YouTube offers many tools to improve video views, branding, and clicks to a company’s website.
Using YouTube for your Business is easy. Simply set up a channel and start uploading videos. But as your investment in video grows, so does the pressure to make sure that the content is performing.
Beyond the basics of YouTube branding and uploading, there are little-known features that can help to improve performance.
Put these tips and tricks into action and you will be on your way to building not only video views, but also the number of subscribers to your channel, and those all-important clicks back to your e-commerce website.
Hidden under channel settings, the featured content section (Creator Studio > Channel > Featured content) allows you to embed a video or playlist across all of the videos on your channel and ensures that returning subscribers to your channel see your featured content first.
A featured content video should communicate a key brand message or promote a product central to your business. You can also choose when the featured video appears (at the beginning, end, or throughout your videos), or check the option to allow YouTube to optimise the timing. You can even add a customized, free call to action for cross promotion.
Another option within the featured video section is channel ads. Selecting one of your videos here gives permission to YouTube to use this content in its advertising across the site and beyond. It is part of a program to build audiences with YouTube partners. It doesn’t guarantee your content will be included, but, still, it’s a free opportunity.
Under the branding section of your channel (Creator Studio > Channel > Branding), there is an option to add a watermark — a small logo in the right-hand corner of all your videos. This isn’t just another branding opportunity. It is also a way to push subscriptions to your channel. When a user hovers over this watermark, she can subscribe. Promote this widely, as subscribers are notified of new uploads and are often the first viewers of fresh content.
Under advanced settings (Creator Studio > Channel > Advanced), you can enter your channel’s keywords. This helps identify your channel for appropriate search terms on YouTube. Thus, add all relevant keywords here. In this section you can also link your channel to your website, to your website’s Google Analytics profile, and to your Google AdWords account.
YouTube thumbnails are prominent on smartphones. Thumbnails are therefore becoming more important in attracting views. This is why many successful YouTube channels use custom thumbnails to draw attention and entice users to click the play button.
When you upload a video, YouTube automatically generates three frames to choose from. But these may not be the best representations of your content. Once your account is verified, you can upload your own thumbnail images in place of the automatically generated ones. With custom thumbnails, you can add text, logos, colors, and choose the most appropriate frame.
Practical Ecommerce columnist Jamie Salvatori addressed the elements of a great custom thumbnail. His company, Vat19, has more than one million subscribers to its YouTube channel.
Cards are a recent addition to YouTube’s video features. They allow you to promote, from your videos, other videos and playlists, as well as link to external websites on your Google account. Cards are set for individual videos and can be assigned to certain points in your videos. They can promote links back to product pages, or cross-promote other videos, such as those related to what your users are watching.
To add a card to a video, click the pencil icon to edit your chosen video and then select the “Cards” option.
YouTube search is still the main way for users to find your video content. So don’t forget to optimize your video metadata, at “Info and settings” in the edit section. Write for humans and not machines, and use your key terms in your title, description, and tags. For extra emphasis around a topic, create a playlist with multiple videos that all use the key term in the title.
Finally, remember that YouTube is also a social network. Monitor comments and respond to queries, to grow an engaged following that will share your content.
A Guide to YouTube Channel Optimisation
More than half of consumers say that watching product videos makes them feel more confident in online purchasing decisions. 70% of B2B buyers and researchers watch videos on their path to purchase – that's a 52% jump in just two years.
One place that consumers and B2B customers alike are turning to learn more about your products and services is YouTube.
This is likely because of the unique position that YouTube is in. It’s both the largest video streaming service as well as the largest social network in the world. YouTube is also the world’s second largest search engine behind its parent company Google.
Just like companies optimise their websites to increase traffic, and as a result, conversions, companies should optimize their YouTube channel to see similar results. Here are a few tips to help you increase the value of your YouTube channel.
1. Use eye-catching visuals.
What is the first thing people will see when they arrive at your YouTube channel?
Most people will immediately be drawn to the graphics you have created for your page. These graphics should reflect your brand, following your brand guidelines and showcasing images related to what you do. Your channel’s visuals should also reflect your channel’s personality. Old Spice’s humorous channel art is in line with the ads they have been creating over the years.
One best practice in optimizing your YouTube channel lies with the video thumbnails. Creating custom thumbnails for your videos that accurately represent the video’s content will attract viewers. Featuring a clear frame from the video as the video’s thumbnail is a step in the right direction. There’s also opportunity to design and upload branded thumbnails that feature your company’s logo, colors, fonts and more.
Lastly, the visuals on your YouTube channel should be of high quality and aesthetically pleasing. Having a pixelated logo makes your brand seem unprofessional. Use high-resolution images with small amounts of text that are recognizable at smaller resolutions.
2. Integrate with your website.
Many companies underestimate the effectiveness of video on their website. They also miss out on opportunities to drive traffic to their website from their YouTube videos.
