One of the best ways to drive traffic to a site, offer, product or service is to create engaging videos and drive traffic with YouTube. In case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last several years, YouTube is the world’s most popular video sharing site. With a smartphone cam, video cam or web cam, anyone can film their very own videos and publish them to the site, allowing millions if not billions of people to have access. The result is views upon views that can spell great news for your bottom line. If you want to learn how to drive traffic with YouTube, listen up. The following will give you all the tips you need.
The Competition
A great way to find out what types of videos your audience prefers is to check out any competing videos that you may have to contend with. Search YouTube for other videos in your niche and start watching. Pay attention to the time duration of the video, the pacing, content and quality, and most of all keep a note of the tags used. If you find any videos in your niche that have abnormally high view counts, you’ll want to replicate those tags so that you can learn how to drive traffic with YouTube that may have otherwise gone to a competitor.
Recording Your Video
For best results – whether you’re filming a face-to-face video, a group video, an animation or any other type, make sure you put effort into producing quality. People aren’t going to invest their time in a video that looks grainy or half-cocked, so to speak. Instead, invest in good equipment, good lighting and some sound editing software. Your video doesn’t have to look like a masterpiece, but it should resonate with your audience, and that requires quality filming and workmanship.
Editing Your Video
When you’re first learning how to drive traffic with YouTube, you may be tempted to throw your new creation on the site without polishing it up first. The thinking is that some audiences prefer a raw, unpolished product. Some marketers feel that unpolished videos make them appear more ‘real’ to their audiences. While it’s true that unpolished pieces do have their place, you will get much more attention and drive traffic with YouTube in far greater numbers if you actually put effort into editing your entries until you get a final product your audience will surely appreciate.
You don’t need to spend a fortune on editing equipment or software. There’s freeware out there that works fairly well, especially for someone who’s just starting to learn how to drive traffic with YouTube. YouTube even has its own editing software, which we’ll get into a little more in a moment. Make sure you take out any dead air, boring parts and add citations and special effects if you think they’re necessary to get your final point across. While this may require experimentation at first, you’ll soon get the hang of it and you’ll find yourself editing your videos with ease.
Uploading to YouTube
When you are satisfied with the look and feel of your videos, you’ll want to publish them to the site. Sign in to your YouTube account and click the Upload button at the top. Here you can drag and drop the videos you want to upload or you can select them manually. You can also capture video from a webcam, upload a photo slide show or film a Google+ Hangout.
You can also enter the video editor from this screen. All of these tools are designed to help make it easy to upload videos to the site that are polished and ready to go. You’re not finished yet, though. You need to optimize your videos for the search engines if you hope to drive traffic with YouTube en masse.
YouTube SEO
Your video’s title is typically the first thing your viewers will see when sifting through videos to watch on the YouTube site. Make sure any keywords you’re using are used early on in the title so that you outrank any competitors who may be using that same keyword. At the same time, you’ll want to make your titles as click-worthy as possible. Again, find out what titles and keywords your competitors are using and then make your videos even more enticing and even more search engine friendly.
Sharing is Key to Driving Traffic with YouTube
Once your videos are uploaded and optimized, that’s when you’ll want to start sharing your videos any way you can. YouTube makes it easy to share your videos. On the bottom of your video is a share button. Click that and start passing that link around. Share your videos on Facebook, Twitter, on popular message boards and you can even start texting the video to your friends and family. The more you share, the more you’ll learn how to drive traffic with YouTube and the better you’ll get.
Your first few videos may be a trial session as you get used to your audience’s preferences and desires. The more you film and the more you upload, the more effective your video marketing efforts will become. Make sure you keep an eye on your video analytics (also in your dashboard) so that you can find out what works and what doesn’t. Then streamline your efforts over time to drive even more traffic than you already are.
