SEO – still vital, even for video

Had some drinks the other day with the guys from Kewego.  

Kewego’s in the white-labelled video business, they’re going great guns in France, Spain and other European markets with video portals for the likes of Lycos and Orange and now they’ve gained an additional 5 million Euros to develop further and break the UK (oh, and to achieve profitability).

 I’m liking the way they talk.

They’ve patently got the tech and their Commercial Director John Gillespie’s got the credibility – he was involved in old-school UK player Easyshop which ended up as Figleaves. He’s also prepared to speak his mind over the Staropramen.  

He’s particularly entertaining on the way that the current rush towards sexy on-site video content from all manner of brands is obscuring what ought to be the real objectives – driving traffic and then monetising it.  Kewego has a serious focus on optimising their page content for search, (vital at a time when Google are ensuring YouTube clips are appearing graphically in their SERPS) but is this what many potential clients are latching onto?  

Oh no. John reckons he’s seeing many content owners and their agencies obsess more about the look of the players and the flash pages they’re embedded in than about making sure that the content pulls in a search audience. And when traffic driving does come up there’s a focus on the ever-more ubiquitous and trendily 2.0 links to the social services such as Digg, Reddit, Furl, Del.icio.us etc.  

If it’s true, then it’s madness. It also reinforces a long-term observation-based fear of mine. That the basics of organic SEO – about as important as it gets for driving traffic from users who are actively looking for your content and services – are unknown to a lot of people in the industry. 

An understanding of the nuts and bolts of SEO is key to any online marketing strategy and – particularly in Europe – you’re going to see far greater returns on traffic through an investment in this than deploying a “Digg this” link against your content. Just because it’s been around for ages and doesn’t have a brightly coloured logo with a permanent “Beta” to attach to it, it doesn’t mean it’s unimportant.