It’s simple: People are lazy. No one thoroughly reads anymore– they skim. We are living in a world where information and communication is done quickly, efficiently, and as easily as possible. If someone clicks on your site to find massive amounts of informational content, chances are they will be quick to leave. Don’t get me wrong, you still need the content (it is king…and hey, I’m writing and you’re reading, right?) but you need a supplementary medium– i.e. video.

Since the YouTube boom, people are placing a huge amount of attention to video marketing. It’s the best way to reach a large audience in the most engaging fashion. People are making money, becoming famous (or infamous), going viral, teaching, sharing, interacting, and so much more! Video hosting sites, especially YouTube, allow you to connect with people who find what you do interesting. It only makes sense to turn video into your own business model.

Over the next week, eZanga will go through the necessary ingredients of a successful video marketing strategy. We will discuss:

Production: Quality is key!  You need the right lighting, camera and editing skills to produce professional videos.

Content: The video content needs to be engaging, unique and must facilitate some sort of conversation with your audience.

Marketing: Research! Figure out who you are targeting, the correct way to SEO a video, and a continual effort to building relationships and establishing a strong network.

Analytics: Not sure if you’re doing it right? The only way to find out is to monitor your results. You need to know how to read your feedback.

Stay tuned for the video marketing basics!

Aaron Wall of SEO Book wrote a blog post on January 2 pointing out the paid links. The marketing campaign included paying bloggers to write generic, favorable posts about Google Chrome that linked to a video about the benefits of using the browser for small business. Wall pointed out that when he searched “This post is sponsored by Google”, over 400 results were found, giving scope to the size of the marketing campaign and the number of links it generated. That disclaimer itself, usually found at the beginning or end of the blog post, also linked to the Google Chrome download page in at least one case.

By paying those bloggers to write favorable posts about Google Chrome, Google was also paying them to include the links. Since the blog posts also included the video, it can be said they were also buying views of the video. Per Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, “Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results.” To prevent paid links from impacting search engine results, Google suggests that paid links should contain a “nofollow” tag, which prevents the link from affecting PageRank. However, not all of the offending blog posts used “nofollow” links.

People in the industry are upset not only because of Google buying the links. Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land explains in his coverage Google’s fight “against paid links and ‘thin’ content,” both of which the campaign produced. PageRank not only takes into account quantity, but also quality of links. The sponsored blog posts are said to be examples of the “thin” content that the Google Panda update was supposed to fight against.

Google’s stance on paid links received a lot of attention last year, when Google banned companies such as JCPenney, Forbes, and Overstock for using them. As for Google Chrome, a Google spokesman released this statement via email: “We’ve investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site’s PageRank for a period of at least 60 days.” The head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts says in a post on Google+, “After that, someone on the Chrome side can submit a reconsideration request documenting their clean-up just like any other company would.”

As a result of the punishment, Google Chrome went from the second result of a search for “browser” to the bottom of the fifth page of results and has been reported sinking as low as position #73. Search Engine Land also reported that Chrome’s ranking lowered in searches for other terms such as “web browser” and “internet browser.” The Chrome download page doesn’t even rank when searching for “chrome,” “chrome browser,” and “google chrome.” Instead, a help page on Chrome installation has become the top result. When the Chrome download page does appear in results, it does so only as a sitelink.

Do you think this punishment Google placed on itself is fair? With only one violation found so far, do you think it’s too harsh, or is it appropriate for Google to place harsher punishments on itself, who “should know better”?

The real question of optimizing social search is: Will Google start adding more social features or will Facebook add more search options? The answer is up to consumers.

Public relations and communication professionals are already creating content, so why not make it easy for their target audiences to find the information. SEO is an inexpensive, easy way to increase exposure on the net and works great if combined with pay per click advertising.

Search marketers use social media to distribute content to large quantities, so it is only natural that they are beginning to not only appreciate but also rely on the relationships built through social channels. Doing so, allows for fewer connections for each new link created.

In order to integrate SEO and social media, professionals need to develop customer-centered content. This means the information should include keywords and optimize social media.

Social search optimization requires constant evaluation to determine where consumers find content and how they share it with others. Many tools help in determining if the integration efforts are effective. They include reinvigorate, a web analytics program with heat maps; TwentyFeet dashboard, which includes aggregate social stats from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and bit.ly; and Ontolo and InfluenceFinder, advanced link-building tools.

eZanga.com can be found at the Expo, Tuesday, March 8 (12-7 p.m.) and Wednesday, March 9 (10 a.m.-3:30 p.m.) at booth 212. Stop by to discuss the many opportunities eZanga can offer your business.

Located at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, SMX will also include 60 sessions on search engine optimization, paid search advertising, social media marketing, local and mobile search, landing page conversions and more. Rich Kahn, eZanga CEO, will be introducing session, “Search and the Complex Sale” in Grand Salon III, March 9th at 1:30 PM.

For more information, visit www.searchmarketingexpo.com/west/

eZanga.com co-founder and CEO Rich Kahn was asked for his opinion of Google Instant in the CIOUpdate.com article Google Redefining ‘New’ with Google Instant.

“I don’t think you are going to see Google Instant affect market share for Google or for Bing,” he said in the article. “So this is Google’s newest feature. People will likely be interested to try it out, but will settle back into their old search habits.”

With all that’s been going on, eZanga.com founder and CEO Rich Kahn recently weighed in on two of the most talked about topics in the industry this week.

At Search Engine Watch, Kahn was one of many leading industry insiders to give a reaction to the big news of the search deal made between Microsoft and Yahoo and what it could mean in the long run.

“I believe Microsoft and Yahoo are going to have what it takes to slowly close the gap between their companies and Google,” he said.

Kahn also crafted a piece about the differences between SEO and SEM at Building43.com, lending his opinion on which marketing strategy is more effective in driving traffic to company sites.

The article, titled “SEO and SEM: Truth in Numbers” takes a careful look at both methods through extensive research before making a conclusion on which makes the better option for advertisers.