Boost search ranking with podcasts...New tagging service can help

...not to mention create a more engaging viewer experience.

I'm talking about Veotag. A new service that lets you add clickable text to your audio or video podcasts. It's like creating a clickable table of contents that runs alongside your audio/video panel. So viewers can skip to each section in your podcast--you define the links and veotag adds them. Plus, the text is searchable, so it makes your audio or video podcast conducive to search engines. Take a look at this video about Veotag from Beet.TV.

And speaking of create, it's really easy to add Veotags to your online audio/video files. Here's a sample of one that I created in about 10 minutes: Integrated Marcom Minute - B2B Social Marketing

Online Video Ads: Three Important Rules Marketers Should Know...

It's hard to imagine that any online advertising medium could grow faster than search. But that's just what eMarketer senior analyst, David Hallerman, predicts. How fast? Well, eMarketer predicts a 90% jump in spending in 2007 to $775 million.

So if your thinking about integrating online video ads into your marcom mix, you may want to keep the follow important best practices in mind:

1. Video ads are not repurposed TV spots
   Use the interactivity of the internet to make your video ad more engaging. For example, include hot spots on images or clicks to more information.
   
   
2. 30 seconds can be too long – especially if the ad precedes a lengthy video clip (Lengthy being 1.5-2 minutes)
   The limit most viewers will tolerate for a video ad is 10 seconds. Typical length is 15 – 30 seconds. BTW... pre-roll ads (the ads that precede a video) don't work. Just about every online marketer and marketing agency has told me to stay away from pre-roll ads because they kill conversion.
   
   
3. Provide controls for your viewers
   Make it easy for visitors to control volume and stop or start the ad.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has a complete list of standards for online video ads.