Add A Clickable Link To Your YouTube Videos That Goes To Your Website (Step-By-Step Directions)
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Did you know you can add an embedded clickable link to your YouTube Videos that can go to your website? Some people have learned how to do this already but I was speaking to some of my Internet Marketing friends and found out most still did not know how to do this yet. By the way, this isn't the old Adwords way to do it either. This is a new feature that YouTube added in early 2013. So anyway here's the step by step directions to do this for your videos. By the way, if you have already done this and are looking for some really great buttons/images you can add to your videos to really grab your video watchers attention click here. They also show you a video on how to do all of this.
You can do this for brand new fresh YouTube accounts or old ones. Depending on if your account is old or new you could probably skip a few steps but I'll write this guide based on a fresh new YouTube account.
Step 1. Log into your YouTube account and go to your Video Manager then go to Channel Settings
Step 2. If you haven't already, verify your account so you can become a YouTube partner.
You can do this by either them calling you with a special code or have them SMS text you the code. You can only use the same phone number with 2 accounts total. After that you need a new phone #. To verify your account just click on the VERIFY button next to your name and enter the code they give you then go back to your Video Manager and go to Channel Settings and you'll see it's now verified.
Step 3. Stay in the Channel Settings area. Enable your account for Monetization. Scroll down and click on enable under the Monetization setting. Then click the blue button that says "enable my account". Then click the next blue button called "Got It". Go back to your Video Manager then go to Channel Settings and you'll see Monetization status is Green which means it's enabled. Also notice below that under External Annotations it's now enabled as well. This is what we need.
Step 4. Add an Associated Website to your YouTube Account
Click Associated Website under Channel Settings. You now need to add your website that you own or have access to. You can only associate one website currently with your YouTube account. You can always delete it and add a new one later if you need to. Fill in the URL and click the blue verify word under it. Now you'll need to verify with YouTube that you own this website. This verification process is similar to Google Webmaster Tools if you are use to doing that. If not that's ok because I'm going to tell you how.
You'll notice it says "download this HTML file" click that and download it to your computer. Then upload it to your website either via FTP or you can also do it if you have cPanel (like on HostGator or any basic website host). If you use cPanel go to your File Manager then go to Public HTML then go to your website's root folder. Click Upload and select the small HTML file you downloaded.
Go back to your YouTube Associated Website verify page and click the red verify button. Now for some reason YouTube doesn't add a button to easily go back to your YouTube account so you'll manually have to go back to your YouTube account now and go back to Video Manager then to Channel Settings and click on Associated Website. It'll still say PENDING so click the REFRESH button next to it and now if you did the process correct it will say "success".
Step 5. Last step folks, you are almost there! I recommend doing this step in Internet Explorer because for some reason I cannot get this to work in Firefox for me. Maybe it's just me.
To add external clickable links to your YouTube video just upload a new video and click edit under Video Manager (or just click Edit under your old YouTube videos). Then click on the Annotations button at the top.
Now select a time frame in your YouTube video that you want to add to your video to get your visitors to click on it. You can do this anywhere in your video so I'll leave that up to you. What I like to do is add a small annotation note in the beginning of the video for several seconds that says something like "Click here For More Information" or something similar. Then the user clicks on it and gets taken to the website.
To add the annotation select which annotation you want to add (they have like 4 or 5 different types, just play with each one till you figure out which one you want to use) and click the LINK box at the bottom. Select Associated Website and then fill in your URL. This is where in Firefox it always tells me "invalid URL" so I have to do this in Internet Explorer. Also, if you do this in Internet Explorer and it still tells you "Invalid URL" then go back to your Associated Website setting and COPY the URL there then paste it in to the annotation Link. This will always work.
Then there you have it. You have now added a link to your video that someone watching it can click on and be taken to your website. I have found that mobile users do not see these annotations so you should still add a link in your description.
