My newbie question: How do you get traffic from YouTube?

[samstephens]

I spent a LOT of time with my head buried in the software industry, so some of the more "basic" things tend to float by without my noticing

I read a post here not long ago about someone getting a high and quick Google ranking by posting a YouTube video.

I've also heard a lot of people talking about it as a way to get traffic.

How does this actually work? Where does your website URL go?

I've had a look and can't find any real way to add a website link?

Thanks in advance for not laughing at my newbie question
Sam

[naonline]

It goes at the start of your description box Sam. It's an awesome back link.
Nick

[Jared Alberghini]

you just need to type the full url in your description box, including the http:// and it will automatically convert it to a link for you

- Jared

[POWERCENTER]

YOUTUBE VIDEO LINKS IN DESCRIPTION ARE "NOFOLLOW" (check html) which means you get no credit (or PR) for that link. I know.... I looked. So that article was likely full of ........

[Mike Bogowski]

Place your link visually at the bottom of the video at the beginning and the end for a decent period of time.

[The G Man]

Hey Sam The main key is that you have to get people to view your video. Firstly have a good title something that will prompt someone to view it. Also have relevant content. Once you have this covered you need to give them your URL this goes at the start of your description. It is amazing how often people just view the description info and then click the URL whilst they are watching your video as they are intereted in what your product/service is all about.

[Shannon Herod]

Hey Sam,

When driving traffic with Youtube there are two things you want to concentrate on.

The first is making sure your website URL is the very first thing you type in the description box. This is because whenever your video is viewed that will make the link visible and clickable on their site.

Next, you want to concentrate on using long tail keywords as the title and in the description. The great thing about YouTube videos is they rank very quickly and highly in the search engines.

So, if you use a good keyword title and description you can get fast rankings in the search engines. But, they will go up fast but they will come down fast too. So, if you want those rankings to stay high you need to build some back links to the actual video itself.

But, if you're looking for some quick hits you can easily gain some good traffic using this method.

Now, if you use some really good long tail keywords with relatively low competition even with no back links to the video itself will remain high in the search engines.

YouTube and other video sites are a great way to drive traffic.

Regards,

Shannon Herod

[13YearsOld]

My personal opinion about advertising on YouTube is that it's usually pretty effective.

Posting a video will probably not get your website listed in Google much faster but if your video's tagged properly and lots of people watch it and you've got your website address displayed near the bottom of the video, some traffic will come to your site.

YouTube is a very popular website so videos tend to get listed in relevant Google searches pretty fast. On a side note, I haven't really found putting a link in my description useful.

Hope that helps.

[Ron Douglas]

The video can possibly rank well in the search engines and people may visit your site from watching the video or clicking the link in the description box. However, the links don't count for SEO purposes because they are no follow.

If the video is really good, people will refer it to others and embed it to their sites which gives you more exposure.

Put the main keywords in the title and the site URL in the video and description box.

[AlexKaplo]

Wow, great post Shannon,

I completely skipped over long tail keywords, thanks for the tip man!

-Alex Kaplo

[Bob Monie]

Originally Posted by POWERCENTER

YOUTUBE VIDEO LINKS IN DESCRIPTION ARE "NOFOLLOW" (check html) which means you get no credit (or PR) for that link. I know.... I looked. So that article was likely full of ........

He is trying to get traffic from his video links, not link juice.

Originally Posted by samstephens

Thanks in advance for not laughing at my newbie question
Sam

Hey Sam, ya still consider yourself a newbie after 5500 posts, hehe.

Like some people have said already.

Use a video editor and add your URL to the bottom of your video. Obviously people cant click through the link but this will guarantee they see it and if they are interested in knowing more they can manually type it in their address bar.

Always leave about 30 seconds of black screen at the end of your videos displaying you URL and some words like "For more info go to"

Placing you URL in your description before any other content will guarantee that its displayed when the video is played.

Here is a little trick I use to double my ctr from my videos. In the 30 seconds of Black screen at the end of your movie, tell people to click on the link in the description and place an image of an arrow pointing to the position of the link in the description. This will lead the viewers eye to your link. Will work best if the arrow is animated.

Here is a very crude example

[Clyde Dennis]

I've just put together a step by step program showing you how to get unlimited traffic to your website from YouTube without having to spend your time creating and uploading hundreds of videos.

[Matt D]

Originally Posted by Bob Monie

He is trying to get traffic from his video links, not link juice.

Here is a little trick I use to double my ctr from my videos. In the 30 seconds of Black screen at the end of your movie, tell people to click on the link in the description and place an image of an arrow pointing to the position of the link in the description. This will lead the viewers eye to your link. Will work best if the arrow is animated.

