How Open Graph Makes Video Pop on the Search Engines

Everyone wants to be the first listing on page one of Google for the terms that define their business. Many businesses pay dearly to maintain that position.
But what if this wasn’t necessary to get the attention of searchers? What if your third-place ranking was as powerful as being at the top of the page in terms of clicks?
This is the promise of video. Properly tagged with Open Graph meta tags, you can get a thumbnail of your video onto search pages and have more visual impact than the top listings.

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Implementing Open Graph for Video

The details can be found in my new column Use Open Graph To Get Video Thumbnails Into Your Search Results on Search Engine Land. Fellow Conversion Scientist Joel Harvey tells us his secret weapon for getting video thumbnails into search results.
If you’re curious, the Open Graph tags used on this page are:

<meta property=’og:type’ content=’movie’ />

<meta property=’og:video:width’ content=’640′ />

<meta property=’og:video:height’ content=’360′ />

<meta property=’og:video:type’ content=’application/x-shockwave-flash’ />

<meta property=’og:title’ content=’Ooooh! Video’ />

<meta property=’og:description’ content=’Use Open Graph To Get Video Thumbnails Into Your Search Results’ />

<meta property=’og:image’ content=’/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Open-Graph-Video-thumb.png’ />

<meta property=’og:video’ content=’/wp-content/uploads/jw-player-plugin-for-wordpress/player/player.swf?file=/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Open-Graph-Video-SEO.mp4&amp;controlbar=none&amp;dock=false&amp;autostart=true&amp;height=360&amp;width=640′ />

Listen to the Article:

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Author
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Brian Massey

Conversion Scientist™ at Conversion Sciences

Brian Massey is the Founder and Conversion Scientist™ at Conversion Sciences, a sought-after international speaker, and author of Your Customer Creation Equation. He is passionate about transforming websites through a steady diet of visitor profiling, purposeful content, analytics, and AB testing.

Expertise: conversion rate optimization, AB testing, marketing strategy, digital marketing, analytics, landing page design, computer programming, entrepreneurship

Speaking: IBM, Inbound, LeadsCon, Content Marketing World, Affiliate Summit, and more

Books and Training: Your Conversion Creation Equation, Video CRO, Marketing Videos that Convert, CRO Best Practices

As Seen On: ClickZ, Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, Conversion Sciences Blog, Intended Consequences podcast

Education: Texas A&M University, BS Computer Science and Management