Should I remove our videos from DotSub.com to try & boost our Wistia videos?
-
Okay all you video SEO lovers, I had a thought today that I thought would make an interesting question.
I have been using the tools at DotSub.com to transcribe our videos. The tools are great, and even better, free. We have about 80 videos on DotSub and all of these videos are also on our YouTube channel. Once I've completed the transcription, I've been exporting the .srt file and uploading them to YouTube to replace the God-awful machine transcriptions (sorry Google, but they are baaaadddd).
Anyway, sometimes our DotSub video will outrank the same YouTube video, sometimes not. The 80 videos on DotSub have amassed about 10,000 views and a couple of translations...which is nice, I guess?
Recently, we've begun experimenting with Wistia. Here is a search term for which our YouTube and DotSub video results pretty much flood page 1: "studiolive webinar"
All of the DotSub videos also exist as Wistia videos on our Website and blog. For obvious reasons, we would rather have our Wistia videos rank in those three positions which right now are dominated by the DotSub versions.
Should I remove the content from DotSub in order to try to get the Wistia videos to rank instead? Or should I leave them all there? I should probably add that we do have Wistia videos that are outranking both Dotsub and Youtube versions of the exact same videos...so I know that's possible. I'm just wondering if by leaving all of these videos up at DotSub if we are cannibalizing our potential at ranking for videos that link back to our site?
What do you think?
-
Hey Dana,
I'd answer this question... with a question, which is "where are your audience?".
Syndication across platforms is only going to be valuable in so much as it reaches more of your target audience and so I'd suggest starting with working out who they are and where they hangout.
My perception is that you're going to hit the point of diminishing returns pretty quickly after you cover off YouTube, Vimeo and potentially Daily Motion (if you're accepted), but for your niche, there may well be other sites which have a concentrated pocket of your target audience.
I'd ignore the list of sites you linked to altogether, as I think it's completely wrong. They seem to have confused "highest traffic" with PageRank and then lump hosting platforms (which don't display user submitted content on their sites) into the mix.
Cheers,
Phil
-
Hi Christy,
I think the jury's still out. The original intention was to syndicate our videos across as many channels as possible. Given that we aren't going to hire an agency to do it, the submission process comes down to me, and honestly, I still haven't finished submitting all 140+ of our videos just to DotSub.com alone, let alone the other possibilities on this list.
I am thinking maybe I didn't ask the question the right way around and perhaps I should start a new question like "What are the benefits, if any, of syndicating your video content across as many free video channels as possible if your goal in creating videos is solely brand awareness?"
In other words, our videos weren't created to gain links. They were created to gain eyeballs and awareness. That being the case, wouldn't it be better to upload as many as possible to as many placed as possible, especially if it doesn't cost us anything more than the time it takes me to do the submissions?
Thoughts?
-
Did this answer your question, Dana?
-
Hey Dana,
Basically - I think you need to test this and test it again to find the solution :).
The DotSub content is essentially behaving in exactly the same way as the YouTube versions of your video - that is ranking well but driving traffic to a siloed page with just the video on and no way to drive further conversions. Given that the tutorial style of the content isn't very sales focused, I wouldn't be too concerned about that, but since you're splitting traffic between DotSub and YouTube - you're not doing all in your power to optimise your YouTube channel. Should you move just to Wistia and YouTube? - I think that really depends what you're trying to achieve with the videos. Currently I don't feel like they're amazing direct sales tools, so I wonder how much ranking your own domain for the terms in questions matters a great deal to the bottom financial line? The only way to really know that will be to test it rigorously.
You'll certainly be cannibalising direct traffic unless you choose just one channel, but really I think the question boils down far more to "what will be the best use of these videos?"
Cheers,
Phil.
-
Hi Dana,
I agree I think you should get as many people as possible to weigh in on this. It's an important issue and I would be very happy to see more people away and is well with their opinions or what they've learned in the field I think this is a very important topic to a lot of people and should get quite a bit of attention. Hope you're doing well
Sincerely,
Thomas
-
Thanks Thomas!
Okay, so I have one vote to take them down.
Interested to hear from others who have an opinion on whether they should stay or should they go?
-
hi Dana,
I would have to say that having your videos up on similar public systems like YouTube Dot.stub along with mimeo it unless you're running professional and not allowing it for public use.
Unfortunately, that will give all ranking of your video to whatever public hosting provider you have chosen. Because knew it most likely not want to compete with them I would take them down however before doing so I would console with Phil at distilled he knows his stuff especially about videos and I'm sure he'd be happy to help.
http://www.distilled.net/about/people/phil-nottingham/
Wistia Is a fantastic tool will allow you to rank very high and but you don't want to compete for your own videos and the fact that you have the ability to take them down makes it an easy choice. I would take them down.
http://www.distilled.net/blog/video/video-seo-tactics-to-get-ranked/
I believe this to be an excellent guide for your choice.
http://www.distilled.net/blog/video/getting-video-results-in-google/
Wistia also offers a fantastic transcription service with 24 hour turnaround
I hope I have been of help,
Thomas
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Enigma of Google & China - Can you solve it?
