Many people assume that Google is the world’s largest search engine, (and they’d be right), and many people would also assume that the second largest search engine in the world is either Bing or Yahoo, except for this time, they’d be wrong.
With over a billion users, the world’s second largest search engine is actually, YouTube.
According to the 2015 Online Video Marketing Survey published by the Web Video Marketing Council , “96% of B2B organizations are engaged in video content marketing.”
As the folks at Search Engine Watch so aptly put it, “It’s no secret that YouTube is a traffic source with almost limitless potential. There’s only one problem: it’s a very crowded place.”
So how do today’s B2B manufacturers get viewers to find and watch their YouTube videos over the competition?
By making sure your company’s YouTube channel utilizes the following best practices, you can increase both the amount of traffic to your YouTube channel and the rankings for your company’s YouTube videos.
Verify Your YouTube Channel
The first step in optimizing your company's YouTube channel is to make sure that your YouTube channel is verified. Visit https://www.youtube.com/verify to begin the verification process or see if your channel is already verified.
Optimize With Video Keywords
Again, as Search Engine Watch so brilliantly puts it, “ranking in YouTube is great, but ranking your video in YouTube and Google is even better.”
To accomplish this, you need to begin by identifying keywords that are relevant to your video and average at least 300 searches a month. Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner are both great resources you can use to help you find and identify which keywords to include in your video description, filename, title and tags.
Another great way to identify video keywords, is to perform a search for the keywords yourself to see if there are video results on the first page of the search engine results page (SERP). If you see video results on page one of the SERP for that keyword, then your video has a strong chance of ranking for that keyword as well.
Once you decide which keywords to focus on, it is important to include your keywords at the beginning of your descriptions (same keyword/s as title).
Including keywords that are relevant to your video content helps Google and YouTube understand what your video is about, so they can better match it to the searches performed by your prospective customers.
Offer Video Content That’s Useful To Your Target Audience
Your prospective customers need to view the videos on your company's YouTube channel as more than just informative. They must also view them as a useful resource.
For your YouTube videos to be viewed as a useful resource by your prospective customers, your videos must answer their questions and address their concerns about your product or service, and show, not tell, how your company’s product or service can help them accomplish what they need to be successful in their industry.
Ensuring that your prospective customers view your company’s YouTube Channel as a valuable resource encourages them to subscribe to your channel and share the video with others in their industry.
Share Your Videos On Social Networks And Community Building Websites
Online communities are a great way to target your viewers by specific industries and direct prospective customers through your sales funnel.
YouTube’s search algorithm evaluates videos and determines how highly to rank them based largely on user experience. Widely sharing your videos across multiple web channels, sources, and mediums will help establish and build an audience for your YouTube channel, and increase the visibility of your video content across the web.
Many YouTube users will like, comment on or subscribe to a video that they watch, but it always helps to include a section at the end of your video that reminds them to do so.
Include A Compelling Call-To-Action (CTA)
You may recall a TV show telling you “don’t touch that dial!,” but you want your YouTube videos to do the opposite. To be effective, your company’s videos must include a compelling call-to-action (CTA) at the end of your video that convinces your prospective customers to immediately complete your desired action, such as “contact us” or “request a quote.”
For more ways to optimize your company's YouTube Channel, contact us today. Our team of online marketing experts can help you get the most out of your video content marketing strategy.