How to run an online business

Beware the Flashback Trojan

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 08:10:00 GMT

The Flashback Mac Trojan has been around for several months already, but this virulent piece of malware has transformed itself into an even bigger threat that can steal passwords on Mac computers, perform illegal transactions to gain access to your money accounts, and create general mayhem on your operating system.

It’s worse

Malware programs called Trojans hide themselves in seemingly innocuous applications on your computer and spring into action once certain conditions are present. Older forms of the Flashback Trojan could disable your antivirus software, but the latest version of Flashback is more destructive.

How it enters

The new Flashback malware usually infects Macs that are running operating system OS X 10.6, otherwise known as “Snow Leopard.” Flashback gains entry into the computer by exploiting security holes in Java, a programming application used by computers to interact with Internet sites and run programs.

What’s the damage?

Another way it enters Macs is via a computer popup message asking if “content signed (authorized) by Apple Inc.” can be allowed access to the computer. If the user allows it, the Trojan enters the operating system and starts its mission of destruction.

Mac computers that are infected will experience crashes when using its Internet browser. Because Flashback scans for passwords and user IDs associated with PayPal and other online payment accounts, unexplained transactions will show up on statements---that is, if the user monitors activity.

How to keep safe

The most obvious way to protect against Trojans and viruses is to install a reputable antivirus program and run the application on a frequent basis to scan for any viruses or malware that may have breached your computer.

Don’t get cocky

For many years the Mac community could bask in the secure environment of a relatively virus free atmosphere when using their computers. But hackers have found ways to break in and feeling this false sense of security is no solution to this real world situation—Macs are vulnerable to malware attacks.

Pinterest the next big thing for business ?

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:24:00 GMT

Pinterest has one of the top marketing buzzwords of 2012, as its explosive growth (even though it’s still in invite-only status) has left business owners the world over scrambling to get a good idea of how to utilise it to promote their own business and products.

Traffic to Pinterest.com has increased over 40x in the past six months (as of December 22, 2011), and Experian Hitwise states that 58% of the traffic are from female visitors and 59% are between the ages of 25 and 44.

For businesses that cater to men and women between the ages of 25 to 44, Pinterest is a fantastic new social media to get involved in.

Furthermore, even though 25 to 44 is the fastest-growing age group, users outside of the demographic can still be seen as active users on the site.

Even though Pinterest is still in invite-only, companies are still getting accounts and beginning to providing inspiration and product ideas to their customers. We only had to wait a couple of days for our invite to come through.

In order to figure out how a business can utilise Pinterest, it’s important to recognise how a business is gaining revenue from their current customer base and to capitalise on that existing interest.

E-Commerce Websites

For e-commerce websites offering fashion, accessories, food, home decor, and other visually-appealing products online, using Pinterest as another extension of a company’s e-commerce site is a good way to drive links and display available products in a more basic way — by using photos only.

For instance, Gap has a Pinterest account that has several different boards, one being theirGapFit board to market their new line of athletic apparel:

Clicking through images of available products takes the user to that product page for more information and ordering. Along with pinning their own products, Gap also has pinned other links and images that deal with fitness and health motivation, such as a healthy recipe from Real Simple and a music video for a song that is good for working out to – Bulletproof by La Roux.

Just like with any other type of social media, sharing a company’s own products and services along with providing other relevant information and resources is what helps consumers connect and help the company be seen as more of a resource rather than a solely a retail business.

Inspiration Resources

Another company already involved in Pinterest is Lowe’s, a home improvement store that offers everything from lumber to patio furniture. Lowe’s has done a great job of providing home improvement and decor ideas, along with do-it-yourself project ideas, which are a large majority of links and photos that are pinned on Pinterest.

By offering up inspiration and project ideas, Lowe’s has positioned itself to be an inspiration resource. They have continued this idea on their project website, Lowes CreativeIdeas.com, which offers do-it-yourself design and project ideas for the home and garden. The Lowe’s Pinterest board links to projects from the Creative Ideas website, as well as product pages from their own website and project tutorials on other blogs.

By enveloping the do-it-yourself online community, Lowe’s has become a resource on design and do-it-yourself projects, which can increase their consumer loyalty and return offline and online visits and purchases.

