Video Sites 101
Hi, I saw a thread regarding Niche Video Site Builder on another forum. My company, VidCaster, provides a video site building tool so I can speak to the issues regarding video sites. Unfortunately, I don't have the post count to reply to that thread so I thought I would post it here instead.
The number one most important thing to look for in any video site building tool is something called a "video sitemap" -- this is what enables Google to parse your content as a video instead of merely a non-video page with a video embedded on it. The reason you want this to happen is because video search results display on a universal search results page with a thumbnail (only video results do this) and if your search result has a thumbnail it is 10 times more likely to be clicked. So whatever video site building tool you use, make sure it does video sitemaps.
We offer both YouTube-powered video sites as well as ones where we actually host and deliver the video file so we don't believe one is better than the other in all cases ... however, if your goal is getting your videos listed *as videos* in search results, then you need to actually host the video file, you can't just use the YouTube embed code. This is because if you are using the YouTube embed code the "true home" for that video is still youtube.com ... which means Google will send most (if not all) search traffic to that video's page on YouTube, where you have limited options for converting the visitor into a paid customer.
The above applies if you are posting your own videos for content marketing purposes. If you are looking to aggregate YouTube videos that you did not create, you have an additional set of challenges. This is because YouTube terms of service forbid placing any ad of any kind (even an AdSense ad) on any page where viewing a YouTube video is the primary purpose for visiting that page. This means that while it is possible to use a tool like Niche Video Site Builder (or VidCaster, for that matter) to aggregate YouTube content onto a website that you control, it is very difficult to make money via ads on such a site. The exception is that you can place ads on a search results page or an index page where you are displaying a list of videos but on the actual page where the video plays, you cannot have any ads unless you have added substantial content to the page to the point where viewing the video is no longer the primary purpose of visiting the page (this is how ad-supported blog posts with a video embedded in them are OK according to YouTube TOS).
Hope this information is of use to the Warrior Forum community ... happy to make myself available for any and all questions relating to marketing via online video.
Cheers,
- Ray
The number one most important thing to look for in any video site building tool is something called a "video sitemap" -- this is what enables Google to parse your content as a video instead of merely a non-video page with a video embedded on it. The reason you want this to happen is because video search results display on a universal search results page with a thumbnail (only video results do this) and if your search result has a thumbnail it is 10 times more likely to be clicked. So whatever video site building tool you use, make sure it does video sitemaps.
We offer both YouTube-powered video sites as well as ones where we actually host and deliver the video file so we don't believe one is better than the other in all cases ... however, if your goal is getting your videos listed *as videos* in search results, then you need to actually host the video file, you can't just use the YouTube embed code. This is because if you are using the YouTube embed code the "true home" for that video is still youtube.com ... which means Google will send most (if not all) search traffic to that video's page on YouTube, where you have limited options for converting the visitor into a paid customer.
The above applies if you are posting your own videos for content marketing purposes. If you are looking to aggregate YouTube videos that you did not create, you have an additional set of challenges. This is because YouTube terms of service forbid placing any ad of any kind (even an AdSense ad) on any page where viewing a YouTube video is the primary purpose for visiting that page. This means that while it is possible to use a tool like Niche Video Site Builder (or VidCaster, for that matter) to aggregate YouTube content onto a website that you control, it is very difficult to make money via ads on such a site. The exception is that you can place ads on a search results page or an index page where you are displaying a list of videos but on the actual page where the video plays, you cannot have any ads unless you have added substantial content to the page to the point where viewing the video is no longer the primary purpose of visiting the page (this is how ad-supported blog posts with a video embedded in them are OK according to YouTube TOS).
Hope this information is of use to the Warrior Forum community ... happy to make myself available for any and all questions relating to marketing via online video.
Cheers,
- Ray