When it comes to SEO strategies, there’s always a lot of buzz about content repurposing, social media, guest blogging, blog commenting, and all kinds of link building strategies I’m sure you’ve read about.
However, there’s one strategy that often gets left out of the mix and it involves the #2 search engine on the Web…
Video marketing.
And if you aren’t using it, you are leaving traffic and exposure on the table.
Now, what’s so groovy about YouTube is there is a double bonus:
- You can gain exposure through searches on YouTube
- Your videos can rank in Google Search individually
And unlike Google.com, the majority of your competitors have no presence there.
After all, many people are simply too ashamed of how they look, talk, smile, blink, breathe, or sit.
The rest don’t want to be bothered with the technical details of creating and editing their videos.
SIDE NOTE FROM ANA:
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Don’t know about what I’m talking about? Read my full Content Samurai review plus get a discount.
Or watch this Content Samurai review on YouTube (created with, what else!… Content Samurai!)
So because of that, YouTube is far less competitive than Google is when it comes to SEO.
Many of my videos rank for pretty competitive one and two-word phrases that I would NEVER rank for on Google.com.
So if that’s not enough motivation to warm up those vocal chords and press record, then I’m not sure what to say about you. 😉
It’s Not Magic
Now I should mention that YouTube is not an instant traffic source.
People don’t just tune in because you have a channel.
Just like content, your videos have to be good enough to be liked, shared, favorited and embedded to gain that all-important SEO advantage.
The more this happens, the greater the chance they will rank high in both YouTube and Google.
Of course creating great titles, descriptions and keywords helps, but ultimately the popularity is what will determine how visible your video will be.
So How Can YouTube Build Traffic to My Site?
I’m glad you asked.
Of course, not every person who watches your video is going to translate into a visit to your site, but there are things you can do to encourage people to visit:
- Always put your website address within the first few characters of the description.
- Embed your call to action with YouTube Cards.
- Create a blog post video trailer (you can see one in Ana’s post about emoji marketing) and tell people to click on the link in the description.
- Start a contest and point your visitors back to your site to enter.
- Add your website URL to your YouTube homepage. It’s a nofollow link, but can still provide some click traffic.
What About The SEO Benefits of Embedding Videos?
You may be wondering if embedding videos into your content pages will affect their SEO.
Not directly because iFrame code cannot be spidered by Google.
However, you can create a video sitemap, which helps the engines to find and spider your video content.
So even though there are no direct benefits from embedding, there are still some indirect bonuses:
- Your visitors can rate embedded videos at the end, so these votes will impact the video’s SEO for YouTube and Google.
- If you add a relevant video to a popular page, you can make it even more popular. More people may share your content via social media, which could have indirect SEO benefits for the video down the line.
- Some people prefer to watch video, while others would rather read text. For certain tutorials, I’ll embed the video at the top of the page for those who prefer a visual and provide a text version underneath.
So if you create a video and don’t currently have a content page for it, that last tip comes in handy.
Now your video is doing double duty: it can increase your website traffic from YouTube and Google, while paving the way for a new content page.
See an example with my WordPress header tutorial that I just launched.
By the way, did you happen to notice the rating request underneath the video?
Take note!
It never hurts to ask your viewers to rate your content — as long as you ask nicely, of course. 😉
How to Build a Following on YouTube
Now, that I’ve hyped up the wonders of YouTube, I’ll leave you with some actionable tips you can implement immediately to rev up those subscribers!
I recently published a two-part video that outlines many of my strategies.
In the first video, you will learn more about the importance of using the YouTube keyword tool, targeting your videos and strategies for uploading video responses…
In the second video, you’ll discover the importance of creating playlists for your videos and more…
Stop Missing Out!
So hopefully you can see the traffic and exposure potential that video provides.
Not only can video improve the quality of your existing pages, but creating YouTube videos allows you to develop a completely separate traffic stream to your website!
And speaking of traffic streams, here’s my referral traffic from YouTube last month.
Not too shabby considering I only uploaded one video during that time.
This is mostly passive traffic from my collection of videos.
So yes, I know social media is “where it’s at” today, but I believe many of you are leaving a lot on the table by ignoring YouTube and all the added exposure and traffic it can bring over time.
Not to mention, it’s a much less crowded arena when it comes to SEO!
LISA IRBY
Lisa is an entrepreneur, tech junkie and owner of 2 Create a Website. She enjoys discovering ways to break down website and marketing tips into digestible bites. Also, check out her latest passive income hobby website, PassiveShirtProfits.com.
@Cristian Balau
I think you’re right about needing to be a “you tuber” to succeed on You Tube. But that’s true of any network.
We need to take time to work out how to use the network as a “real” person before trying to exploit it as part of our evil plans for world domination.
For example, I have a completely un-stellar Facebook page and that’s probably because I hate Facebook. Nothing I can do about it. Always have done.
Twitter, on the other hand – which I’m quite in to – it going great for me. And don’t get me started about Pinterest – I can’t get off that thing.
There are many great benefits in using YouTube to drive traffic to your site. I just recently overcame my fear of making YouTube videos. I sometimes find myself critiquing every thing that could possibly be wrong about a video I made like whether my voice is loud enough or not, if I said the right things, if I pronounced a word incorrectly or not, etc., but I’ve learned to just not care. I get my message across and that’s all that matters to me.
Preach it Lisa! You are the Queen of YouTube videos and you rock big time.