Other Niches

A company doesn’t have to be in fashion, food, or home improvement in order to be successful on Pinterest. By focusing on visual content instead of text content to link to their services, products, and relevant industry content, almost any company can find a way to use Pinterest to connect with their current and potential consumer base.

For instance, a social media company such as The Social Robot offers infographics about the Internet and social media use:

This way, the company is sharing content, but in a visual manner. Thinking creatively and focusing on adding more visual content to websites can help bridge the gap between sharing content on a website and also sharing it via Pinterest and other visual-based social media

Has your company started using Pinterest? Has it been successful? Let us know.

Web training is essential....

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:53:00 GMT

For a range of reasons, such as lack of awareness, skills or confidence, small business owners are less likely to set up a website, create a social media profile or trade with customers online than larger firms:

According to a study conducted by TalkTalk Business, 43% of small businesses surveyed reported feeling uncomfortable using social media, despite it being an accessible, cheap and easy to manage channel.

A survey by Hiscox highlighted that 64% of the small business decision makers surveyed said social media was either not necessary, they didn’t know enough about it, or had no opinion; only 12% were frequent users of social media, and 24% participated just occasionally.

A BT Business Poll showed two fifths of companies in the UK do not have their own dedicated website.

This failure to capitalise on the web as a profit-generating channel in its own right can result in small businesses missing out on sales and marketing opportunities. According to Web World, an effective business website can add value and satisfaction, improve credibility ratings, offer customer convenience and drive market expansion.

Having a social media presence can generate long-term, valuable relationships between a company and its customers, while serving as a low cost service channel.

The government has recognised the knowledge gap that surrounds small business online success by recently launching the Web Fuelled Business Initiative, a series of workshops to help SME owners leverage search engine optimisation and start selling in digital market places in a cost-savvy way.

Planning your website 2

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 06:58:00 GMT

Following on from our post back in November we have had a number of requests from potential client asking where do they start when it comes to planning their website. So, in order to get you started we thought we'd make our online business survey available to all.

This is the document we use during initial client interviews to make sure that the business side of the website is properly covered. You won't find colour schemes, layout examples or suggested technologies in the document. Instead you'll find questions about the mission or purpose of your business, your competitors, the aims and objectives you have for your website. The document is designed to get you thinking about your website as an integral part of your business and not just a bolt on.

Get these fundamentals right and the colours, layout and technology will follow.

Click here to download a copy. It's free and it might just get you thinking about your new website in a whole new way.

And don't forget to let us know what you think.

The end of Flash ?

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 22:33:00 GMT

News that Adobe has ended support of its widespread Mobile Flash technology, which allows the viewing of around a quarter of small business websites from mobile and tablet devices in the UK, could cost SMEs a total of £500 million as their websites become obsolete to a significant percentage of web users.With approximately 25 per cent of small business websites using at least some elements of Flash in their website it is estimated that t could cost an average of £1,000 per site to upgrade. So if even half of the UK’s 4.5 million SMEs have a website, that’s a potential cost to the SME community of over £500 million.

By ending its support for Mobile Flash Adobe's decision has potentially huge implications for the SME community. In the short term, this will affect all small businesses that receive a lot of traffic to their website or generate online sales from mobile and tablet devices.

The mobile internet has been an important source of lead generation and sales for many small businesses and its growth is set to continue, with mobile search likely to account for nearly 20 per cent of all search queries by 2012. That’s an enormous amount of traffic that SMEs cannot afford to miss out on.

Although initially Adobes decision only affects mobile devices, it is likely that Adobe will eventually phase out Flash support completely, a serious consideration for any SME with a Flash-based website (such as Moonfruit) or uses elements of Flash in their site, such as video players, animations and advertising. We advise any organisation looking at investing in a new website, or redesigning an existing one, to prepare for a future without Flash and avoid the costs of having to tear up their site and start again.

Flash’s natural successor is much championed HTML5, a new breed of website programming language that gives all the benefits of Flash without its significant drawback.

Use you blog to boost your SEO

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:00:00 GMT

Search engine optimisation has become a key component in business marketing today. If you want your website to help improve your business, it will be important to make sure the articles you write are good enough to be published anywhere online. You will also want your website to be ranked as high as possible by search engines, and in order to do so, you will need to create quality articles for many other websites.