Now if you are looking for some really cool buttons and items you can add to your videos to really attract the user's attention and to click on then check out this new WSO (Warrior Special Offer) product that does just that. They'll give you some really neat buttons and features to make your links look much more attractive and grab their attention (so should increase conversions as well!). This product also comes with screenshots and easy to follow guides, images, and video. Click Here for more information to add really neat buttons and call to action items to your videos.
You can do this for brand new fresh YouTube accounts or old ones. Depending on if your account is old or new you could probably skip a few steps but I'll write this guide based on a fresh new YouTube account.
Step 1. Log into your YouTube account and go to your Video Manager then go to Channel Settings
Step 2. If you haven't already, verify your account so you can become a YouTube partner.
You can do this by either them calling you with a special code or have them SMS text you the code. You can only use the same phone number with 2 accounts total. After that you need a new phone #. To verify your account just click on the VERIFY button next to your name and enter the code they give you then go back to your Video Manager and go to Channel Settings and you'll see it's now verified.
Step 3. Stay in the Channel Settings area. Enable your account for Monetization. Scroll down and click on enable under the Monetization setting. Then click the blue button that says "enable my account". Then click the next blue button called "Got It". Go back to your Video Manager then go to Channel Settings and you'll see Monetization status is Green which means it's enabled. Also notice below that under External Annotations it's now enabled as well. This is what we need.
Step 4. Add an Associated Website to your YouTube Account
Click Associated Website under Channel Settings. You now need to add your website that you own or have access to. You can only associate one website currently with your YouTube account. You can always delete it and add a new one later if you need to. Fill in the URL and click the blue verify word under it. Now you'll need to verify with YouTube that you own this website. This verification process is similar to Google Webmaster Tools if you are use to doing that. If not that's ok because I'm going to tell you how.
You'll notice it says "download this HTML file" click that and download it to your computer. Then upload it to your website either via FTP or you can also do it if you have cPanel (like on HostGator or any basic website host). If you use cPanel go to your File Manager then go to Public HTML then go to your website's root folder. Click Upload and select the small HTML file you downloaded.
Go back to your YouTube Associated Website verify page and click the red verify button. Now for some reason YouTube doesn't add a button to easily go back to your YouTube account so you'll manually have to go back to your YouTube account now and go back to Video Manager then to Channel Settings and click on Associated Website. It'll still say PENDING so click the REFRESH button next to it and now if you did the process correct it will say "success".
Step 5. Last step folks, you are almost there! I recommend doing this step in Internet Explorer because for some reason I cannot get this to work in Firefox for me. Maybe it's just me.
To add external clickable links to your YouTube video just upload a new video and click edit under Video Manager (or just click Edit under your old YouTube videos). Then click on the Annotations button at the top.
Now select a time frame in your YouTube video that you want to add to your video to get your visitors to click on it. You can do this anywhere in your video so I'll leave that up to you. What I like to do is add a small annotation note in the beginning of the video for several seconds that says something like "Click here For More Information" or something similar. Then the user clicks on it and gets taken to the website.
To add the annotation select which annotation you want to add (they have like 4 or 5 different types, just play with each one till you figure out which one you want to use) and click the LINK box at the bottom. Select Associated Website and then fill in your URL. This is where in Firefox it always tells me "invalid URL" so I have to do this in Internet Explorer. Also, if you do this in Internet Explorer and it still tells you "Invalid URL" then go back to your Associated Website setting and COPY the URL there then paste it in to the annotation Link. This will always work.
Then there you have it. You have now added a link to your video that someone watching it can click on and be taken to your website. I have found that mobile users do not see these annotations so you should still add a link in your description.
Now if you are looking for some really cool buttons and items you can add to your videos to really attract the user's attention and to click on then check out this new WSO (Warrior Special Offer) product that does just that. They'll give you some really neat buttons and features to make your links look much more attractive and grab their attention (so should increase conversions as well!). This product also comes with screenshots and easy to follow guides, images, and video. Click Here for more information to add really neat buttons and call to action items to your videos.