Video Editing Production

In this article I will explain how I add YouTube video to a WordPress post or page.

What’s new?

YouTube changed the way videos can be embedded into web pages. The old way used Flash player, which is still available, but the new way is with the YouTube video link inside an HTML5 iFrame.

The old player worked well enough on PCs, Android, and Mac until Apple rejected Adobe Flash and went with HTML5 standards for iPad, iPhone, and iTouch to play video. Now those Apple devices can not view Flash videos (or animations). YouTube offers a non-Flash player for those type of devices. HTML5 allows embedded players to show video but it is an emerging standard and not everyone handled it the same way. Some problems became apparent.

The new YouTube code comes with many parameters that modify the way the video is presented on the page and how it plays when activated. Some of the parameters are the same as the old method. But the way to implement them has changed enough that it is not obvious what is needed to achieve the desired outcome.

Adding video to WordPress has been a fickle process over the various versions. Even now with v3.1.3 I have found that when using the post editor in Visual mode adding video using the toolbar icon can be unpredictable. Sometimes the embed code sticks and sometimes it disappears. Using only the HTML editor seems to be more likely to save the code, and I recommend that you don’t switch between Visual and HTML panes or the embed code will likely not work or be lost.

As an example I will pick a combination of embed parameters that I wanted and worked for me. Your preferences may be different. If you want to see all the parameters available you can find them here.

Get the YouTube video link.

From the YouTube web page of the video that you want to embed:

Continue reading “Embedding YouTube Player In WordPress HTML5 iframe” »

YouTube is but one example of a web site that people upload and share their videos publicly. YouTube is the biggest video hosting and sharing site and attracts the most viewers: I placed Video Production Guide videos there as to test for audience numbers, and also to experiment with its HD settings.

But YouTube is not the only public video hosting site. If you want to appear in front of even more viewers there are other possibilities where you can reach more potential customers. These viewers can then be enticed to your web site and perhaps purchase your product, a service, or a subscription. Just like many of the social blog web sites, there are many more video sites that also have certain viewer traits and social aspects.

The following sites are some examples where you can upload your video in the same manner as YouTube, after first registering or creating an account at each web site. Continue reading “Video Sharing Web Sites” »

Once you uploaded your HD video to YouTube it becomes available for viewing. If you have titled and tagged your video with popularly searched keywords then it may be found by people searching directly on YouTube’s site, or on Google search.

Depending on how many other people have videos and websites with your topic you may be listed in search results where no one will see it. Not many people search beyond the second page of search engine results. About 42% of searchers click on position one, and fewer than 5% look at the second page of results.

In order to have people find your video you need to get to page one, and the commonly believed way to do that is to get “votes” for your content. These votes of popularity are links from other web sites. This can take some time to happen naturally but there are some tips to help get you started up the list.
Continue reading “Video Promotion” »

An easier and quicker way to spread your video around to several sites is by submitting it to a video aggregator. What this means is that you upload your video once and it is distributed by them without your having to do more than check off the destination sites. This is what I did with Video Production Guide videos.

TubeMogul is an example of this service. Once you create an account at TubeMogul, and a username and password for each site that you want it distributed to, you can upload your video once and it gets sent to all the video sharing web sites you have selected. Another useful feature at TubeMogul is that you can track the views over time at each submitted site. This can tell you valuable information about your audience and reach.

These are the web sites supported by TubeMogul distribution service:
Continue reading “Video Aggregators” »

The Video Boss is being launched this week by Andy Jenkins, previously of StomperNet fame, and long-time video producer and marketeer.

At this stage there are several videos to introduce the upcoming course. These videos are free and contain an incredible contribution of professional knowledge and tips. You may have seen the principles already set out here on ClickThrill Video Editing and Production. The same techniques as The Video Boss are covered in this site’s prior posts.

But as a video promotion in its self The Video Boss promotion is worth watching carefully. Firstly it tells you why you should be using video as a marketing vehicle, in Online Video Gets More Money Than ANYTHING!. This is a great example of how video is used to make a sales pitch.

The second video The LITTLE BOSS – Make Videos, BOSS-Style goes over the steps that you can use to write a script, create the copy and images in a presentation style template, and how to add voice-over using free or inexpensive options.