Features of a good article

The first step you should take when writing a good, quality article is to keep in mind that you should be informative, educational, and, above all, interesting. When people search for information, they don’t just want something that will tell them how to do it, but they also want to be entertained. Providing a list of useful information may be the easy way to meet the requirements of an assignment, but if the content is dull and boring, or if it is hard to read, not many website owners will consider that article for publishing. On the other hand, you will want to make sure the content is informative enough to reflect well on the owner. They probably already have many other well-written articles in their archives, and they probably won’t accept anything less than a professionally written article.

The second important thing to consider is the key word or phrase you use to link each article. Obviously, you will want these words to be relevant to your site content. Whenever a potential customer searches for something related to your site, you will want them to find your link high up on the list, and to do so, you will need to know which words and phrases they will be searching for. Don’t simply try to guess what keywords will be effective. Instead, conduct some research to better understand your target customer, and use that information to insert keywords into your articles.

Common mistakes to avoid

Some businesses actually hire companies to write SEO articles for them, and they have noticed that not all articles are created equally. Publishers will avoid SEO authors who fall for these common mistakes.

Unoriginal content – Some SEO writers decide to simply copy and paste other works to complete articles. These writers are either uneducated on the topic or too lazy to come up with their own material. Whatever their reason, you need to make sure you do not take this easy road. If this type of material was found on your website, you would lose credibility. Any other publisher will feel the same way, and probably won’t tolerate any type of plagiarism.
Typing, grammatical, and spelling mistakes –Authors who do not check their work before it is published will sound uneducated to the reader, so you could lose your credibility. Anyone writing articles to improve SEO needs to take the time to check their work with a computer spell check and by reading the material themselves before the article is sent out to be published.
Incorrect content – Most SEO writers are not experts on the material they write about. Therefore, they are much more likely to include incorrect content in their work. Before you start any SEO writing assignment, you should make sure you are very informed on the subject matter and that your sources are reliable.

The last thing you need to remember when writing an SEO article is that this marketing strategy is simply the means to a better ranking. While each published article will help you bring potential customers to your site, this does not necessarily mean that they will buy something once they have visited. A higher ranking will provide more traffic to your website, but once they are there, it will be your job to create a website designed to sell them your product, service, or idea.

Google + Pages for Business

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 05:43:00 GMT

Just a few months ago, Google kicked brands, businesses, bands, and other non-personal profiles off of Google+, it's social media network, with a message that they’d be welcome back soon with something specifically created for them. That day has come and it's time to exploit the networking and business opportunities on this latest addition to the social media landscape.

Google has announced the worldwide launch of Google+ Pages giving brands, businesses, and the like a place on the fast growing social media platform. In a blog post on the Official Google Blog, Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering, stated that any business or organisation, “will soon be able to join the community,” by creating their own Google+ Pages.

A number of bands, entertainers, nonprofit organizations, brands, and businesses have already created Google+ Pages, including Toyota, Pepsi, H&M, Save the Children UK, and many more (our page will be launched shortly.

Not only can businesses and brands use Google+ to connect with existing and potential consumers around the world, but they can also use Google+ features like circles to segment groups of customers for targeted communications, hangouts to speak directly with their followers, and sparks to monitor conversations.

Google+ Pages will be integrated with other Google products such as AdWords for campaign tracking, and a verification process will be put in place for well-known brands to ensure people find the verified brand or business page rather than an imposter.

To coincide with the launch of Google+ Pages, Google also announced the launch of Direct Connect, which will enable people to search Google for a brand name preceded by a + sign (for example, +Toyota) and get an instant connection to that brand’s Google+ Page where they can instantly add the brand to their own account and go directly to the brand’s Google+ Page.

So what are you waiting for it's time to get social with the king of search engines.

Prevent your ecommerce business failing.

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:19:00 GMT

Starting a business online is certainly an exciting, risky and potentially lucrative thing to do. If you do it right, and work hard at it you can make a great living for yourself and potentially free yourself from the monotony of the 9-5 lifestyle. Unfortunately, a large majority of people who decide to start selling stuff online never reach this goal. An e-commerce business can fail for a multitude of reasons, but here are 5 common mistakes to avoid.

Failing To Micro Test

However sure you are that your products are going to be hot sellers, you can in reality never know what will happen until you put them on sale. Don’t make the mistake of buying a whole load of stock of an item you have not tested yet – because if it doesn’t sell like you hoped you will make a big loss which could kill your business instantly.

