Is your blog one that can benefit from video?

If so, are you making videos regularly and posting them on Youtube?

If you are, are you getting tons of traffic as a result of your video marketing efforts?

In this post, I'm going to be giving you 7 tips for building your audience using Youtube.

Why Youtube

YoutubePlayerYoutube is a beast of a different kind, and I love it. With monthly stats of over 1 billion unique visitors and 6 billion hours of video watched (almost 1 for every person on earth), it's obviously a force to be reckoned with.

Youtube, which is owned by Google, is the second most used search engine in the world – second only to Google (of course).

People go to Youtube to search for how to do almost EVERYTHING. I know this because I'm one of those people.

Regardless of who your target audience is, they are most likely on Youtube.

As a blogger, one of your main goals is to grow your audience, so why not go where your audience is, give them what they want, and then draw their attention back to your blog? It makes sense to me.

My Youtube Story

InteractiveBiology

When I decided to build my biology blog, I knew that Youtube would play a HUGE role in its growth. I knew that I couldn't just put videos on there and expect my traffic to explode.

I needed to be very strategic and intentional with how I did what I did.

This was THE main strategy I used for getting traffic in the beginning days, and here were the results:

  • 4,167 People accessed my blog in the first month of my Youtube Marketing
  • This grew to 6,238 in month 2
  • By month 3, I was at 8,330
  • Today, I'm at almost 4.5 MILLION VIDEO VIEWS with 40,496 youtube subscribers.

Now, Youtube marketing is definitely not the only thing that I did. There was a lot involved in growing my traffic. However, Youtube marketing was the foundation of it all.

I would like to share with you 5 tips for Getting tons of traffic from youtube.

Tip #1 – Create Awesome Content

If it seems as if every article I write about building your blog starts with this tip, it's probably because they all start with this. Yes, content is King.

People will come to your blog for 1 main reason – the content. Whether it's content they need to accomplish their goals, just for inspiration or entertainment, it is the special cause that will suck them in and keep them coming back for more.

Marketing, whether it's done via youtube or any other strategy, cannot save a blog with crappy content that offers no value. Start here and build from there.

Tip #2 – Keep your videos Short

In the world we live in, people have short attention spans (fortunately or unfortunately). I'm not here to debate whether or not this is a good thing. It's a fact.

When I make Youtube videos I try to keep them between 3 and 5 minutes, and closer to the 3. How do I accomplish that? I don't try to save the world in any video. In each video, I have ONE clear message or one concept that I'd like to teach.

For you biology nerds out there (like myself), I don't talk about the entire action potential of a neuron, I just talk about the individual phases of the action potential in a video, like this video where I talk about the Depolarization of a neuron.

Tip #3 – Be descriptive, not smart or cute

My blog is about biology. I attempt to make biology fun by helping people understand the concepts in a simple way.

Confused

The people who I target are usually people who are struggling to understand a concept. These people go to youtube and search for things like “What is a neuron”.

I'm pretty sure that the individual who is looking for that information wouldn't go to youtube and search for something like “Magical signals through the body”.

While the second option sounds cool, it's not descriptive. It would be better to name my video “What is a neuron”.

That tells you exactly what the video covers and makes it so that you know what you're going to get. DON'T CONFUSE PEOPLE!

Of the 202,173 video views I've had on Youtube in the last month, 71,035 have been from people searching directly on Youtube. That's significant.

Oh, and PLEASE don't EVER name a video with some of the names I've seen like Video1.mov or IMG_2678.MOV. I guarantee you that nobody's looking for that!

Tip #4 – Use keywords wisely

Keywords

For every video, there are different things people can search for that are very relevant to the awesome video you created. Insert those obvious keywords in the keywords field.

For example, for what is a Neuron, I might put keywords like axon, cell body, action potential and nerve cell.

That way, if anyone uses those keywords in their search, your video will be more likely to show up.

Tip #5 – Have a root keyword

This is one of those tips that hardly ANYONE ever mentions but is extremely valuable. Have you ever noticed that when you are watching a video on youtube, it shows you a list of other “suggested videos”?

When someone's watching one of your videos, you want your other videos to show up right there, so that they can click over to watch even more. In the last month, I've had 34,538 views this way. How do I do it? I'm glad you ask.

Youtube is smart. If you're watching a video about a neuron, they want to show other relevant videos in that suggested videos section. How do they know what's relevant? A big part of that has to do with the keywords you use. If the keywords are similar to the keywords in another video, that gives them some info that suggests that the videos are related.

What you want to do is choose a “root keyword” (I think I made that term up) that would only appear in your video keyword section and no other videos. By doing this, you will significantly increase the chances that your videos will appear.

My root keyword is “interactive biology”. That's ALWAYS the last keyword I use in my keyword section. You choose one that's relevant to your videos that nobody else would be using and be consistent with that through ALL your videos.

If you have videos on youtube now, I would recommend for you to go back and make this change.

Tip #6 – Have a clear call to action at the end

TakeAction2

This is probably the most important part of your video, if your purpose is getting traffic to your blog. If someone just spent 3 to 5 minutes watching your video, you have their attention.

Chances are – if they liked that video, they will like your awesome blog. At the end of the video, you want to have a very clear call to action for them to COME BACK TO YOUR BLOG.

At the end of my videos, I say “If you like this video and would like even more resources to Make Biology Fun, head on over to www.interactive-biology.com”.

If I wanted to be even more targeted and strategic, I could tell them to get on my list to get some cool awesome resource that they'd love. Hmm, I should do that!

Tip #7 – Link to your blog in the description

This is one of those things that just makes it easy for the viewer to come back to your blog. If you look at any of my videos on youtube, you will see that the first thing in the description is the URL that they can click on to come back to the blog, and it includes the http://. This makes it clickable.

Please do this. That way, when someone sees your videos, they don't even have to click on the “show more” link to get to your site. It's clear and obvious that they can click on that link to get there. This is exactly what you want – right?

Bonus Tip – Promote your other videos

I included this as a bonus tip because it's something I haven't done, but I know that it can increase my engagement even more and result in more traffic. I just love how Marie Forleo does it in her videos. Here's a screen shot of one of her recent videos.

Go From Good To Great YouTube

I just love how she does it, and I plan on doing something similar (but different) in the future.

Make those videos

So there you have it – my top tips. You are now equipped to do some awesome things on youtube. What are you waiting for. Go ahead and Make Those Videos!

Oh, and do you have any tips that you would add to the mix? Go ahead and leave them in the comments section below.

About the Author Leslie Samuel


Leslie Samuel a business coach for high-performing entrepreneurs. As the host of the Leslie Samuel Show, he teaches how to build an online business. "Changing the world one post at a time” is the mission he strives towards. As a former university professor, he has a passion for education. He's the founder of Interactive Biology, a blog and YouTube channel dedicated to making biology fun for students and teachers. As the head of training for the Social Media Marketing Society, he helps social media marketers get the training they need to stay on the leading edge of social media.

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