With over 2 billion views per day and over 35 hours of video uploaded every minute, YouTube has become a truly powerful communication tool. And, as smart marketers know, YouTube videos aren’t just for fun anymore.Video marketing is fast becoming the marketing of choice for thousands of businesses.
The question is: how do you get the most out of this clever and effective content vehicle? When you’re uploading a couple of minutes of your favorite band or your kid’s latest soccer game, it’s pretty much just click and go. But, if you want real marketing results from your videos, you need to follow some basic SEO tips:
1. Optimize with keywords
When you go to YouTube, you’re usually looking for something specific, right? Your customers are too, and when they type in their search terms you want them to find you first. Just like any search engine, YouTube sorts videos by keywords and phrases as well as by popularity.
So, make sure that you add your best keywords in your titles and descriptions, and consider long tail keywords to capture more specific markets. Less competitive, more targeted keywords bring you people who know what they want, and are more likely to go to your site to make a purchase after they view your awesome video.
2. Make your content highly relevant to viewers
The content in your videos should always relate to your specific viewers. This can be done in a number of ways. For example, videos are an ideal medium for catching news as it happens (or soon after) and capitalizing on it. If there’s something that has recently happened in your industry, or there’s breaking news relevant to what you do, shoot a short video to cover the story.
Or, take a white paper or blog series that was recently published and turn it into an interesting video. Many people are visual learners, so videos can give them the relevant information they want in a format that’s easy to digest and memorable—a combination that will bring them back for more.
3. Build quality links
YouTube videos are actually just another form of SEO content, so you can pretty much use the same SEO techniques that work with your other marketing content. This includes link building. Link juice powers SEO and helps ensure that your videos are viewed and talked about.
Do you blog? Link to your videos in your blogs, and/or guest blog for high quality sites and link to your videos from there. Or, check out other videos in your niche and see where they’re getting links from, then target those sources. Comment on other peoples’ blogs and videos, and insert a link to a video instead of the usual link to your site.
4. Make your titles pop
They’re more than just something catchy—your titles need to contain your keywords and, ideally, should also be interesting enough to click on. A “Basic Introduction To SEO Content Marketing” is good, but “Killer SEO Content Marketing—The Must-See Video” is better.
Remember—YouTube video marketing is all about getting found using a high-quality visual format. You can’t expect viral results overnight, but if you do it right, you can expect more traffic to your site and better online visibility for your business. Try these basic tips for better marketing videos and you can be one of the millions of businesses harnessing the power of videos to gain a greater share of their markets.