Using video on your website, such as embedded video from your YouTube channel, provides visitors with interesting and engaging content to consume. Video can also be helpful in explaining difficult-to-understand information about your products or services.
What does embedded video mean for your website’s page rank? Today, Google cares less about whether or not you’ve optimized every page on your site to a particular keyword. Instead, it’s more about whether or not your page’s content answers the search query. This shift in search results provides a lot of opportunity for incorporating video content.
And what about the other way around? YouTube provides a number of user engagement tools to help direct video viewers to related content on your website. Cards, annotations, and links in the video description allow you to drive traffic directly from a YouTube video to a page on your website where they can learn more.
YouTube’s cards are a recent development that allows you to increase the interactivity of your video. You can link to a specific page on your website, share related videos or video playlists, and in some cases, customize the cards with an image, title, and call-to-action text. And the best part? They work on mobile.
3. Analyse, analyse, analyse.
YouTube is massive. The title of “World’s Largest Video Streaming Service” certainly qualifies it as such.
Thus, observing, gathering, and learning from the data YouTube provides can be of great benefit. YouTube Analytics collects a lot of information about your videos, all of which is available to you. You can not only see how many views a video gets but also learn how many of the video’s views were from unique visitors, how long each viewer watched the video, and the demographics of those viewers.
The more you integrate your numbers, the better. Once your YouTube channel and website are connected, you’ll have data from both Google Analytics and YouTube Analytics. The comparison and integration of this data will give you a complete picture of your audience.
Analyzing all of this data allows you to get an idea of what kind of content your target audience is interested in. With this, you can alter your content strategy to target and convert your audience more effectively. The information provided by these analytics tools can be interesting, but when you act on it is when you’ll see best results.
Is your YouTube channel in need of some optimization help? Give us a call.
- See more at: https://www.liquidint.com/blog/a-guide-to-youtube-channel-optimization/#sthash.Iey7QxSX.dpuf
25 ways to optimize your YouTube channel
What do all successful YouTubers have in common? They create great videos.
That’s Step #1, at least.
Beyond that, you’ve probably noticed how smart video creators are using some of YouTube’s tools and features to harness the power of those videos and their intended viewers.
Is your channel optimized? Here’s a simple checklist you can reference to make sure you’re doing everything you can to boost views, build a loyal audience, and earn more money through YouTube.
A quick-start to optimizing your YouTube channel
1. Choose your channel name — The channel name is different from your channel URL, so this name CAN be edited. But it’s best to pick a name and stick with it for consistent channel branding. Choose something that is short and memorable (like your band or artist name), and that also lets viewers know what to expect from your channel. Go here https://www.youtube.com/account and clik to edit on Google+.
2. Choose your channel icon — Upload a square, high-res (800×800) image that is recognizable and looks great when displayed at smaller resolutions (so use text sparingly). This image will be your channel’s icon throughout all of YouTube. If your channel is linked to G+, you can use an image you’ve previously uploaded to your G+ account. You can access this from your YouTube account page.
3. Upload your channel art — Channel art is the banner/header that appears towards the top of your channel when viewed on a desktop. Upload a large image (2560×1440) with the most important visual elements located in the inner 1546×423 area (so they’ll still appear when the image is scaled for mobile and tablet). See the image below for various display dimensions.
Make sure your channel art reflects your personality and doesn’t just come off as some kind of boring brand logo. Check out YouTube’s channel art tips and template here.
4. Write a channel description — Move your cursor to the top right of the channel art section, and click “edit links.” Be sure to highlight the most important content you create, use relevant keywords, and include your upload schedule to set expectations for your audience.
5. Add website and social media links to the About tab — Corresponding icons will be displayed as overlays on your channel art. Include links to your official website, store or product page, social accounts, newsletter signup form, or promotional campaign pages.
6. Set “Featured Channels” — On the right hand side of your channel, you’ll see the “Featured Channels” header. Add any related or similar channels, including channels for other creative projects you’re involved in, your record label, etc.
7. Enable browse view and discussion — In the section of your YouTube channel homepage that contains the channel name and tab names, hover your cursor in the right-hand corner until the pencil icon appears. Click “edit channel navigation” and then enable both the browse view and discussion settings.
8. Select or upload a channel trailer — Once the browse view has been enabled, select a channel trailer video for your channel. A Channel trailer is a short video that will autoplay whenever an unsubscribed viewer visits your channel, so here’s your opportunity to get them hooked!
Your trailer should be informative and fit the overall vibe of your channel (oh, and did we mention it should be brief?). Also, you should ask viewers to subscribe. The trailer will automatically display a card at the end of the video giving viewers an easy way to subscribe.
9. Add sections to organize your channel — Sections are a great way to organize videos (by theme, style, series, genre, etc.) and give viewers an easy way to explore your content from the Home/Browse page. Sections can consist of videos, playlists, or channels, and can include your own videos as well as content uploaded by other YouTube users.
