link building with partial anchor text
5. Ensure the content has supporting text and images
6. Video Press release
7. Outreach to key influencers
8. Seed on YouTube and Vimeo after the links dry up
9. Resource Directories
10. YouTube “as seen on” attribution
Questions? Send them to @philnottingham

71. Thank You!
Questions?
PHIL NOTTINGHAM