I often get asked what the effect of just using online video is on your blog, and how that can effect your SEO rankings.
For example, if you only have video content on your blog, how on earth will Google be able to look for text on your blog and rank it appropriately?
There is a very simple and easy solution, and I explain it all inside today’s video 
Keeping it SEO real…
Gideon Shalwick
PS: Credit to Leslie Rohde who encouraged me to actually implement the tip I talk about inside the video…
Transcript Of Today’s Video
Click Here To Read The Transcript
Ok, that’s my friend that water dragon. I’m in a forest next to where I live and I want to share something with you that I find really good for video blogging in particular (for search engines too).
The big question that people always have with video is, “What about SEO? How do you get Search Engine Optimization when you do just video?” The real quick and easy answer to that is to transcribe your videos.
Whenever you create a video, like this one, you send it off either to your transcriber or you transcribe it yourself if you have the time and you use that exact same text on your blog. You embed your video on your blog and you also put the text of your video on the same blog post. What that does it is creates this easy text for you. It’s one of the easiest ways I think for creating content for your blog because not only do you get really cool video, and potentially also audio because you strip the audio out of it, but you can also get the text and put the text on your blog. That way you keep both your viewer, your reader, and your listener happy and also the search engines.
I’ve been doing that now for my blog for quite a while and that means that I get picked up in the search engines a lot easier. People love it too because they can read through the transcript if they are in a hurry.
So, that’s my tip for the day. Once again if you want to see more videos like this and if you want to read my free report on video blogging just go to GideonShalwick.com.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you inside the next video.
Right click here to download today’s video to your computer
About Gideon Shalwick
Gideon Shalwick is a YouTube and video marketing expert, and has figured out how to get a TON of attention using online video (with one YouTube channel reaching 10 million views!), and today, he's built a following of over 100,000 people for his business ventures, and 60,000+ people on this very blog, where he shares some of his most powerful video marketing strategies.
Hi Gideon,
Are you sure search engines are capable of clicking on javascript links and then read the text?
Anyway how can i insert this javascript in my wordpress post? Can you share the code i need to use?
Thanks
Hey Fred
I’m assuming you’re referring to the expandable text thingee I use for my transcripts?
That’s not actually javascript – I use a plugin called wpSpoiler for that – pretty nifty. So, Google still “sees” the text for that (if my understanding is right anyway – when you look at the source code of the page, you can still easily see all the text).
Not sure it it would work with a javascript.
Regards
Gideon
Correct, if you hover the link with your mouse in your status bar you’ll see javascript:void(0). That’s why i thought you used some javascript code.
Thanks for the WP plugin tip
Hey Fred
Ok – I’ll probably need to double check on that and make sure that Google can actually pick up on the text.
And if they cant, I guess I’ll just have to use another solution…
Cheers for the feedback!
Gideon
Careful with that dragon Gideon, he might just bite your head off. After all, he’s a dragon.
Anyway, great tip again. I don’t think there’s a transcription service for Hungarian. I guess I’ll just have to do it myself. Bummer.
You could just put the transcription under your video and put a “read more” link before it. If people click on it the post with the full text loads and they can read it.
Ah nice – thanks for the tip…
Gideon
Hey Gideon!
Do you have any recommendations for getting videos transcribed? How much does it generally cost?
Thanks for the tips – keep them coming!
I use Becki from http://wordsintoprofits.com – her work is excellent!
Gideon
PS: Sometimes my wife does some transcribing for me for the shorter videos
I will have to check her out – thanks for the recommendation!
That is an idea too – one of my sibilings could easily do it for me… I really never thought about this so thanks!!
hi,
a few weeks ago, Darren from Problogger asked the visitors to submit their videos in comments… now he is podting the videos and that’s a great way too for SEO.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ProbloggerHelpingBloggersEarnMoney/~3/FxnClqlo1j0/
Very good point… transcription does pay off handsomely.
Another interesting SEO related point I’ve had a few people tell me… and I can only take it at face value… is to open your video with the most important keywords, spoken.
Apparently, YouTube does decipher at least a few seconds from the beginning and figure it into the search results. Perhaps it’s linked with the transcription technology now in test use? Not 100% sure about this one but it makes a lot of sense.
That’s an excellent point Juho – I’ve noticed the political channel has some pretty advanced speech recognition ninja stuff going on… it’s a very interesting development to keep an eye on for sure!
Gideon
Hey Gideon, great info. I haven’t posted any videos on YouTube myself, but I sometimes embed other people’s videos in my posts. I sometimes do a bit of transcription for people who don’t want to watch the video, but still want the information. So I’ll be sure to do more of that in future. Definitely when I get my own videos up on YouTube I’ll do a full transcript.
I like the way you have the CSS-driven link to the Transcript displaying the transcript only when it’s clicked. Do you use a plugin to do that?
Ah sorry, I see you already answered the question of which plugin.
To answer the point Fred raises about whether the search engines can read the text… I’ve looked at the source code. While Fred is right that the search spiders don’t handle javascript very well, the transcript text is not embedded in the javascript, it’s actually in the HTML of the page. The javascript is only used to trigger an event that changes the CSS style to display the transcript text. So the search engines should be able to see the text without any problems, even if it’s hidden from humans.
Hey Gideon
I am really glad that I just discovered U. I am an Internet Marketing learner who is studying hard..still I have a long way to go. I already bookmarked U and downloaded your eBook on rapid video blogging which is has to be read very soon. I was really looking for someone to coach me on this Video stuff…
I just released my son’s blog about Tourism in United Arab Emirates in Portuguese language targeting Brazilian tourists, as he is a Tour Guide in Dubai ( http://www.guiaemdubai.com). The purpose is to promote his touring services while talking and informing people about what is good in & about this country.
FOR THAT, videos are more than essentials… You came to us on the right time.
By the way, I got inspired by this video of yours, in the forest with the dragon. So allow us to copy you , or in other words, we will : copy, edit and paste…by filming in an open desert ( instead forest) with a camel ( instead of the dragon). Thanks a lot for all your FREE information. That is very generous. May Allah bless you.
Gideon I’ve started to post videos on my YouTube channel and my blog and I can already see some steady incremental upward movement in my Google rankings. I haven’t yet started putting up transcripts of the videos but I can see how these would help in the SEO efforts and I plan to add this strategy to my blog in the near future.
But I’d like to tell your viewers who are already posting transcripts of their videos that they can further improve their SEO standing by making sure the basics are covered–good tags, descriptions, key words etc. for the transcript containing post.
I use the Thesis WordPress theme for my blog, and the commercial Scribe plugin to perform a check of how well it is SEO optimized. It truly is so easy a cave man could do it (sorry cavemen) without any in-depth background in SEO. If you have a chance to add this capability to your blog it can really help in your SEO efforts.
BTW I really loved your RApid Video Blogging free report.
Hey Vincent!
Ah nice! Thanks for the extra tip!
Very useful – will check it out!
Gideon
Great idea, but I feel like an idiot now that this never occurred to me before! Especially since I usually write the content for my videos before filming them, so I wouldn’t even have to transcribe them after. I’ll definitely start doing this on my video blogs going forward.
Thanks for the great plugin tip as well!