Script: Welcome to this weeks SEO Video Blog, We are looking at Google‘s Audio indexing capabilities and what it could mean for Video SEO.

You tube has recently released some new caption technology, automatic speech recognition or ASR.

We were impressed on two levels, firstly they have created the ability to simply upload a .txt file of the script will automatically synchronize with the video.

Secondly the ability to recognize audio and automatically create a caption file, which essentially turns an audio file into real text. This is a more obvious step forward for audio indexing and an evolution of Google labs gaudi which is still in the development stages on the political channel of youtube.

Lets have a look at the caption software in action.

So once you are logged in and you can see your videos, you can see the options to click caption. then ‘add new captions ot transcript’. Browse for the file and select transcript file only. This means you haven’t got time codes included in the document. then simply Upload the file.

The auto timing functionality works via speech recognition technology, the technology makes life much easier and will work best for video with high quality sound and that are clearly spoken.

Audio indexing will allow webmasters to embed the video without having to add a keyword rich content to the video landing page as the information will be found via speech-to-text indexing in the video.

Thanks for watching if you have any questions or comments please leave them on the youtube channel or supporting blog post.

With YouTube Fast Becoming The “Second Search Engine” Is It Time For You To Invest In Video SEO?

Not only can using pictures and videos on websites help to engage your audience, it can also improve your search engine optimisation.  Content is crucial and it is not only comprised of text – it is important not to underestimate the use of multimedia.

So, to start with pictures – using pictures on your site can help your optimisation in a number of ways.  On a technical level, if you ensure that you use descriptive alt tags containing your keywords, in addition to keyword rich titles and filenames, a picture can serve as a helpful boost to SEO.  Further to this, pictures often need a short caption to explain the content they are illustrating, which can also help.

One of the biggest trends from this year has been video SEO.  If a picture says a thousand words, imagine how many a video can say!  Online video distribution channels like YouTube have grown at an exponential rate, with statistics indicating that with over 100 million users in the US alone, the site now provides 42 million video streams every hour or 700,000 every minute.  Clearly this has potential as a vast marketing platform, and already, many users are aware of this.

For successful video SEO there are some important tips to bear in mind.  Firstly – keep it short!  Viewers are as easily bored as readers, if not more so, so ensure your video sticks to the point.  The title is also a crucial aspect of video optimisation, and can be seen as the key selling point of your video.  If it doesn’t grab attention, chances are not many people will be watching it.  Finally, be careful with mass distribution sites, it has been suggested that by distributing to a wide variety of video sites, the overall effect of your video may be diluted.

The crucial point to bear in mind is that regardless of how far it helps your search engine optimisation, including videos and pictures is still be a great idea.  The main point of having a website in the first place is to communicate with your audience and using multimedia effectively can help to do just that.