A little while ago Google posted some best practice tips regarding the crawling and indexing of video content.
Video optimisation and website optimisation are not quite worlds apart, but they’re not exactly cut from the same cloth either, here’s why:
The same video content can be posted/hosted all over the place (YouTube, Metacafe, Dailymotion et al), AND be presented on your site without causing any duplicate content issues.
If you want to do the same with some of your most interesting, descriptive text content you’d be well advised not to.
I think this stems from the “freedom” mentality of web video- you can record what you like (within reason) and spread it around the ether. If a search engine picks it up and lists it in a search that’s great, but there’s no way for you to get a followed keyword link from that video, or its supporting description, back to your site.
A common SEO issue regarding video is that the video can exist quite happily on its own. It doesn’t really need to be on your site be found, it doesn’t need to be nestled amongst a load of lovely text content. This means that “optimising” your video content is not similar to optimising your website for search.
Of course if you do have video content you should put in your site as well as presenting it elsewhere. If it is genuinely interesting and regularly added-to then viewers might find it on YouTube, work out its source (your site) and add your site to their video favourites. The problem is that people tend to watch video to be entertained, so unless your content is exceptionally entertaining don’t expect it to attract visitors.
Outside of the argument about whether or not videos will get you more visits you should deal with them in the best way possible, have a look at this.
