BrightHaus Digital Marketing Agency

20 Steps to Making the Most of Your YouTube Videos

April 27, 2012

If you have videos that you are trying to promote on YouTube, there are a variety of routes you can take to get the most views and shares. You can buy ads within other videos, advertise as a promoted video, embed on popular sites, and more. But this post is assuming you want to go the free route, by getting your video found organically.

Below are the 20 steps to promoting your videos on YouTube;

YOUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL  – Optimizing Your YouTube Channel

  1. If you haven’t created your channel yet, make sure the username you create contains or is your brand name and/or keyword
  2. The same with your channel name; it should include your brand and/or keyword(s)
  3. When creating your channel, you have a chance to add your website address. Make sure that you do that.
  4. You’ll also have a chance to write something about you or your company in the about me section, write at least 1 paragraph containing your target keyword(s) naturally

EACH VIDEO – Tips to optimize each video you upload

  1. You want to make sure the video title is accurate to what the video is about. But at the same time, you want to make it catchy and try to include your target keywords (Sometimes the video title is the only thing to entice users to click and watch)
  2. Web Address in description: Add your website URL (http://www.clientsite.com) to the beginning of each video description. And/or at the end of the description
  3. Keywords in description: When writing the description, try to include target keywords (NATURALLY)
  4. Add keyword tags to video as well

YOUTUBE NETWORKING – Things to do within YouTube

  1. Make friends with at least 20 other users that talk about the same topics
  2. Send your new friends a message encouraging then to check out your videos (IE: Hey (YouTube Name, saw your videos and liked them a lot, you should check out ours. Let me know what you think about them, or comment your thoughts, THANKS!)
  3. Comment on 5 other related YouTube channels, naturally including keyword(s) in the comment (IE: I noticed all you vids are about [keyword], mine too! But, I’m not sure if mine are as good as yours. What do you think?)
  4. Find at least 5 other videos containing the keywords you are targeting and comment something relevant and sticky.
  5. Comment on your own Video Channel thanking others for visiting (include keyword in content)

OUTSIDE OF YOUTUBE – Off-page/Off-YouTube Optimization

  1. If possible, embed video on other webpages, blogs or wherever to add  popularity.
  2. Contact bloggers that talk about your video’s topic (target keywords) and ask them to check out your video. If they like it, they will link to it or embed on their blog.
  3. Build links to video
  4. Social bookmark video in social networks
  5. Share video via FaceBook
  6. Share video via Twitter
  7. Share video via email with subscriber list or friends

If you follow these steps and your video is good, you’ll get more views than you expect.