This is an awesome tip, Bob. I've left dead air at the end of a video with a watermark url for 30 seconds, but I never thought of this. Brilliant!

[Bob Monie]

Originally Posted by Matt D

This is an awesome tip, Bob. I've left dead air at the end of a video with a watermark url for 30 seconds, but I never thought of this. Brilliant!

Thanx Matt, people are lazy, especially people watching video so to get them to take action you have to pretty much take their hand and show them the way.

[DougBarger]

One quick, easy and even lazy way to get a bunch of views fast is to find

a hot video in your niche that is receiving a ton of views and comments

and then contact to owner and offer to buy it from him or her.

If it's a college kid looking for money they'd be thrilled to let it go and may even brag about it to their family and friends.

Or, you could just see how much they would charge you to put your link
in their description without having to turn the video over to you.

[e-mail2u]

Sam,

Camtasia i believe has the ability to put a url link imbedded into the video as a call out. If you have it then that is an option.

[Corwinnx]

email2u, there's a couple of programs that allow you to embed your link in a video (bubbleply is the first that comes to mind) but Youtube disables the feature, or at least that's what I've read.

That being said, I've seen videos with clickable links in Youtube but I have no idea how they did it, and they seem to be 'sponsored videos,' and that was before YT announced their PPC program.

If you come across some interesting info on this, I'd like to know. Thanks.

-Marcus

[John Henderson]

Can i ask a related question?

Some big corporations go further than just putting a URL into a movie's description box; they organise a page that assembles all of their movies in one place and brand it prominently (I think it's called a "channel"). In addition, every video on that page gets its own page that's also clearly branded by the corporation.

Here's an example: YouTube - polydor's Channel

So, my question is: Are these 'channels' and this branding available to ordinary users (IMers) or is it only reserved for big corporations?

[samstephens]

Hey Sam, ya still consider yourself a newbie after 5500 posts, hehe.

Heh, yeah we're all newbies at SOMETHING

I've spent my online career dedicated to software, and so a few things like this have passed me by simply because I didn't need it, and therefore couldn't spend the time on it....if that makes sense?



Thanks so much for everyone's reply! Makes great sense

cheers
Sam

[Ben_Curtis]

Wow,
lotta great thots here. YouTube does work, (I love the way it can be viral) and it's only gonna get bigger. It's also a good idea to put YouTube on your website. I've done it and it seems to me that it gets visitors to linger longer on your site.
Shannon, Bob--great ideas to really capitalize on the medium.
Ben Curtis
http://www.bens-marketing-magic.com

[e-mail2u]

sam,

Tried the embedded link way using camtasia, You tube reject it every time. Got another possibility to try.

Will watermarking the clip work. Make a custom watermark and insert it at the top left of the clip as you tube puts theirs in the bottom right corner (which is clickable)

Like you i'm new to using you tube to host my clips. gonna try the watermark and see if that works. I'm using the description link but that not visible if the clip is embedded into someone else's site but a wartermark will be.

[samstephens]

Hi Geoff,

The watermark is a good idea! I don't see why this wouldn't work, as as far as I know watermarks are actually added to each frame of the video and becomes part of it. I may be wrong about that, though.

I'd be interested to hear how it all turns out!

cheers
Sam

[e-mail2u]

Sam,

Watermarking does work, you just need to get it right. I used gimp to make the watermark as it needs to be an image. No need to change the opacity as you do that with in camtasia. So just make it full color then fade it out when you go to produce the video.

i made the watermark 600 x 300 as you can scale it when you produce the video.

Regards
Geoff

[Lee McIntyre]

Hi Sam

Here's an example of how we're using title screen before and after the video, and a Camtasia callout at the bottom of the screen while the video plays.

YouTube - More Website Traffic - How To Get Cheap...

When I did this in the education niche I used to use a seperate domain that was only ever referenced in the videos, and I'd make this redirect via an adtracking link.

This way I was able to measure how many visitors and sales my videos generated, and I could compare this against how much time I had to invest to produce this result.

I hope this helps!

Lee McIntyre

[MeTellYou]

Put it in the video. But remember not to make it annoying for people not watch, or too obvious for them. You don't want to come off like you're just trying to give them do stuff. You want to be natural.

[novasoft]

1. Watermark your video
2. Show your url only for about half a minute at the end of the video
3. If you want to be naughty add a picture of a nice looking babe exactly half way between the video ( this is used as the thumbnail)
4. add you url as the first thing in the description

This will help as far as traffic from youtube is concerned.

To rank in google

1. Pick a few longtail keywords
2. Add them below the url in the description box
3. add them as tags

-Satya