Instead, why not work out what your selling price would be and then just try selling some at that price, and sales can be fulfilled by buying the product at retail price from another shop. You will make a small loss, but testing the concept could save you a fortune.

Currency Movements

If you make many of your sales to customers in other countries you probably have an element of currency risk in your business. Not keeping a close eye on currency movements can spell disaster for a small business. If you expect a lot of your profits to come from overseas sales you should control your costs very carefully, try to build in a healthy margin and keep a close eye on currency conversion rates in case anything changes.

Failure To Market

The build it and they will come philosophy is a dangerous one and it rarely works out as such. Once you have set up your shop with all of your wares you will need to figure out a way to get customers through the door. When you are planning your e-commerce business, don’t underestimate the amount of money and effort that you will have to put into marketing. Allow a healthy budget for advertising costs and don’t be over optimistic about how many sales you will make.

Losing Repeat Custom

This has to be the biggest mistake for most e-businesses and it is sad because this can make the difference between a profitable business and a loss making one. From the very outset you should put in place a plan for managing your customer list. Marketing to previous customers is an easy way to increase sales but you have to make the effort to actually get the job done. Don’t let this slide.

Getting your bricks and mortar business online

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 11:16:00 GMT

The Internet is here to stay, no doubt about it. Yet there are still many small businesses haven’t taken the plunge and moved online. Some may not feel they need yet, or cannot perceive the benefits it would bring their business. Others may be scared because the territory is unfamiliar to them. Whatever the case may be, below are some simple steps you can take to move your brick-and-mortar business online—something you must do if you want to be able to compete in the long run. Your customers are online. Your competitors are online. Don’t get left behind.

1. Get found.

Many businesses invest money in building a website in order to have an online presence and then stop there. In the offline world if you put up a business in a popular area of town, you’ll get visitors through the door. They see the building and drop in. On the Internet, it’s a different story. Once your site is built, you still need to put significant effort into getting found. Get listed on Google Places . Get listed in local directories. Get listed in industry directories. Learn the basics of search engine optimisation or hire someone to do that work for you.

2. Get leads, not just traffic.

Another area where many people fail online is in lead generation. After you build your website and start driving traffic, your job is to turn that traffic into leads. Ideally most pages of your website should have a lead capture mechanism. You need to offer something of value to your visitors in exchange for their email address or other contact information. If you don’t, you’ll lose a lot of your traffic. You need to develop a list-building mentality. Build a list of leads with every activity you engage in. Then, follow up with that list. Email marketing systems can help you do this in systematic ways.

3. Use email marketing to tell people about your business.

Recently, proponents of new marketing techniques have bashed email marketing, claiming that the medium is dying. This is far from the truth. Research firm ForeSee Results published a study early this year that was conducted during the 2010 Christmas shopping season. They asked people who made purchases online about what influenced their visit to ecommerce sites. The study showed that the majority (64 percent) stated that they prefer to hear about sales and promotions through emails. When engaging in email marketing, make sure you follow best practices and provide value to your leads instead of bugging them with sales messages all the time. Use email to build real relationships with your leads, not bother them.

4. Use QR codes in fun and creative ways.

You have offline customers. Eventually, you want to be able to communicate with them online as well. QR codes are barcodes that can be scanned with a smart phone to send people to a particular website. QR codes on direct mail pieces, your store window, your checkout desk and other strategic areas can give you an opportunity to move offline traffic online. Keep in mind that QR codes are used by cell phone users. So drive them to mobile-friendly pages where you offer something in order to capture their contact information.

5. Develop online partnerships

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You may have been slow to get your business online, but that doesn’t mean you have to suffer forever. Most likely you know other local business owners who made the transition earlier. They may already be getting significant amounts of traffic. Hunt down the people who are doing well online and set up a way for them to drive traffic to you and you to them. Complementary businesses can set up referral or affiliate programs to drive traffic to each other at appropriate points in the sales cycle. Using partners can jumpstart your online business significantly.

6. Give your customers an online account portal.

We’re all getting used to managing our accounts online. We can do this with our banks, our cell phone accounts, our utilities, etc. But do you offer a way for your customers to manage their accounts with you online? For those of you who provide recurring services, providing a portal where customers can manage their accounts online makes working with you more convenient for them. That’s really what the Internet is all about – convenience. The more of it you give, the more your customers will love you.

