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Create your own YouTube channel and include links back to your site in the description for each video (use a URL shortener). Organise your content, customise your channel, work your tags, and manage your comments in a proactive way.
4. Add a transcript and subtitles. It’s definitely worth getting to grips with the new closed-caption feature in YouTube, given that subtitles and transcripts are translated into other languages—and indexed in all of them.
This search for the iPhone OS 4 shows video results prominently above the fold.
expect slick production values, or is “basic” acceptable?
With a Flip camera or iPhone 4 you can
quickly and easily capture decent HD video. All the software you need to add the bells and whistles is readily and cheaply available to download. If you do any of your own product photography, you probably already have most of what you need, and someone who understands how to do it. That’s one end of the scale. Although no-one would want to damage his
brand with unprofessional content, ask yourself what’s good enough for the purpose you’re seeking to fulfil. We live in the YouTube age where consumers accept clips with a wide variety of production standards—ranging from zero to Hollywood. With a steady camera, decent lighting, and a reasonable quality voiceover, you can, for example, produce a perfectly respectable product video. When you need something more professional, you may be pleasantly surprised with the cost that you can negotiate with a specialist.
The SEO factor Optimising your video for SEO is really no different to optimising any of your other content. Here’s a checklist for making sure your video appears in Google’s blended search results:
1. Start with your keywords. Before you even start making your video, choose two or three keywords maximum on which to base your content. Make sure you use these keywords in the video title, tags, description and any backlinks you create to the video.
2. Lead with the product. If it’s a product video, make sure the first few frames feature a shot of your product, as YouTube will use this as a static image for your video.
3. Post on YouTube. Google owns YouTube, so you can bet that it’s well indexed.
5. Create inbound links to your video. As with other content, it’ll rank better when other sites link to it, especially
if those links include the relevant keywords. Start by linking from your blog, your Facebook page and your Twitter feed. Bookmarking your video with social bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumbleupon and Delicious will help others find your video and create their own links to it.
6. Participate and promote. Engage the YouTube community by using the Like, Comment, and Favourite features on other people’s videos. Promote your own videos across your other channels, even your
catalogue, your delivery notes, your customer-service emails.
Tactics Views
7. Analyse. Start with YouTube’s built-in Insight reports—especially the “Discovery” data that tells you how viewers found your video. Then use Google Analytics to generate more sophisticated reporting on the performance of your YouTube channel, and the conversion rate of the visitors it sends to your ecommerce site.
Ready to have a go? An increase in qualified traffic and conversion rates is a powerful incentive, so how do you get started? Perhaps you already have a social media
champion or another marketing staffer who can drive a test project forward. Why not take advantage of a forthcoming photo shoot, a trip to a supplier, or a gathering of customers? The team members in a small business invariably have a rich resource of material and ideas between them. Your suppliers may even already have video content that could be repurposed. So why not take your top ten keywords from
your latest keyword research and brainstorm video ideas based on those words alone. Choose one, make it happen, and start measuring. As they say in the movies, the rest will be history.
Murray Kenneth is chief executive of Gramar Investments and a regular columnist for Catalogue e-business.
Teaching a close shave drives qualified traffic
Robert Johnston, owner of my local barbershop and shaving emporium The Gentleman’s Shop, decided to make a short video called “How to get a great shave every morning”. It’s six minutes long and cost £1,000 (and a free shaving set) to have it professionally produced.
Since posting it in September last year, it’s been viewed over 26,000 times. More than 75 percent of those views are from people who found the video through YouTube—in other words, people who’ve probably never heard of The Gentleman’s Shop. That’s a lot of qualified traffic—qualified by the store’s most important keywords—that is getting delivered to the site. And the video will continue to deliver traffic for weeks, months, and quite probably years to come as people continue to discover, discuss and share it.—MK
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