The third video The TRAFFIC BOSS – GET Rankings, GET Traffic, GET MONEY covers a lot of ground regarding production, editing, distribution, promotion and ranking, along with some inside tips that help you make the most of your effort. Even though the video is packed with dense information, fortunately you can download and save the video for multiple viewing and reference. And believe me, you will want to take notes and watch more than once. If you follow and implement this video’s advice you’ll be way ahead of most everyone else.

Pay attention to the overall presentation technique and notice:

Click here to get the The Video Boss launch free videos and get the next free video 4 as soon as it is released.

What is a Site Map

If you use Google Webmaster Tools you will come across Sitemaps as part of the site configuration recommendations. A site map lists all your urls and helps get your contents indexed by the Google search bot. A url site map is easily generated for a WordPress blog by using a plugin, which will also keep it up to date as new content is added. They can also be typed up manually in the xml format.

A site map that is less used is a video site map. If your web site has video content, either self-hosted or linked to external hosts, you can add a video site map so that Google and other search bots can find it.

Why use a Video Site Map

When a search bot crawls a website it generally ignores embedded video. By using a video site map the search bot is notified of what video content needs to be indexed. Video content is easier to promote and rank when search engines are told where the content is located and what relevance it has to your subject matter. You can control some aspects of how the video content is catalogued by using xml formatted statements in a video sitemap file.

Where to Place the Video Site Map File

The xml formatted video site map is a plain text file saved in the root directory of your website, in addition to your url site map file.

What to put in a video site map file

The specifications for a video site map file statements are found here. Some statements are required and some are optional. You do not need to include every definition and some may not apply. In the following example I include the statements that are mandatory and the optional ones I think are the most beneficial.

Each video URL entry must contain the following information:

• Title
• Description
• Player page URL
• Thumbnail URL (minimum size 160x120px)
• Raw video file location and/or the player URL

The optional parameters I include are:

• Tags (keywords)
• Category (topic)
• Family-friendly (if true)
• Duration (in seconds)

Here is the resulting video site map code for one specific video. The indents can be used for readability.

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.0">
 <url>
 <loc>http://boomswim.com/floating-inflatable-swimming-pool/</loc>
  <video:video>
   <video:thumbnail_loc>http://boomswim.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/BoomSwim-resort-pool-585-300x168.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>
   <video:title>Floating Inflatable Swimming Pool</video:title>
   <video:description>Inflatable Swimming Pool</video:description>
   <video:player_loc>http://www.youtube.com/embed/HLtmiBvUhRI</video:player_loc>
   <video:tag>swimming pool</video:tag>
   <video:tag>inflatable pool</video:tag>
   <video:tag>protected swimming zone</video:tag>
   <video:category>portable pool</video:category>
   <video:family_friendly>yes</video:family_friendly>
   <video:duration>150</video:duration>
  </video:video>
 </url>
</urlset>

Note that each statement has an opening and closing tag e.g. <video:video> and </video:video>

For each video on your site add the appropriate information between <url> and </url> tags. If you self-host your videos use the <video:content_loc> tag with the appropriate video file location on your server instead of <video:player_loc>

Write the file in a plain text editor and save it with an xml extension e.g. video-sitemap.xml or mRSS.xml The mRSS xml standard predates Google’s site map recommendations and can be used for all search bots. It is also acceptable to Google’s Webmaster Tools submission. Just be sure it is not the same name as your url site map, which is usually sitemap.xml

Now upload it to your web server into the root directory e.g. /public_html/

Confirm that the file is accessible by entering the url in a web browser e.g http://boomswim.com/video-sitemap.xml Chromium browser presents it as all one line, which is OK. If you ‘view source’ of the page it will be more readable. Most other browsers show each line.

You can also add reference to it in the last line to your robots.txt file. This is optional but may help. If you do not use Google Webmaster Tools then use the site map file name mRSS.xml to be more compliant with other search bots. e.g.

	User-Agent: *
	Allow: /
	Sitemap: http://boomswim.com/video-sitemap.xml

If you are using Google Webmaster Tools, submit the video site map file for your site by typing it in the field presented by clicking on ‘Submit a Sitemap’ button.

Google Webmaster Tools will parse the file and accept it if it is correct, or respond with an error message if it needs to be changed.

Video Site Map Results

After a few days you should be able to see your videos appearing in the search engine result pages, and being included in video searches. By checking several search phrases you can test how your videos are being treated and adjust your keywords accordingly.

Leave a comment with your results!