YouTube Video Marketing and Optimization Secrets - Part 3 of 3

This post on YouTube Video Marketing Secrets is a continuation of my post from a few weeks ago entitled “YouTube Video Marketing Secrets and Video Search Optimization Tips - Part 2 of now 3.” That makes this the third and final installment of the series in which I publicly share my critique of YouTube user Mike Stokes’ YouTube Channel. (With Mike’s permission, of course. And to find out more of why I am doing this, see Part 1.)

Now, I interrupted the series last week in order to cover the news about the YouTube Channel re-design changes that have been announced for July 15th.  While we still have some time before that happens (tick, tick, tick), I’m going to use this post to cover some non-Channel-related topics on YouTube video marketing.

Today’s YouTube Video Marketing & Optimization Tip Topics

So without further ado, today I am going to cover:

1. Analyzing YouTube Insight Statistics — why you need to do it and how to make it easier
2. Creating Inbound Links to both your videos AND your YouTube Channel
3. Building YouTube Playlists — the importance of Playlists as a way to expand your audience and gain new fans

I’ll pick up by beginning with Tip #13…(re-visit Part 2 of this Series where I left off with Tip #12.)

Tip #13: Analyzing Your YouTube Insight Statistics

YouTube’s analytics program, Insight, not only helps you get a better understanding of the makeup of your YouTube audience by feeding you demographic data, it also allows you to find out how you are being FOUND by said audience.

Consult YouTube Insight for your video after the first 4-5 days and use the data to tweak your title and tags accordingly. (In other words, if your video is being found via keywords you aren’t using, go back and edit your video to be better optimized for those terms … or drop keywords from your title or tags that aren’t helping you be found.)

Start by first analyzing how your traffic is getting to you. Is it via YouTube Search, Google Search (SCORE!), YouTube related videos…or how?

From there, look within those YouTube and Google Search Discovery categories to find out what keywords are bringing you the most traffic:

Know that you are also able to access the data under “Related videos” (we’re back under Discovery now) to find what other videos people are watching prior to yours. This will also give you keen insight (hence the name, right) into what keywords to focus on. To do that, look to see what keywords those related videos have used as titles and tags.

Here’s another bonus tip (Tip #14): If remembering to check your YouTube Insight data is not at the forefront of you mind, put it on the forefront of your YouTube Homepage so it’s right in front of you upon login. And note: I am talking about your Homepage here, not your Channel/Profile. The Homepage (another word important enough to warrant a big ol’ capital letter, “H”) is what only you see when you first log on to YouTube.

If you didn’t know this already, you are able to set your YouTube Homepage Modules to display your YouTube Insight data:

To do that, first go here and check off the information you want to even show up on your YouTube Homepage:

You can reach that page either by going directly to “Customize Homepage” under your Account Settings, or simply by clicking on the “Add/Remove Modules” link just under the left-side horizontal menu bar on your Homepage (again, you have to be logged in):

Once you have the data displaying on your Homepage, use the up and down arrows to display the Insight data prominently at the top of that page so it’s the first thing you see when you log in to the site.

Once this is done, remember you’ll want to watch that Insight data closely (the Map is not as important as the Chart, by the way) so you can keep a close eye on how your videos are performing based on the keywords you’ve optimized for already. Again, tweak things accordingly.

My advice to Mike from before, in regards to his own video optimization (note there are more hidden tips here!):

“Mike: One thing you might consider doing is getting more of your main keywords into your video descriptions. We find that using a keyword or keyword phrase 3-4 times in a video description increases the likelihood you’ll rank high for that term. (Tip #15)

Also think about adding more tags to some of your videos. You definitely have the main ones down for each recipe, but each and every video should have “Cajun” and “recipe” in there (as an example). Mike, your YouTube Insight data will likely yield some additional keywords you can better optimize for on all or some of your videos.”

And I included this back in Part 1 (Tip #3), but I’m going to reiterate it here:

Repeat Part 1, Tip #3: As you search YouTube for related videos by entering in different keywords or keyword combinations (in order to ultimately study what keywords other videos in your niche have in their titles and tags), pay attention to what is coming up in the search bar.

This is because popular keyword search terms are now provided FOR YOU through “YouTube Suggest.” (This uses “Google Suggest” functionality.)

This is a great way to generate ideas for commonly searched keyword phrases based around your root keyword(s). It will also yield potentially related video content for you to analyze, add to Playlists (more on that in a bit), comment upon, rate, favorite, etc. (There are a number of reasons why all that is important, but it is all outside the scope of this post.)

Tip #16: Creating Inbound Links to Both Your YouTube Videos AND Your YouTube Channel

This all comes back to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 101: The key to getting more of your great videos to come up in the Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) boils down to creating more inbound links to both your videos AND your YouTube Channel.