7. Get social, maybe.

If used correctly, it can provide a great stream of online traffic for your business. It also is a great way to listen and engage with customers. But I say “maybe” here because I see many small businesses wasting way too much time trying to figure out how to make social media work. The truth is, it’s not for everybody. If your target audience is social, then you do need to figure it out. One last point to consider is that there is a lot of hype on the Internet. Like most things, Internet hype is usually based on some amount of truth. The key is to decipher the hype about the latest trends. Adopt only the trends that make sense for your business, and make sure the tactics you use make a difference to the bottom line. If not, you’re wasting your time. Of course there are many other things to consider when getting started online, but these steps will hopefully help you get started in a meaningful way.

Are you ready for Cyber Monday ?

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 08:56:00 GMT

Over the last few years 'Cyber Monday' has become a welcome date in the calendars of American online retailers, it has been synonymous with increased sales ahead of Christmas and post-Thanksgiving. As it quickly approaches (Monday 28th November), it is essential that retailers ensure they are sufficiently promoting deals and products before the event hits or they could risk missing a large chunk of pre-Christmas sales

“Cyber Monday is the first Monday after Thanksgiving in America and was an event coined by Shop.org, part of the U.S. trade association National Retail Federation. Studies by the federation into online retailers found that this Monday saw a massive increase in the number of online sales ahead of Christmas and now retail experts in the UK are expecting the trend to hit on this side of the pond”.

There are a number of reasons why we could quite easily follow suit with American consumers, a great deal of their trends influence us and global brands who originate from the States will be pushing global ‘Cyber Monday’ offers and discounts which will in turn encourage sales on the day. Logistically delivery lead times ahead of Christmas make Monday 28th November an opportune day to order now and receive before Christmas and Mondays, as we all know are historically the less productive day of the week following the weekend and provide time following a reflective weekend of being exposed to brands, gifts and deals to make an online purchase from your desk.

Our advice to any online retailer is to act fast and ensure that a selection of ‘Cyber Monday’ deals are live and effectively promoted for if and when these sales hit.

Read This and Convert More with Calls to Action

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:59:00 GMT

You website looks good, loads quickly, has compelling content but still isn't converting - time to look at the 'calls to action'

A call to action is all about convincing people to take action on your site, interact with it, do whatever it is you want them to do, be it buy something from your store, fill in your contact form or pick up the phone and give you a call.

So why don't site convert ? Could it be that your calls to action are ambiguous, hidden in sea of content, or simply not there at all.

Make sure the call attracts the visitors attention. Make sure it stands out from the rest of the content. Use font style or size to differentiate it, use colour or contrast to highlight it, stick it in a funky graphic, anything to get the user to see and act upon it.

Make it succinct and leave no room for misunderstanding. 'Download this', 'Read this' or 'Buy this' give clear meaningful instructions to your site visitor.

Don't leave it to your visitor to guess how you want them to interact with your site. Tell them and get your site conversions increasing as a result.

Our Guide to Christmas Online.

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:37:00 GMT

Now that the Christmas decorations have started appearing in towns and cities around the country, most people start looking for presents to give to their loved ones. Online stores should be prepared now for the best sales season all year. In this article you can learn the best way to reach potential Christmas shoppers.

The right layout

Have you created a festive layout for your shop? If so, this is the ideal time to activate it. But even if you do not have a suitable layout yet, you still have enough time if you act quickly. Browse the items offered by image suppliers such as Getty Images or istockphoto – you might just find a suitable image. With just a bit of skill, you can quickly integrate presents, a Christmas tree or a Christmas snow design, now into your header graphic.

Create special landing pages and/or category pages which emphasize Christmas. Some possibilities include: “Gift ideas for him”, “Gift ideas for her”, “Most popular gifts” or “Special Christmas offers”. You could adapt the layout for these pages further to give them a festive feel, and insert a link to these pages on your homepage.

Check the product portals

Have you found products which will potentially become this year’s top sellers? (as mentioned in our earlier blog post) –If so, you should make absolutely certain that your stock levels will suffice. You should also ensure that any recently added products are listed in the most important marketplaces – such as Amazon, Ciao or eBay – so you can reach as many customers as possible.

eBay TIP: the closer you get to Christmas, the more important it becomes that your products feature the Buy It Now option, which is especially appealing to last-minute shoppers.

