Here’s a number that will boggle your mind. There are more than 2 billion views of YouTube videos…each day! That’s 60 billion views a month and the average time spent on the platform is over 15 minutes. That is a ton of traffic.
If you’re not using video to promote your business you’re missing an incredible branding and traffic driving opportunity.
If you think that YouTube is still nothing but goofy videos and movie trailers, think again. Check out Corning’s B to B video “A Day of Glass” which was posted in February of 2011 and is pushing 20 million views and over 65,000 “likes.” This is a video that was originally produced for use at trade shows and sales presentations. How many trade shows do you think Corning would have to attend to get 20 million viewers?
And the cost to get those 20 million sets of eyeballs…nada.
The fact is YouTube is now the second largest search engine, which isn’t that surprising when you consider that it’s owned by Google. Your audience is there and they are searching for your keyword phrases. If you don’t have a presence you are forfeiting that traffic to the competition.
Optimizing a YouTube Video
Only YouTube knows how many millions of videos it has indexed. Some obviously will not be viewed by anyone other than the poster and his or her friends but others, videos that are optimized for the platform can expect significant audiences. If you want to fall into that second group keep these techniques in mind when you are posting your video.
- Page Optimization. Every video that resides on YouTube is on its own unique page with a unique URL. YouTube uses the title of your video as the page title tag, the description as the meta description and the YouTube tags as the meta tags. Keep all of this in mind as you can make a significant impact on search engines (Google) if you’ve optimized this page correctly.
- Title. Like any piece of content you need to have a title or headline that grabs the viewer’s interest and includes your targeted keyword. Don’t get wordy as your title has to be no more than 66 characters before it becomes truncated. Not sure what to use? Enter your phrase in YouTube and then have a look at the stats for the top returns. Typically the more descriptive the title the higher the view rate. Obviously you don’t want to copy a title word for word but it doesn’t hurt to get ideas from someone else’s success.
- Description. YouTube is generous with the amount of space they provide for a description (click the “see more” button for more space) but remember that the first 160 characters will make up the meta description for this page. Use your keyword phrase in the meta description and have it followed by the word “video.” When people use search engines to find videos they almost always include the word video. So if your keyword phrase is “installing replacement windows” make certain you have “installing replacement windows video” in the description.
- Tags. Meta tags are pretty much ignored by search engines but they are really important to YouTube in finding your content. Fill that field up with relevant tags. If your market is local be certain to include your city in this section.
- Interaction. Be certain to enable “likes” and “comments.” The likes/dislikes are important in factors in YouTube’s ranking of your video. The comments can turn into the Wild Wild West and you have to keep a handle on them. You’ll get an email each time a comment is added and you’ll want to be certain to answer any questions and otherwise engage your audience. Abusive or spam comments are easily deleted.
Then there’s the content. Your video doesn’t have to be a piece of art, you don’t need a cinematic degree and it doesn’t have to be feature film length. What it has to do is deliver on the promise of the title. If you’re title is “How to Remodel Your Kitchen” and all you talk about in the video is a granite counter top you sell, people will bail. That bail rate is ultra-important because it is the principal method used by YouTube to judge quality.
Videos are an important part of any digital marketing program. If the idea of producing and editing a video for YouTube appeals to you but you don’t have the time, talent or equipment to produce one…give us a call. We’ve done hundreds and we’d be happy to share our ideas with you. Contact us now.