Without a doubt the single most effective online marketing method is Video. Short video ads about your store posted on various video hosting websites has a better chance of getting top rankings in Google than any other type of webpage. In addition, posting your video on multiple hosting websites provides you the opportunity of getting multiple listings in the search engines.
The two most important items in creating your video ads is the title of the video and the video description. The video itself is secondary. When listed in the search engines the title of your video will show up as the top line on the listing and the description will be the text listed below the title.
Video Title
Your video title can be up to 64 characters long. This includes all letters, spaces, and punctuation marks. When creating your video title use long titles to get as many of your keywords as possible.
The first thing to include in your title is a product or service keyword phrase. This tells the search engines to list your video when someone searches for that phrase. For example if your video is about engagement rings you may want to start your title with “Unique Engagement Rings”.
Next you want to include a geographical qualifier. This tells the search engines to list your video when someone in your area searches for the product or service you are promoting. Geographical qualifiers include your city, state 2 letter abbreviation, state spelled out, and your zip code. Include at least one of these in your title. Including two or three of them as space permits is even better.
If you are located in Atlanta GA, your video title may now read “Unique Engagement Rings Atlanta GA”. I normally put the product phrase and geographical qualifier in this order, however, sometimes I will reverse the order such as “Atlanta Jeweler”.
The third item to include in your title, if space permits, is your store name. Including your store name does not help for getting ranked in the search engines because if someone already knows your store name they don’t have to search for you. The whole purpose of marketing online is to reach out to potential customers who have not shopped at your store before.
The reason to include your store name in the title is what is called citations. A citation is every time your store name is included in the title of the webpage or featured prominently on the webpage. Google counts citations and that is one of several things that they consider when ranking stores in Google Maps. So getting more citations can help your store listing in the map section, while it has no effect on ranking in the natural search list.
It is important to be consistent in the manner you list your store name. Your store should be listed in Google Maps the way it appears on the front of your store. It’s your DBA name not your legal name. Don’t list it one time as “Smith Jewelry” and another time as “Smith Fine Jewelry”. Google would see these as two different businesses.
Your engagement ring video title will now read “Unique Engagement Rings Atlanta GA Smith Fine Jewelry”. This title is now 53 characters long which is less than the 64 character limit and a good length to use.
Avoid using punctuation marks in your titles. This is for two reasons. They are included in the 64 character limit and just take up unnecessary space. However, more importantly, many punctuation marks are used in html (website language) as code for the webpage to do something. Apostrophes and Quotation Marks are especially bad to use. If your store name is “Smith’s Jewelers” leave the apostrophe out of the title and just list “Smiths Jewelers”.
Write several variations of the title to use on different video hosting websites.
Video Description
Your video description is where you want to convey your marketing message. Your description should be kept to fewer than 250 characters. Video Hosting websites have different limits on description length, but keeping it under 250 will make it acceptable on all of them and that is also the limit Google places on the amount of text they place in the description on their search pages.
Don’t start your description with something boring such as “This video is about….” In addition, the purpose of online advertising is to get customers into your store, not just to visit your website. So avoid phrases such as “click here”.
Start your description with a short call to action such as: Visit, Come in, Stop by, Drop in, or Hurry in. Then follow this with your store name and full address. For example, “Visit Smiths Fine Jewelry 100 Main St Atlanta GA 00000”.
Next place your store website address starting with “http://”. For example: http://SmithJewelry.com. By including the http:// in your website address the webpage will know to turn it into a clickable link. Not all video hosting websites will convert your website address into a link, but include it anyway as people can copy and paste it into their Internet browser. Not only can potential customers visit your website, but more importantly Google and the other search engines will see the links to your website and count them. The more links you have, the better chance you have to get your website up in the rankings. Including the www does not make any difference, it does however count in the total character limit so I generally leave it out.
Last fill out the description with your marketing message, such as: “Visit Smiths Fine Jewelry 100 Main St Atlanta GA 00000 http://SmithJewelry.com Ph (000) 000-0000 For Unique Wedding and Engagement Rings as Special as Your Love Stop by Smiths Fine Jewelry Today.”
Write several variations of the description to use on different video hosting websites. The above video title and description would look like this in Google:
Unique Engagement Rings Atlanta GA Smith Fine Jewelry
Visit Smiths Fine Jewelry 100 Main St Atlanta GA 00000 http://SmithJewelry.com Ph (000) 000-0000 For Unique Wedding and Engagement Rings as Special as Your Love stop by Smiths Fine Jewelry Today.
http://VideoHostingWebsite.com/Unique Engagement Rings
As you can imagine, a potential customer in Atlanta who would see several descriptions like this all listed on the top page in Google may very well get in the car and drive over to your store without ever clicking on any of the links to your website, seeing the video, or doing any additional research.
Video Host
Once you have your titles and descriptions written and your video made you need to submit it to different video hosting websites such as YouTube, DailyMotion, LiveVideo, Kewego, eSnips and MetaCafe. The more video hosting websites you submit your video to, the better chance you have to receive multiple listings in Google and the other search engines.
All of the above mentioned video hosting websites offer free accounts for you to post your videos on them. The problem with this is they need to make money to stay in business, so they sell advertising space on your video pages. Submitting your videos to these websites is the best method to get top listings in the search engines. However, if your potential customer watches the video, they not only see your message they can also see banner ads from various online jewelry websites and related videos from other jewelry stores.
One answer to this dilemma is paid hosting websites. Because you are paying for the hosting many of them do not add outside advertising on your video pages. Be careful when shopping for a paid video hosting website as some of them are quite expensive, however, many are reasonably priced. In addition we have found a few that not only charge you a monthly hosting fee, they also add advertising on your video pages.
A new paid video hosting website is JewelTube, http://jeweltube.com. It is a new video sharing platform for the jewelry industry started just this summer. Here jewelers can post their informational and advertisement videos about their products, services, and company. Consumers can learn what they need to know about buying jewelry and where to buy it.
JewelTube has accounts starting at $27 a month. They do not accept any banner advertising and they do not place related videos on your video page. When your potential customers see your video, they only see your business – NO Banner Ads from other online companies and NO Related Videos about other companies offering the same products or services.
JewelTube has other advantages over many of the other hosting websites as well. For example you can geo-tag your videos for optimum Local Search Listing and the video pages contain Search Engine Friendly URLs. The keywords you include in the video title are placed in the web address of the video page. This makes it even easier to get your videos ranked higher in the search engines.
JewelTube does not mark your videos with their logo. When you embed your video on your website or blog, you control your brand identity. There are no watermarks or other branding on your videos advertising JewelTube.
It is easy to see why online video advertising is the Internet’s hottest marketing trend. It is easier and less expensive than most business owners imagine and there is nothing that receives better results. I cannot encourage you enough to try it out. Open an account on several video hosts and submit some videos about your store. I know you will see a difference this Christmas season.
Brad and Debbie Simon have been involved in the retail jewelry industry since 1977 and have been marketing on-line since 1999. Their company Internet 4 Jewelers provides Local Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing, and Website Development exclusively for retail jewelry stores. For more information on their new Local Search Marketing book “Feet Thru The Door Marketing” log on to Internet4Jewelers.com/store.
