SEO and YouTube

We have the technology that allows, well, anyone to shoot a video and upload it to the Internet for the whole world to see; however, for marketing purposes, that technology is useless unless you have the information and skills to promote that video so others will view it. In my previous post, I discussed ways of advancing your videos or YouTube channel to the website homepage where increased viewer traffic is inevitable. In this post, I will be discussing more technical ways of increasing views.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Many have heard about it, but most don’t know what it is. SEO is a concept that basically ties your website to popular search keywords. For instance, a baker who is uploading business-related videos to YouTube may consider including keywords like “famous cake batter” or “best cookie recipe,” so their video has more of a chance of resulting from a search about baking. I came across a great article by James Martin (2010) about the top ten SEO tips for promoting YouTube videos and I would like to share a few of the tips with you.

Martin begins with discussing the importance of including a “call to action” at the end of each video. What’s the next step? Should they visit your blog? Website? Should they call your office? It needs to be included (¶6).

Next, don’t ever underestimate the power of a good caption. You may not write a cute caption after every Facebook picture upload, but when you are marketing a business-related video you need to include a descriptive caption. Why? Martin explains: “YouTube, Google, and other search engines index captions and use them to help decide if a video is relevant to a query” (¶18).

And the tip that I agree with the most: create an original, branded YouTube channel. You have a credible company. You have an interesting, beneficial video. Don’t sell yourself short by uploading them to a plain, anonymous channel. “Branded channels give your YouTube presence a more professional look by incorporating your company’s logo, a custom background design, and so on” (¶21).

In closing, as the holidays are approaching, I thought I would include a hilarious, holiday-themed video starring John Roberts as he portrays his mother. This happens to be one of my personal favorites. Roberts’ YouTube channel has received 14 million views.

Video courtesy of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTs5eKZ0i1E

If you would like to read Martin’s article that was cited in this post, please click here.

Happy Holidays and I hope to see some of your funny Christmas moments on YouTube soon.

Source

Martin, J. (2010). Top 10 small business SEO tips for YouTube videos. Small Business Computing. Retrieved on December 7, 2010, from http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/emarketing/article.php/3915326/Top-10-Small-Business-SEO-Tips-for-YouTube-Videos.htm

Marketing on YouTube

In previous posts, I have been discussing popular videos, personal learning networks, and tips to increase the number of hits your YouTube video will receive. Now, I would like to discuss the use of YouTube for marketing purposes. 

I was reviewing an article by Joe Whyte (2008) of Search Engine Journal. In the article, Whyte discussed interesting tactics to get your videos to the YouTube homepage—where they will receive the most exposure. First, he advised that old YouTube videos rarely receive acknowledgement on the site’s main page, so it’s better to delete the video and resubmit if it takes too long to receive substantial views (¶6). Next, a video rarely receives honors if the account lacks friends, subscribers, and comments (¶7). So, before you promote your video, you need to promote yourself. Whyte’s third tool to success is to keep in mind that videos receive additional recognition from YouTube when they receive a high number of views, comments, votes, and ratings. It’s best to share the video’s link through your social networking profiles, as well as e-mail (¶8). As far as how long a video has to gain the popularity to reach YouTube’s homepage, Whyte commented:

“To do this you are looking at roughly a 15 day window of marketing efforts put into YouTube. This can be stretched out however depending on how you are trying to make it to the home page (top favorites, top views, top comments etc.). (¶5)

As always, I would like to close with a video I feel deserves some acknowledgement.  Frostie the Cockatoo delivers some incredible dance moves to Willow Smith’s “Whip My Hair” that put Beyonce to shame. This fun video has received roughly eight million views since October. I wasn’t able to calculate the official number of views because of the number of times the video has been re-uploaded.

Video courtesy of YouTube 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-vtIljTDcA

Also, if you would like to read Joe Whyte’s article referred to in this post, please follow this link.

Sources

Whyte, J. (2008). Guide to video marketing on YouTube. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved on November 29, 2010, from http://www.searchenginejournal.com /guide-to-video-marketing-on-youtube/6381.