About 800 million viewers visit YouTube every month making this platform the second largest search engine after Google. Companies and marketers have taken to this online marketing tool and there is no doubt that YouTube has left both consumers and businesses spellbound. We shall further discuss the powerful impact and advantages that YouTube can provide to your business and the different ways of using videos, even on your landing page.
It’s a fact that YouTube’s use of algorithms and codes is not as advanced as Google’s for systematically arranging matter on the World Wide Web, but YouTube does offer refreshing elements to boost your business growth and increase your web rankings. Advertising through YouTube is a great way to reduce your marketing expenditure as compared to generic TV advertisements. Many companies have linked their websites with YouTube and other Social Media Pages. As for newspaper write ups, advertisements look richer and more tasteful in a video.
How does YouTube rank their videos?
There is no particular department which YouTube basis its rankings on. You cannot solely rely only on keywords when it comes to YouTube optimization. There are various areas that YouTube takes into consideration, but there is no precise hierarchy as such. Here are a few areas you could focus on while optimizing your video.
- Flagging
- Views and frequency
- Like and dislikes
- Shares
- Subscribers
- Annotation linking
- Favorites
As ranking YouTube videos does not depend on any particular field, you can feel free to be unique with your titles as long as you are sticking to the rules and keywords. Here are few categories you could focus on to get you started.
- File name– First things first, before you upload your video and optimize it, ensure that the file and the title of the video match and that each word is separated by a hyphen. Your first bit of optimizing begins right here.
- Keywords– As always, the usage of keywords help identify words that match to the video you are looking for. Keywords should be included in the video title and description.
- Tags and categories– During the process of uploading a video on YouTube, you are given the option of uploading it under a particular category relating to your video that it is most likely to fall under. Tagging helps identify your video from the various categories. For example, if you’ve typed “SEO agency in Syracuse”, you can tag it with words like ‘agencies’ or ‘Syracuse’.
- Video Title– Apart from containing approximately 50 characters, the title should also include relevant target keywords linking the content. This gives you more of an assurity that the video title will show up in search results. Along with an engaging title, your video needs to be descriptive so that it can be easily found amongst the million videos it is competing against. By creating a compelling, detailed description your video can capture the attention of viewers and accumulate those most required clicks. To keep your video optimized, you can update your title overtime adding more keywords to it.
- Video Description – You can write your video descriptions liberally as the description has to be written within 160 characters so that the video can show up in the search results. Start by adding a link to a website before your detailed description. Along with a large, informative description, add short text at the beginning of it. Include relevant keywords in the text.
- Annotations – Video Annotations is an exciting function for adding interactive commentary to videos; You can easily add a speech bubble, a note, a title, a spotlight, or just pause the video at the right time. Although, business companies do not find this function very professional, it is useful to users and viewers. Annotations can be linked to other videos, related videos, your playlist, and your channel. They are definitely going to help your rankings.In this short video below, Derral Eves shares how to add annotations to your YouTube videos and gives some useful insights and tips on how to best use annotations:
Pro-tip: You can customize annotations to how you would like them to be perceived as they stay on the screen for several seconds. Annotations could be in the form of long stories proceeding into the next page. Add links of other channels or videos, feature teasers, promo codes and semi-transparent advertisements that appear on the bottom of the page, too. This will make viewers more likely to stay on a brand’s page for a longer time period which will boost business and maybe lead to a subscription!
- Create your own channel – Creating your own channel to promote your own business or services is an interactive way to share content with your audience. As a channel page is a public representation of you on YouTube, you should tailor it to suit your personality.
YouTube has created a channel information area which is situated on the right-hand side of the page. This holds an optional space for a business to showcase other channels so that you can add whatever channel users may be interested in.
You can begin customizing your page by coordinating your YouTube channel page with your website in terms of color themes and graphics. Take a step further in personalizing your page by including a background image as well. As your main business strategy is to popularize your channel, your visitors should be charmed by your videos and motivated to hit the ‘share’ button. Shares, comments, and ratings are all vital ranking factors, optimizing your videos to another level.
- Create your own Playlist – Channel administrators can now customize their channels by adding a featured playlists which is a group of YouTube videos. If a user likes your channel, he can subscribe to a playlist. So, whenever you add a new video to that certain playlist, the subscriber will be notified by the updates in the subscription bar on YouTube’s main page. These Playlists can include anybody’s videos and does not only have to be your own videos, thus, making any YouTube video accessible to any playlist no matter who posts it. As Playlists get indexed separately from individual videos, they may appear in repetition in the YouTube search results.
- Social Profiles – Sharing should not be limited only to YouTube. ‘Sharing’ continues on a much larger scale through other social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Links to other networking sites can be placed in your channel page. The number of URLs you place is all up to you. Connecting all of your media accounts displays a sense of social professionalism which will guarantee your channel subscribers to return. Interaction with your visitors will make them want to explore your videos much more.
- Place snippets of your business videos on your main business website. This will not only boost your video views but also make viewers more curious to discover you more. Through all of these social site connections, your subscribers will be kept up to date with your latest YouTube release. For example, if you’re uploading your YouTube videos on your Facebook Fan Page, your subscribers and followers can stay updated without having to make a separate visit to your YouTube page.
Don’t resort to common marketing techniques. YouTube can be your most essential tool to boost your business rankings. Go the extra mile for those extra ‘likes’.
Take a look at the awesome infographic below published by designinfographics.com, presenting YouTube stats and facts.
PS: Have you already created YouTube account for business?