YouTube is one of the most popular sites and inaddition to all the fun there, YouTube offers many opportunities for promotion
and getting traffic to your site. Similarly to Facebook and Twitter, in order to use YouTube successfully for
promotion and getting traffic, you need to know the rules for this. Here are
some tips how to promote yourself, your site, and your products and how to get
free traffic from YouTube:
There aremillions of videos on YouTube. If you post a video nobody is interested in,
this video will go unnoticed, as millions of other videos. The clue to getting
traffic from YouTube is to post useful videos, or even better – viral videos.
Viral videos are not only useful videos, but they also tend to appeal to large
groups of people. If your video manages to get viral, people will promote it
for you and the only thing left for you is to reap the benefits.
Similarly to
Facebook, Twitter, or any other social networking site, an interesting profile
is a must. If people like your videos, they will check your profile to learn
more about you. When they see that your profile is boring, they won't bother
more with you. You can make your profile a bit informal but don't make it as if
it were the profile of a crazy teenager – you are using YouTube for business, right?
Your logoand your website URL are your major branding weapons. This is why you must
include them in the video. You can include them in the beginning of the video
or at the end. It is best to have your logo and URL throughout the whole video
because this way you will be gaining lots of exposure but if you can't do it
(for instance because of artistic considerations), the beginning and the end of
the video will suffice.
As alreadymentioned, there is no shortage of videos on YouTube. Unfortunately, this also
means there is no shortage of videos with poor quality. These videos are not
favored by viewers, so if you want viewers to watch your videos, make sure that
your videos don't have crappy sound and/or blurred pictures. YouTube is not a
board for professional videographers, so you can post amateur videos, but make
sure their quality is decent.
If your
videos get viral, you are lucky but you can't count on this. In order to get
YouTube traffic, your videos need viewers. You can't rely solely on the fact
that viewers will find your videos – you need to promote them. Even viral
videos will benefit from a promotion by you.
One of the
ways viewers find your videos is through search – both locally on YouTube and
on search engines. This is why you need to make your videos search-friendly. To
do this, include your major keywords in the title and in the descriptions.
Also, pay special attention to the tags. List as many keywords as relevant in
the tags, but beware that you don't get spammy.
Standalonevideos can become a hit but it is best if you create series of videos and post
them once a day/week. This way viewers will know that there will be more and
they will be coming to check. Even if you don't create series, at least try to
post videos regularly – this builds audience loyalty.
Videoresponses are one of the unique things about YouTube and you should take full
advantage of it. Search your niche, choose the most popular videos in your
niche and post video responses to them. Just be careful that the response you
post is related to the video you are responding to and don't make your video
response a blatant self-promotion.
On YouTube,
timing is very important because there are peaks in traffic and times when
there are not so many viewers. Weekdays (especially Wednesdays and above all -
Thursdays) morning or early afternoon US time is the best time to post a
general interest video. In order to have your video uploaded in the prime time,
you need to plan a bit. Have in mind that for large videos and/or slow Internet
connections the upload could take you an hour, so start early.
YouTube
doesn't impose limits on the length of videos it publishes but generally long
videos are boring. 3 to 5 minutes is the best duration for a video but if
required you could go from 1 to 6 minutes. When a video is longer than 6 or 7
minutes, this gets boring and not many people will watch it to the end (where
your logo and URL are to be found). 3 to 5 minutes is enough to lay your idea,
give some details AND tell viewers to visit your site for more.
In additionto video responses, you can also use plain good comments. Again, search for
popular videos in your niche and comment on them. If your comments are liked by
viewers, they will check your profile and probably watch your videos.
YouTube is a valuable resource to
drive traffic to your site and to promote it. The competition there might be
fierce, but there is always room for a couple of good videos. Fill this room before
your competitors do!
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