YouTube has become a dominant force in on the
web. According to comScore, in April of 2009 Americans watch over 16.8 billion videos up 16% from the previous month. YouTube videos are often showing up on
Google natural
search engine results surpassing the top spots. A YouTube video properly optimized can outrank
sites such as Amazon and EBay. This is an internet marketers dream tool and it is so simple to use. This is why you must properly optimize your YouTube videos.
A good starting point for YouTube optimization is to make videos that are short, sweet, and straight to the point. People want instant gratification, not wanting to sit around watching a 30 minute video on how to use a
cell phone headset. Videos should be kept to a few minutes to reduce production
time, upload
time, and download
times. Have a script prepared so you do not mutter or
stumble upon your words. Film the video in the highest
quality format you can. Crisp, clean videos will receive more attention than grainy, hard to see videos. Do not make videos private and always allow for comments. This user interaction can help increase video views and move you up the YouTube video rankings. Using Annotations,
text boxes in your video, can help deliver your message or promote your
website or company. Make sure not too over use annotations as they can become annoying and distracting from your videos main purpose.
Since the
search engine spiders cannot read or comprehend videos you must use the
text fields to optimize your videos appropriately. This means doing
keyword research and making sure your keywords appear in the
title, description, and tags of your video is imperative to a successful YouTube
marketing campaign. Maximize on the amount of
text you can have in these fields. More text means a better chance of someone finding and clicking into your video. Make sure you use original titles and descriptions otherwise your video will get lost in the millions of videos with similar names. Original
content is what YouTube wants to see. The more originality you add the better off you will be. You also want to have a user name with your brand or
website name so it is easily remembered.
You have to put everything into perspective to increase views, as the average video only receives one hundred views annually. According to YouTube guidelines there are many factors that influence rankings and can help optimize your videos. These include the video title, the description, tags, incoming
links, comments, subscribers, ratings, playlist additions, flagging, embeds, shares, age of video, channel views, subscribers, views, and the number and quality of sites that
host or point to your video. You want to interact on YouTube by watching other videos, commenting, subscribing, creating channels, and making friends. Interaction helps with the viral marketing, where one person tells another person about the video. This person tells five others and so on. Doing this will increase your video network and views. All these factor into ranking high for YouTube optimization.
If your video appears on an outside website you want to make sure that it is relevant and appropriate for your video. Each time your video is viewed from an outside
source it still counts as a view, so keep posting your videos on blogs and other sites. Basically, you need links from outside pages leading to your YouTube videos. You want the links to have strong
anchor text, meaning that the
link leading to the video contains keywords related to your video.
To increase your videos views, subscriptions, and favorites you can send out an email blasts, place your video on your website and other websites, engage in the community, build a following, connect with other members, provide valuable
content, participate in social networking sites. Basically the
Web 2.0 created a heaven place for video sharing. Your ultimate goal should be to reach YouTubes homepage under Spotlight, Most Viewed, Most Discussed, and Top Favorite Videos.
You can submit your video to the major video sites at once using programs such as Tube Mogul and
Traffic Geyser. These software programs submit your video to all the major video sharing sites for you, saving time and energy. Simply enter the tile, description, and tags for your video and it will appear on all the major video sharing sites. They offer analytics and tracking for your videos in one place making it easy to analyze and tweak your videos.
The best analytics would have to be the one given to you for
free, YouTube Insight. This will give you all the stats and detailed
information you could ever ask for. With Insight you can see how many
page views you have, how popular it is, where people found your video, what country people watching your video are from, what sections of your video are most watched and least watched, and so much more. This statistical data should help optimize your current video and plan for future videos. There are many articles written about YouTube Insight and how to take advantage of it. I suggest reading up on these.
There is a program called video tube automators, which is designed to build hundreds of YouTube accounts so you can view, comment, subscribe, and vote on your own videos. This run into the black hat area of marketing and is seen as spam. This is unethical and can get your account permanently banned from YouTube.
Monetizing your YouTube videos is quite easy. You can easily set up your Ad Sense account in accordance with YouTube so you can start receiving money every time an ad is clicked next to your video. The main source of income from YouTube comes from the
fact that you can show
product reviews and sell features that could not be described in words. Electronic gadgets are a perfect match for YouTube video reviews.
Author : Brandon Leibowitz