My Advice to Mike:

“Mike: While you are out there building links to your blog(s) or other online properties, try creating a few directly to your YouTube videos. Granted, the point is to ultimately get your audience to head over to your main site anyway — but there are a lot of factors that contribute to how well your videos rank on YouTube (and Google), and inbound links from outside sources with good page rank (and hopefully via keyword-rich anchor text) is one of them.

In the end, you’ll be far more likely to hit page 1 of Google with a YouTube video thumbnail than you will with your main blog, where you’re competing with so many other Cajun cooking websites. Therefore, while you are out building backlinks to your blog, throw a few in that point directly to your YouTube videos AND a few that point directly to your Channel (that’s a good thing to do in your email signature).

I say right now, go create at least one inbound link to your Channel and at least one to your most recent video.

Addendum to my original comments to Mike:

Tip #17: Here are some ideas for building those inbound links:

1. Embed Your YouTube Videos to Blogs: Your own and those on other Social Networks (hey, there’s a reason you kept that MySpace account open).
2. Use the Share Feature directly from YouTube (below each video) to post to all sites offered.
3. Social Bookmark Your Videos (and even Your Channel) out the Wazoo. Consider: Digg, Mixx, del.ic.ious, StumbleUpon, and Reddit. Visit http://SocialMediaDaily.com and grab the “Social Media Daily Blueprint” by Michelle MacPhearson for a good list of additional recommended sites.
4. Write and Post Articles with Links Back to Your Video(s) & Channel. (Works great!)
5. Something to keep in mind when building links back to your videos from websites or blogs that you control: Use Keyword-Rich Anchor Text.
6. For other ideas, Study a bit more about SEO Best Practices.
   

Tip #18a: Playlists, Playlists, Playlists…Build some.

In fact, creating and building upon Playlists is so crucial that I’m going to do the same thing I did previously when discussing the importance of your YouTube Channel and Homepage. I’m capitalizing the word: Playlists. (I know you’re thinking, “Whoa now simmer down there, Julie — that’s heavy stuff.”)

Seriously: The importance of YouTube Playlists is not so much to showcase them on your Channel, but rather to get your Playlists coming up in the YouTube search results. Lately, Playlists are hitting the top 3-4 spots for any given keyword.

Don’t let it be someone else’s Playlist collection coming up on top! Create your own.

Fact: The metadata metric of a video being added to a Playlist(s) counts in the YouTube relevancy algorithm.

So add your videos to as many Playlists as possible.

Tip #18b: Now here’s the secret to it: Create Playlists that group your own videos with other high-ranking videos (yes, even another content producer’s videos) containing your most important keywords in the title. *Don’t worry if they are your competitor’s videos or even if it’s content you don’t want to be related to: It’s the keywords that matter most!

As an example, check out this Playlist I built for the keywords “youtube video optimization” (among others):

As you advance through the above embedded Playlist (see the arrows at the side of the player), you’ll see that my own YouTube Secret Weapon videos are included, along with several of the testimonials and reviews videos from YouTube Secret Weapon students and affiliates. But, intermixed within those are some pretty hokey, Spam videos (no, not all of them) that are promoting ridiculous and shyster methods, products, and advice for how to increase YouTube video traffic via optimization (or in some cases, other Spammy means — which trust me, is not worth doing).

Note what I did in this example was create and build this Playlist to include not only my own videos that I was attempting to optimize for those keywords, but also to include related videos — and more importantly for the optimization factor, to include as many videos as I could (like ‘em or not) that included my target keywords.

(Repeat after me: “Keywords are King when it comes to Playlists.”)

If you are a current YouTube Secret Weapon owner, see Disc 3 or Bonus Webinar 6 for more on the hows and whys of creating Playlists.

So there you go: A handful of YouTube Secret Weapon tips (x 3 posts) that ought to help your videos rank better on YouTube (not to mention increase their chance of turning up in the top of the Google results) for your top keywords.

By employing even just a few of these strategies, you’ll end up with more targeted traffic coming to your videos, and therefore more qualified prospects being driven over to your main money site –- whether that be a website, a blog, or simply a landing page for an affiliate product you are promoting.

~Julie

P.S. If you didn’t catch Paul’s free webinar last night talking about YouTube’s new InVideo Click-Through Ads (CTAs), sign up now to get a link to the replay.

Seriously, if you thought YouTube Annotations equaled opportunity, THIS is Annotations on steroids. The ability to have viewers clicking your video to go right through to your off-YouTube money site is priceless.

As I said to Paul: “Instead of saying ‘here’s a map on how to get to my house from here’ (which is Annotations), YouTube’s new Invideo Click-Through Ads allow you to say, ‘Hey, I’ve come over to pick you up and bring you over. Hop in!’”

Check out Paul’s explanation and demo of YouTube CTAs by signing up for the replay link.

As always, Happy Tubing!

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