In March, my team in Shanghai launched a site redesign of our English language website (targeted at expats in China) which: Changed the URL's to be more SEO friendly (keyword based, shorter, etc) Implemented endless scrolling to replace previous pagination Changed some front end layouts Changed page title and meta description tags to use keywords, be unique, use correct lengths Since then, we see in Google Analytics, traffic form Google organic branded search terms has been steadily dropping (between 5 - 20% depending on the term). Not provided is down 2%. We do not rank for many non-branded terms, so have no statistical significance there. However in Google Webmaster Tools, impressions of branded queries are also down, along with non-branded search terms (including those we tried to optimise for). We see similar traffic drops from other search engines as well (Bing, Baidu) but not at as high a level (only 3% or so). We have not changed any other marketing strategy online or offline. We have tested / done: 1. Changing title tags 2. Reverting to old pagination (as we say in GWT a drop in indexed pages) 3. Checked the tracking code is working 4. Checked our rankings (we still rank position 1 for our branded queries and even some non branded) 5. Submitted new XML site map The only large issue we could find is that from that day there were over 300,000 page not found 404 errors (which we are now redirecting by 301s as Google shows them to us, and have been doing so for 2 weeks). Nothing is helping us so far, organic traffic continues to drop week on week, so I am reaching out to the Moz community. Can anybody think of a reason for such a dramatic drop? Please help!
Branding | | RingierOneAfricaMedia0 -
I want to forward/redirect users from domain.us to domain.com.us (preferred domain)
Let me know where should I start. I heard this is something you can do in your domain name or hosting service. Thanks in advance!
Branding | | esiow20130 -
Guest blogging & duplicate content
This feels like a question I should know the answer to and I'm a tad embarrassed to ask, but the part of my brain that gets tripped up by somewhat simple things sometimes, is begging to ask just to confirm my understanding. I want to make sure I have it right it prior to giving advice. When one guest blogs I assume that it is critical to create content that is original and unique to that one instance of the guest blog. That means, do not also put that post on your own blog and do not submit it to any other blogs for inclusion. This is both for duplicate content issues and also to respect and not put in jeopardy for duplicated content, the blog owner you are guesting for. Is this correct? Are there any scenarios in which there might be a deviation of this "rule"? Like some use of canonicals or anything else?
Branding | | gfiedel0 -
Googe+ personal profile & business page conundrum
I have asked this question before and am still seeking help. My apologies for being repetitive and hopefully not too pesky but I am sincere in my search for guidance. I am looking for advice on how to manage my personal G+ profile along with my business G+ page. My challenge is the coordination between the two and getting people to add our biz page to their Circles instead of to me personally through my personal profile. Google+ requires that we have personal profiles- especially for authorship, but it's my business that I want to represent and promote. I do have the Google+ badge on my website and blog posts. And I am duplicating my posts on both the personal and business pages. I have joined a couple of communities and know that i need to find more and engage in those. And also, another question this brings up: in terms of the social signal aspect for our company website/blog, does it matter where I am building my Circles?
Branding | | gfiedel0 -
.NET VS .COM VS Keyword Density in the URL, What do you suggest?
I am about to launch an eCom project for a new company. The client has three URL's available. I recognize keyword density is slowly becoming less and less of a factor, but still has significant relevance. I haven't had much experience working on .NET URL's and would like to know anything related to the effects of .NET url's vs. .COM url's. Also, just what you would go with and why? Option 1 "EXACTMATCHKEYWORD.net" (17 total characters) Option 2 "MOSTLYMATCHINGKEYWORDcompany.com" (21 total characters, with company) Option 3 "ABEXACTMATCHKEYWORD.com" -AB represents the company's initials/logo. (19 total characters) USEFUL POINTS 1. 95% of purchases will be one time purchases (so I'm not focused as much on company branding as usual). 2. The company name is actually "exact matching keyword Company" 3. We will be targeting 100's of terms, but the "exact match keyword" represents 1/4 of total search volumes and thus is extremely important.
Branding | | mgordon0 -
There was a really awesome Brand Video at Mozcon last year
It was a female brand i believe. Does anyone remember which it was or have a link? Gracias!
Branding | | VistageSEO1 -
.com or .co.uk
We're lunching a new site and we've managed to secure desired domain name with .com and .co.uk The business in question is UK based and is catering for UK customers. We're not interested in foreign traffic. Should we go with .com or .co.uk? .com sounds much better and I think it will be easier to build a brand using .com
Branding | | Thommas0 -
Using twitter to boost organic rankings
I was told that Google uses Twitter traffic as a ranking factor. How could i use Twitter to boost the rankings of my website? i play in a live band if that helps you to generate some ideas for me. Thanks in advance for everyone's input! Ron
Branding | | Ron100