For most viewers, only your top section will be visible without scrolling — so make sure your most important videos are included in the section at the top of your channel page. Also, because sections can contain content from other channels, you have a great opportunity to cross-promote with other artists and curate an interesting viewing experience for your audience. To add a section, just click the “Add a Section” button from the bottom of your channel home page.
10. Customize your channel URL — YouTube.com/MyName is a lot easier to remember than YouTube.com/GigglyWiggly123CuzItWasMyEmailAddressBackIn2007, right? For information on how to customize your channel URL, click HERE.
Your channel must be at least 30 days old, have 500 subscribers, channel art, and a channel icon to access this feature.
Optimizing your YouTube channel with advanced features
11. Verify your YouTube channel — Go to http://www.youtube.com/account_features. If your account status has not already been verified, click “Verify” and select to verify by Voice Call or SMS.
12. Select your default video category — Go to http://www.youtube.com/account_defaults and change the category to the one that most closely reflects your type of channel, such as “music.” You can always change these manually for each video once that video has been uploaded.
13. Compose a default footer for your video descriptions — Add links to your website and social media accounts as a standard footer in your default video description field. It’ll save you lots of extra typing later on. To do so, go to http://www.youtube.com/account_defaults. Again, you can always change these manually once a video is uploaded.
14. Add tags that will apply to most of your videos — Tags help people find your video when searching on YouTube. Proper tagging can help increase monetization of your videos. Some suggested tags would include your artist name, any common misspellings, and popular keywords associated with your genre. Make sure tags with more than one word are enclosed in quotations, and don’t use commas. Avoid overly generic tags or tags that are not relevant to your video. Create your default tags here http://www.youtube.com/account_defaults.
15. Grow your fanbase with Channel Ad, aka Fan Finder — With Fan Finder, YouTube will display your channel ad to viewers (as a skippable TrueView ad) at no cost to you — giving fans of other channels the chance to discover your videos!
To get started with a Channel Ad, go to https://www.youtube.com/featured_content. Click the button that says “select your channel ad” and choose a video to feature as your Fan Finder video. For tips on what makes a great Fan Finder video, visit http://www.youtube.com/yt/fanfinder/.
16. Feature a video or playlist with Featured Content (formerly know as “InVideo programming”) — This feature allows you to highlight your most relevant content as an Annotation that appears when viewers watch your videos. To select content for InVideo programming, go to https://www.youtube.com/featured_content.
17. Add your logo as a watermark — This is another great branding opportunity, as your logo will appear in the lower right corner of your videos as a clickable link leading back to your channel page. To upload your logo, go to https://www.youtube.com/branding. The image for the watermark should be a PNG or GIF file (1MB max) and ideally have a transparent background.
18. Add keywords for your channel – Many of these keywords will be the same or similar to your default video tags. That’s ok. Use words that best describe the kind of content you are uploading to YouTube. To add keywords for your channel, go to https://www.youtube.com/advanced_settings.
19. Tell YouTube about your associated website — What’s your official website? You can help YouTube improve the quality of their search results by entering in that URL at https://www.youtube.com/advanced_settings.
Warning: it helps to have some familiarity with Google’s Webmaster tool. If you’re kinda new to all this stuff, associating your official website with your YouTube channel can be a little frustrating. But it’s worth it. So keep trying, or just find an expert and ask for help.
20. Enable channel recommendations — This will allow YouTube to recommend your channel to viewers outside of your existing audience. To do so, go to https://www.youtube.com/advanced_settings.
21. Include your Google Analytics property tracking ID — If you’re already using Analytics, you can dive deeper into traffic stats by entering your Analytics ID into your YouTube account at https://www.youtube.com/advanced_settings.
22. Allow advertisements on your videos — Go to https://www.youtube.com/advanced_settings and make sure to check the checkbox to allow ads.
23. Set your sharing preferences — Share, share, share! Go to https://www.youtube.com/account_sharing.
24. Check your privacy settings — Modest? Go to https://www.youtube.com/account_privacy.
25. Create your own compelling video thumbnail – The thumbnail is a quick snapshot that will represent your video on YouTube. In order to attract the most viewers, the thumbnail should be eye-catching. If your channel has been verified and is in good standing, you can (and should) upload your own custom image to make sure the thumbnail is as intriguing/exciting as possible. To upload your own custom thumbnail, click the “edit” button for the corresponding video in the Video Manager section of your account.
According to YouTube’s guidelines, your custom thumbnail should:
* Have a resolution of 1280×720 (with minimum width of 640 pixels).
* Be uploaded in image formats such as .JPG, .GIF, .BMP, or .PNG.
* Remain under the 2MB limit.
* Try to use a 16:9 aspect ratio as it’s the most used in YouTube players and previews.
For more info, go to http://lamanews24.blogspot.com/
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