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How To Improve Your YouTube Marketing
If you’ve decided to add YouTube to your marketing tool-belt then there is a chance you’re here for YouTube marketing tips to improve your odds of success; why else would you be reading this am I right.
If that’s the case then you’re in luck because that’s exactly what we’re going to discus in this brand spanking new, hot off the press article… too much? I’ll tone it down, maybe.
For the purposes of this collection of tips we’re going to assume you have a YouTube channel of your own already up and running. We are also going to assume you know at least the basics of how to navigate the interface on your dashboard and all that fun technical junk; we won’t be going over any of that basic level stuff so if you need help with that then by all means feel free to hit Google or YouTube up for tutorials on how to handle all that- 😉
Contents
Post Interesting Videos… obviously
I know this one seems completely like “no kidding” but you’d be astounded at just how many people miss this mark and go straight for the awkward without the entertaining. It’s totally cool to post videos which are awkward provided they also offer entertainment and substance for the viewer.
Now, I’m going to assume if you are reading this that you are a marketer / advertiser and YouTube is used as a means to funnel traffic to something you wish to promote; that’s cool.
Here are a few ideas to help you find topics of interest and present them in an interesting manor.
- Hit up forums in your niche and see which common questions keep popping up
- Search keywords on YouTube which pertain to your niche and look for popular videos
- Do a few minutes research on various news sources such as Google News for current trends
- Turn to social media and search for keywords which may lead to trending ideas
I mention trending ideas in the short list above but I want to stress that making videos and ads around only top trending things is not a great long-term strategy.
Just in case you weren’t sure how to check trends and news sources on Google (or any other major search engine) it pretty much works like this:
- Fire up Google
- Search for whatever you want
- Look at the image below…
A number of areas of interest are boxed in red
- Click the option which says “News”
- If you want more options click the button that says “Search tools” in the gray button on the right
- “Search tools” will pop a few more options onto the screen like “All news” & “Recent”
- In the “Recent” tab you can select from all options shown above: Past hour, Past Week, etc.
- At the bottom of that list you can even create a custom range of dates to search for
- “Sort by relevance” is the default and it’s usually the best but you can also “Sort by date”
Here’s the thing with producing videos which people will find interesting. They’re meant to get the viewer’s mind active and engaged with you in a way that’s going to make them like you or your product or service. I know it sounds basic but the point of most video related advertising is often based around producing a sense of positivity and then anchoring it to the product or service.
Keyword Research Is Key
You cannot even create a YouTube marketing strategy without doing keyword research. Something important to keep in mind about the people you’re targeting is their current state of mind. Most of the people who will be seeking out and landing on your video are in the research phase of the buying process.
If you try pushing a cold sale right to someone who’s on the fence and still needs to find out more about whatever it is they’re looking for then you’re going to have a hard time making conversions. When choosing the topics of your videos and deciding on the keywords you’ll be targeting when it comes time to make your YouTube ads keeping this little fact in mind will be very helpful.
Pull up the Google AdWords display planner and hunt for keywords related to your product or niche or whatever you want which revolve around satisfying the prospect’s curiosity.
If you’re offering a service of some sort like a training course or something then targeting keywords around questions your audience will be asking is going to get you in front of the right type of people.
Once you find these keywords you’re going to just use them to run Ad campaigns as one normally would. The specifics on how to run an ad on YouTube won’t be covered in this text but again, if you want to discover how to do that a simple search will get you step by step instructions.
Pre-Qualify Your Leads With Video Ads
How you choose to manage your YouTube channel is totally up to you. That being said, it’s a good idea to have it centralized around something specific. Be it branding yourself as an authority, promoting your products or services; perhaps an organization, basically whatever you want. The point is the purpose, and the purpose is warming up potential leads to increase conversion rates once you funnel that traffic from YouTube over to your own websites.
There is this expression “fake it till you make it” and it seems to ring true. If you’re not yet at a place in your marketing efforts where you feel comfortable coming up with video content that you feel your audience will mesh with then the best thing you could probably do is hunt for videos which are like the type you wish to create; find ones that look promising and then use them for inspiration.
Spruce Up Your Dang Channel
It’s pretty obvious that most people are going to discover you first by your videos. Once they’ve watched a video or two there’s a lot of people who will subscribe and get curious about your channel. Typically what happens then is they’ll check out your YouTube channel, start clicking your links such as the “About” and “Discussion” tabs and they’ll be looking for any more information about you or your channel which might lead them to somewhere new and exciting… so give them somewhere new and exciting to go!
Take advantage of everything YouTube offers you by uploading a profile picture which is appropriate to your channel. Upload a channel banner (the big picture across the top of your channel) and take full advantage of the clickable links you’re allowed to have on that banner. If you don’t yet have a G+ account (Google Plus) then good news! You’re automatically assigned one when you create a new YouTube account. So head over to your G+ account and fix it up, use it to post updates and helpful information that anyone interested in your channel could refer to for more information.
The “About” tab on your channel is an excellent place to put a small blurb about yourself or your channel or basically anything you want. You can drop a link back to your websites and blogs and even put adorable little Links in a list at the bottom of the list for anyone to follow and discover more about you and what you have to offer.
Views Are Important
I saved the most important part of this for last so pay close attention to this one. YouTube takes a whole bunch of factors into consideration when ranking videos. Yes it is important to do all the usual SEO optimizations on your videos such as descriptions, title, tags, even naming the video file it’s self an important keyword has been shown to help.
That’s all find and well but the one factor which takes the cake above all else in ranking your videos are the views!
The more views you have the better chance you have of ranking for your key-terms within YouTube and even Google it’s self. The question then becomes “how do I get these views?” to which the answer is simply… buy them.
YouTube lets you create video ads and they can be pretty cheap for the most part. It will require you to have an AdWords account in order to actually finalize and launch these ads but it is now possible to “boost” your videos much in the same way you can boost Facebook posts. The interface on your YouTube dashboard gives options to do this and the entire process is relatively simple.
Another thing to keep in mind is that embedded views also count toward your total view-count. This means if you can find ways to embed your videos and get them viewed then your ranks and views will begin to climb and your channel will be sure to grow as a result.
YouTube is a great tool for any Internet marketer, no doubt about it, but it’s just one of many. If you’d like to learn more about YouTube marketing strategy and generate that glorious Internet-Money while doing it with style then Join Powerhouse Affiliate.
