Let’s be honest; driving traffic to your site is not easy; it takes lots of time and effort to get good traffic that can be monetized effectively.
However; we have found that right now (we expect this to change) using video content to drive traffic is comparatively less work, and lower cost than using textual based content – this is simply because less people are creating video content.
This post will take you through some methods of getting traffic to your site using video content. We will not be covering the production process here. If you have never done video production before and are intimidated by the prospect then you can head over to the My Web Presenters video marketing blog for ideas and support after reading this post.
If you use PPC to drive traffic then you will be aware that making a profit is not easy as markets are pretty saturated on most keywords. However; this is not yet the case with video content. You will find that using promoted videos in Youtube gets you clicks more cost effectively than bidding on the same keywords in Adwords.
Yes, the functionality is different; you pay per view on Youtube promoted videos nowadays (they are part of the True View family now) so need to ensure that your call to action works in order to get the viewer to your site; but we have found that if your content is pretty good (does not need to be excellent) then this can be a more cost effective method of traffic generation.
Here is the intro video on using Adwords to promote your video content.
Aside from using Adwords there are many simple things that you can do to make your video content more visible within Youtube.
Be sure to include your website URL in your YouTube video description. At the top of your description is the best place. Make sure you include the ‘http://’ as this makes your URL appear as a clickable link.
Have a slide (or two) in your video displaying your URL: within your video you can include a slide which gives the viewer the URL of your home page or a specific product page – whatever is most appropriate for your purpose.
Use annotations to display your URL & calls to action: YouTube have an annotations feature which allows you to add interactive elements to your videos on YouTube, after you have uploaded them. One of the main issues people have with this feature is that it doesn’t allow you to create clickable links to URL’s outside of YouTube. However, it does allow you to create clickable links to other YouTube videos. You can also use annotations to display your URL and to encourage viewers to visit your website after watching your video.
This video shows you the different ways that you can use annotations in YouTube:
As you can see, there is lots of potential to use annotations in different ways. It is an opportunity to use calls to action to encourage users to subscribe to your YouTube channel.
Top Tip: LinkedTube does allow you to add clickable links to your YouTube videos.
Oneload is an online video distribution website that enables users to upload videos to multiple platforms at once. So, rather than uploading your videos one by one to all of your social media and video sharing sites, Oneload will save you time and do it for you.
Oneload includes a useful analytics tool which can tell you how many times your video has been viewed on each of the platforms you have uploaded it to. This will enable you to understand which platforms are having the best results for your videos and should inform your future video marketing strategy.
By sharing videos quickly to multiple platforms you will get quick traffic to your website – if you have made it obvious to viewers how they should get there (i.e. include your URL in your video – see point 1!).
Similar in principle to guest posting – you want others to help you promote your content.
Strategic collaborations could really give your video that extra needed marketing boost. If you work with the right people you may gain some influential marketing weight for your video.
a) Interview well known people in the industry: As well as meaning you are producing attractive and relevant content, this will also mean you will get some good quality links back to your own website.
b) Work with other organizations to produce videos: Collaborations are a great way to build relationships and positive reciprocal relationships are likely to yield good results. A collaboration means you are doubling your creative potential and of course, your marketing potential. You will be reaching two core audiences instead of one.
Do not make the mistake of treating your videos as stand alone marketing elements. Uploading them to YouTube and leaving them there for people to find is not enough. Use social media sharing tools to push your video content out to as much of an audience as you possibly can.
Facebook, Twitter, MySpaceTV, Vimeo, Google Video, Revver and all of the others out there are worth sharing with to reach as big an audience as possible.
If you do not yet have a social network strategy for traffic then I suggest that you get started asap as this really can be a fantastic way to drive traffic – you need to build relationships with like minded people and to promote each others content – as if you were in a tribe or a team.
You need people to be able to find your video in the first place – before you use the video as a way to draw people to your website! The best starting point is to know what keywords your target market are searching and then optimise your videos with the keywords that they are using.
Use keywords in your video title, description and tags. Make sure that you actually use tags on your videos! Use captions/subtitles because these are searchable by search engines and will be rich in keywords that are scattered throughout the content of your video. When a video appears in search engine results it is a far more attractive click option than pure text.
Youtube does have closed caption functionality where it auto-generates the subtitles for you – DO NOT rely on this; it is a good starting point but it is inaccurate to a similar degree as Google translate.
This guest post was written by Neil Davidson, who is the Founder of My Web Presenters, who are a leading Corporate Video Production specialist. They work with businesses of all sizes to create and market compelling and emotive video that helps them to communicate with their specific audience.
View the original article here
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