Utilise the right Google ads

Now is the time to create special Christmas ads for your shop with Google AdWords. Frequently used keywords at this time of year are “gifts”, “gift idea”, “Christmas”, “Christmas promotion”, etc so that your ad is displayed when these phrases are used in a search. Make sure that your ad text emphasises Christmas to attract the attention of customers. Appeal to people, for instance, by inserting “Delivery by Christmas” into your ad text. Make use of the Christmas landing pages as mentioned earlier.

Encourage customers to review your shop

Customers will gladly make purchases in a shop if they know they are in good hands. Positive customer reviews therefore mean a great deal. Make it clear to new customers that you boast a large base of existing satisfied customers. Use November to conduct an e-mail campaign aimed at regular customers; ask them to evaluate your services via eKomi, for example. Combine your campaign with an incentive, such as 10% discount on their next purchase, in order to increase the rate of participation and generate additional sales.

Don’t have your online shop yet? It’s not too late to get a simple shop set up and ready for peak trading this Christmas so why not get in touch.

Planning your website

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:31:00 GMT

"If you aim for nothing you'll hit it every time." - Unknown Author

Take all those ideas, thoughts, brainstorming, etc swimming around in your head and just write it down on paper. It doesn’t have to be organised, just write it down. If you try to organise it while you write, you’ll become frustrated. Once you have it on a paper, then you can organise it. Most of the time, this is in the form of “I want my users to….”, because at the end of the day, you want the people coming to your website to do something, right?

Work with a company, friend, consultant, etc that can take that document and convert it into real requirements, wireframes, etc. It’s the equivalent to going to an architect with your house plans scratched on a piece of notebook paper and asking them to convert it into blueprints (so the construction team knows how to build it). MAKE SURE THIS PERSON/COMPANY HAS HELPED OTHER PEOPLE WITH WEB PROJECTS THAT HAVE PROVEN SUCCESSFUL. If you’re asking, yes, Danson Digital can help you (and we have some pretty successful sites under our belt).

You wouldn’t go to a builder and ask them to just start building with no plan. Don’t treat your online business idea the same way.

fiverr.com

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 01:19:00 GMT

Following our appearance in the Entrepreneurs Circle Circular we received a phone call from one reader wondering how we used fiverr.com to get stuff done. So here's our guide to the outsourcing site.

The principle is simple. You need something (small) done. You search the site and find someone who'll do it for you. You pay them $5 (by Paypal or credit card. Everything is $5 (hence the name). You can then track progress and once the job has been completed you get 48 hours to request fixes or adjustments. Once it's all wrapped up you leave feedback.

So what have we used it for ? Well lots of things. We've had graphics designed or modified, video's produced (keep your eye out for those), we've used it to add stats to some of our demo sites to assist in demonstrating the reporting functionality within the IGNITE system, translation. The list on the fiverr.com site is seemingly endless.

Make your Videos Search Engine Friendly

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 15:10:00 GMT

Video is all the rage on business websites at the moment. Everywhere you turn there's handy snippets of advice giving all manner of reasons why video is a must on your site. But having added the all important footage are you optimising your page to ensure the all important search engines are giving your video the prominence it deserves ?

By optimising the page you will earn a fab little thumbnail image on the search engine results page (SERP), you'll see an increase in time spent on your site, an increase in page views and an overall increase in conversion rates. So what needs to be done to make your video search engine friendly ?

We are assuming the video is embedded on your page. You'll need to create a thumbnail for the video (that will be indexed by the search engine). The ideal size for this is 80 x 60 pixels. Once your thumbnail has been created you need to add the all important meta tags to there page in question. There are four in total.

<meta name="medium" content="video" />

<meta name="video_type" content="application/x-shockwave-flash" />
This will need to be amended to include details of the appropriate player associated with the video file format your are using (Flash, Quicktime, Windows Media Player).

<meta name="video_height" content="300" />
Be sure to replace the figure (300) with the actual height of your video.

<meta name="video_width" content="740" />
Again adjust to the dimensions of your video.

All that remains is to create a video site map and send it in to the search engines. Full details on creating and submitting the site map to google can be found here - http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=8047