Search
Engine Optimization
This article discusses effective search engine optimization for
recorded web seminars and webcasts. These points should be considered
before you conduct your next web seminar. It can help you increase
the ROI of your marketing webcast, increasing leads with little
incremental cost.
Why Submit
Most marketing-oriented web seminars and webcasts are created to
generate leads, using interesting and insightful content on market
trends, technologies and applications. These web seminars often
feature noted analysts and experts and are an excellent source of
information for individuals interested in the topic. So why hide
it? This type of content is valuable and you can make it accessible
by submitting it for search engine consideration.
Remember this important fact: One out of every two live web seminar
registrants will view the archive and properly marketed archives
will receive 5 times more viewers than the original live event.
So make sure you submit your site to the search engines!
Pre Web Seminar Planning
We often overlook recording and playback considerations for web
seminars, focusing on the actual event capabilities of our service
providers. For marketing seminars it’s critical that we are
able to maintain an archive of the webcast indefinitely, preferably
on our site and in a commonly used format (real audio, windows media,
or native avi formats) so that we control and edit the content.
Not only will you want to eliminate the umms, ahhs, and dahs, from
your recordings but you will want to repurpose specific portions
of your seminars while deleting those sections that become dated.
Important questions to ask your vendors:
- What happens to my recordings if I move to a
competitive provider?
- How can I edit the archives? Can I re-record
and dub in new audio?
- Can I record the entire event, including presentation,
web tours and Q&A sessions?
Effective Web Seminar Search Engine Submission
Web seminars and webcasts provide their own challenges for search
engine submission since the data cannot be directly searched. There
are two types of search engines; automated crawlers like Google
and human powered directories like Yahoo.
A detailed explanation of search engine optimization is beyond
the scope of this article – in fact, entire books have been
written on the subject and best practices continually change. For
those of you not familiar with search engine optimization, you may
wish to refer to the resources at the bottom of the page for more
detailed information.
Create A Micro-site
Remember the landing page you created for your promotional emails
that explained the details of your webinar? It is now time to revisit
that landing page, and view it as a micro-site. The same search
engine optimization strategies that you would use for your main
website are used on this site, with one important difference.
The primary content you want to promote – your recorded web
seminar or webcast – must have an html equivalent that can
be found by the search engines. There are a number of ways to accomplish
this goal. You need to recreate transcripts of your presentation
that can be indexed and archived by the search engines. Further,
you can use this as an opportunity to provide more detailed white
papers, either hosted on the site or provided as a link, so this
site becomes a one-stop resource for visitors. Remember your objectives
though, if you want to capture registration information, you may
wish to use white papers as a reward for attending the web seminar.
You can still put partner information, pertinent product information,
and resources on supporting pages.
Resources
Search Engine Watch
www.searchenginewatch.com
Best online resource for search engine optimization we have found
– good for beginners and pros alike. They operate a subscription
service so have no hidden agendas.
Silicon Valley American Marketing Association
www.svama.org/onlineeducation.asp
Primer on search engine optimization, including articles on how
to select a search engine marketing firm from the technology-savvy
San Jose chapter of the AMA.
This article available for reprint or customization. Contact bhopps@coreography.com
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