When it comes to Digital Marketing Youtube is a platform no brand should ignore - 2 billion monthly active users, 30 million daily active users, 1 billion hours of viewing time every day. These are numbers that we can not ignore and there is a high probability that your Target audience is on youtube.
So, now the main question arises on how to make your mark as a Youtube Creator - increasing your reach and followers. These are just intermediary metrics with the end goal being some sort of revenue generation through lead generation or sales.
Content is King - this is an overstated fact that holds 100% true for Youtube. Everything else that we will mention in this blog is secondary. You know your Target audience- it is upto you to generate Original Quality Content. Digital Marketers can help you with optimizing your content but at the core of it, you are the one who will be creating content.
With that out of the way, let’s discuss how to optimize your channel and its content and make the best of it. In order to drive home our strategy, we will be using an example of a Motorbike reviewing Youtube Channel
Create a Unique Brand - Youtube is crowded and this makes it all the more important to stand out. This is where Branding helps you. You need to be unique or different from other players in your niche.
Have a Brand Tagline - Taglines help you stand out and they should be able to summarize what Value Addition you are providing to your audience via your content. Include the Tagline in your Channel Art, Channel Trailer Video.
Optimize your Channel Page - When people land on your Channel they will either watch more of your content and subscribe or exist from your channel page. Having an optimized channel page can help increase subscribers' 2-5x. Have a professional channel art with your Brand Tagline highlighted.
Now, coming to optimizing the layout of your channel there is a single right or wrong way to go. But going by the numbers, we can opt for a popular layout most top YouTubers use
Your goal here is to get people to watch more of your content and convert them to subscribers - Include a Call-To-Action to subscribe to your channel in the Channel Art. You can also opt for diverting traffic to your website but my recommendation would be to first focus on the Channel. Plus, be it Youtube or any other social media platform they don’t like when you try to divert traffic away from their platform. Create a Youtube subscribe Link and add it as one of your channel art links
Awe and Shock your Viewers with your Channel Trailer: Channel Trailer is the make it or break it element for your channel page. It should be able to summarize what value you are going to provide to your viewers and should definitely be aesthetically pleasing. Youtube recommends keeping it short - so, it's best to keep it under 1 minute. You need to razzle-dazzle your viewers in the first 10-15 seconds because that's how long you have before someone exits the channel page.
Channel Icon - It goes without saying that you need to have an eye-catching icon - logo for your page.
Video Playlists: Instead of having a single horizontal playlist, alternate between horizontal and vertical playlist layouts. This way the playlists stand out and do not blend into the background
Video Thumbnail: According to Youtube, 9 out of 10 most viewed videos have custom thumbnails. The thumbnail acts as a cover for your video and is crucial in making your viewers click on your videos. The idea here is to maintain a brand identity so that your viewers can identify your videos when they see it on youtube - have a brand color palette.
The secret to an effective thumbnail is BOGY - Blue, Orange, Green, Yellow. The Youtube website is a light coloured website consisting mostly of Red, Black and White colours. It is important to stand out and not blend in. The BOGY colours help you in standing out on the platform. The Thumbnail in itself should have contrasting colours to make sure your viewers make out what is written without any difficulty.
The third and fourth options actually contains a question - this is useful in making your viewers interested in clicking on your video as instead of a simple title it leads them to believe that you are answering that question in the video.
Video Optimization Practices
Naming your Videos: The name must contain the main keyword and should be able to stand out in the crowd. It is recommended that we add some interesting ‘carrot’ at the end to make the video title stand out
Video Description: Video Description goes a long way in increasing your reach, view times and conversions. We will be working with a proven template used by the popular youtubers
Introduction: This section should focus on the Target Keywords as this intro section will also show up on Youtube searches and should be done so as to make sure people land on your video after reading the first 2-3 sentences.
Detailed Outline: This section should contain the targeted keywords as well and some additional keywords to increase your rankings. For longer videos, this should focus on breaking down the timeline of the video in question. Anything from 150-250 words is recommended for this.
Links: This section should focus on out Call To Actions and website links if any
Video Tags: We use the MVC theory for video tags - Main Keywords, Variations, and Category. This is more or less self-explanatory
Ranking on Google Search: Google SEO is distinct from ranking on Youtube. Here are the best recommendations for ranking your videos on the top of Google search queries
Say your Primary Keyword out loud in your video and it is recommended to keep the frequency to at least 3-4 times during the video.
Upload a transcript (closed captions) of your video to YouTube as this helps Google understand what the video is about.
Optimize for engagement: Every social media platform loves engagement and the engaging videos no doubt rank up higher in searches and also provide a sort of Trust Factor to your viewers.
Reply to the comments: Both your viewers and Youtube like it when you reply to the comments. It is important to engage with your viewers as this will not only help you in ranking higher in the search results but also create a Trust Factor.
Optimize your Video End Screens: Find a video from your channel that people watching the current video are most likely to be interested in - a feature that video at the end of your video and link to that video at the end screen.
Audience retention through Card Bridge Technique - Go through your video analytics to see if viewers are dropping off at a certain point in time in the video. This means they are losing interest in the video at that moment and you need some sort of CTA to retain them on your channel. The best way to do so is to put up a Card redirecting them to a different but related video on your channel.
Social Sharing of Videos: Traditionally, people used to share links to their Youtube videos on other social networks like Facebook, Instagram but the fact is that all platforms prefer to keep audiences on their platform itself and so any outbound links get buried. The reach of a Youtube share on your Facebook page will be very less compared to a normal post. Instead, you can upload a short clip/trailer of the video as a native video on that platform and post the link to the actual full Youtube video as the First comment there.
We will be publishing more posts outlining strategies for increasing your views and subscribers on Youtube
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