Today, web media includes videos, images and audio files, which includes podcasts. We can only speculate as to what it may include tomorrow. As with all content, there are ways to optimize these media files to help the Search Engines to find them, index them and associate them with relevant searches, so that they will appear in the search results, where appropriate.

IMAGES AND VIDEOS

To optimize videos and images for the Search Engines, you must optimize the words associated with them.The Search Engines recognize and index text. Their optical recognition skills are very rudimentary at this stage. Only a few things, like faces, are recognizable to them. Great strides are being made in voice recognition, but that, too, is still far from being usable on a wide scale.

Optimize these elements and your videos and images will also be optimized:

  • The metadata associated with the media file - its title, decription, tags and transcribed words.
  • The text on the page, especially that around the image or video, including the caption.
  • The page title and metadescription of the page where the file lives.
  • The text in the outgoing links on the page.
  • The text in the links pointing to the page.

MORE INFORMATION ON VIDEOS AND IMAGES:

Media Optimization Library Read numerous articles on all the various aspects of optimizing videos and other media for the Search Engines. Tips from the Video Search Engines, themselves, as well as suggestions from top SEO’s, like Brett Tabke and Gregory Markel.

Free whitepaper download: Search Engine Optimization: Videos and Images by Mary Bowling, SEO at Blizzard Internet Marketing.

PODCASTS

Podcasts are audio files that are distributed via RSS feeds. Like image and videos files, they are currently best optimized by optimizing the text associated with them. Apply the video and image optimization tips (above) to your podcasts and you’ll be ahead of the game.

MORE INFORMATION ON PODCASTS

Podcast Optimization Library - Articles optimizing podcasts and tips and resources for creating effective and entertaining podcasts.