Video SEO in the Netherlands

Monday, April 6th, 2009, 160 views
by Richard van den Boogaard

Recently, I submerged myself into the world of Search Engine Optimization Strategies at SES Amsterdam. I had one mission – find out what the status was of Video SEO in the Netherlands. Aside from a few experiments, not that much is happening. Even though many Dutch SEO experts believe the future and implications of video will be huge, few of them are actually convincing clients to step into this space – now. Everyone seems to be waiting for the holy grail of universal or blended search in Google, meanwhile they seem to choose to ignore leading video search engines like YouTube or other video sharing sites.

At SES Amsterdam, I interviewed various experts. Watch the result below:

Dutch advertisers and their SEO advisors seem to be waiting for the arrival of the next golden goose called blended search. According to Wolter Tjeenk Willink of Traffic Builders, most are still “struggling with the basics of SEO” and do not yet have a video strategy. Those who do, choose to optimize their assets for the search results in Google first, before adopting a content syndication strategy.

For the following two reasons, I find it strange that so much focus goes out to the future prospect of blended search, whereas the opportunity with content syndication is now:

1. Google + YouTube = Universal Search
   If any videos appear in the SERPs (very sporadically in the Netherlands), Google seems to be favouring YouTube and Google Video more than other sources (read: video on your own site). Since Google Video is no longer accepting new uploads, more companies should be interested in video content syndication on the most popular platform out there.
2. YouTube > Yahoo! & MSN
   For the first time, in november 2008, YouTube as a search engine was bigger than Google’s competitors Yahoo! and MSN. Although these are US-based statistics, YouTube takes up a leading position in the Netherlands as well.

Read the article (in Dutch) on Frankwatching as well.