I went on YouTube by chance and ever since, I’ve been loving it. I’ve experienced firsthand that Youtube has millions of untapped audience and it has taken my site to a whole new level! The good thing about YT is that most people search for one video and then watch hundreds of other videos based one what comes up on the related videos so our videos will eventually get discovered even in very competitive niches. And once we put some good stuff out there, our popularity grows by the day.
Most often it is unfounded fear that keeps us from going on YouTube but those fears can easily be overcome.
There are many ways to share some info in a video without showing one’s face or even talking in the videos. My videos are typical examples of such. Just find a way to impact the knowledge and viewers will thank you for that and keep coming back.
On the technical side, you need to see my first few videos! Very poor editing and stuff but they are still the most popular videos of their kind till today cos they contain a lot of information that cannot be found in similar videos. If we don’t DO it, we will never learn and practice makes perfect.
So never fear guys, come out to YouTube and play 🙂 I promise you’ll love it.
Thanks Flo! I agree about overcoming the fear. Plus we are usually our worst enemy when it comes to critiquing ourselves, so it’s never as bad as we make it seems sometimes. And as you said, a little bit of practice goes a long way!! 🙂 Thanks for stopping by.
You certainly can, but sometimes I want to search for longer tail keywords so I like to see actual numbers.
Lisa rocks! Thanks for the great YouTube tips, I’m more of the “make a presentation” type than anything, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that you had me at “hello” once I saw your first video. I mean that in a totally “I’m the guy married with 7 kids and love my wife” sorta way, I just mean it’s easy to connect with you seeing your face and expressiveness.
Have always enjoyed your vids, thanks for letting us in on your little secret there. 🙂
I did have a question, though: you mention some SEO on your videos, sort of in passing – but do you care more where you rank on YouTube or on Google with your vids?
I’ve heard YouTube gets more traffic if your videos rank there, vs. on Google organic listings (i.e. you’d get more views ranking highly in YouTube vs. Google, interestingly enough). Makes sense to me, but has that been your experience?
And: how do you track where in YouTube you rank? There aren’t any tools I know of to do that yet (I could be wrong: the web’s a big place)…
LOL!! Thanks, James! I just do a manual search for many of them to check so nothing savvy there. I also check the reports located underneath the video. If I see I’m getting a lot of traffic from that keyword, I’ll plug it in to see where I rank.
I’ve had a few videos come up pretty high in organic search, but find that most of them seem to get traffic from YouTube’s organic listings.
Thanks for sharing this Lisa. I was myself wondering that even though in number of searches Youtube is the second largest search engine but why so many people don’t take advantage of it. And i think there is another additional benefit also . If you can teach someone by using videos. You can establish yourself as an authority in your field far easily. I would like if in another post you explain some of the basics of youtube marketing.
I had zero success with youtube although I had a couple campaigns for different sites. I put so much time and effort into those videos only to get just a few visits per month.
I feel that you must become an ‘youtuber’ to really make it on youtube, just uploading some videos around and waiting for success won’t do the trick. You need to respond to other videos, maybe create a little drama to gain subscribers and stuff like this…
It takes a shift in thinking to go from “readers” to “viewers” but it sure makes sense to try, Lisa.
I’ve never really been a big “video guy”…but you’re right…I need to get on it. Especially for the traffic sake. Thanks Lisa for a really awesome post!
Thanks, Michael! You never know, you may actually enjoy it after you get into a rhythm! 🙂
Hi Lisa, A good tip on youtube. Not many people are using it for traffic generation but it does have lot of people which can be targetted…
Lisa,
You are a great instructor when it comes to explaining how to leverage You Tube. Getting more passive traffic to our blogs helps the bottom line. I agree that video adds great value to our blog and page posts. People will be able to get to know you much faster and that develops Know-Like-Trust which will begin a relationship online.
I agree, Danielle! I think the “trust factor” is a HUGE benefit that indirectly drives traffic and sales.
Some good points, Lisa.
Youtube videos do seem to rank well, even for high volume(competitive) keywords…
As others have mentioned, it is probably the technical aspects along with camera shyness, that keep many people from taking the plunge…
Many videos receive an incredible number of views(and comments) though, these are not usually tutorials, etc….
There are a number of videos(tutorials)where the quality is really poor.
Sometimes the picture and sound are terrible and/or the person just mumbles their way through making hard to follow….
On the other hand there are well done(audio, visual–spoken clearly) tutorials that are not getting many views…..
Hi Daniel,
Sure, well the key is to not stop with uploading the video. That’s only the beginning… unless you already have a high traffic channel. You have to work hard at cross promoting by embedding on your site, using social media and also using the Annotation feature to cross-link your videos together.
For some it definitely comes easier than others, but still worth the work for the long-term benefit in my opinion.
Thanks for commenting!
Hi Lisa
Finally I got the time to come and read your guest post. You really have some great points here about YouTube for SEO and Traffic generation. You kind of had my with the statement that YouTube is #2 search engine on the Web. That combined with the fact that the competition is not as big as on Google there is no more excuses for not to create YouTube videos.
Hey Thomas,
Glad you made it!
When I decided to write about YouTube that was the one point that kept ringing in my head — there is just massive potential simply due to the fact Google is the only other engine that is searched more online.
Great post Lisa. YouTube is definitely an untapped market. I think many people avoid it because it is quite a bit of work setting up a camera, finding something worth filming, and of course being camera shy. Lots of potential there for sure though.
Lisa, you have been my inspiration since the first time I saw one of your videos 3 years ago! I’m starting to see some growth in traffic to my blog coming from YouTube and for me reading this article is like preaching to the choir. But I’m always ready and willing to sing backup for you girlfriend!
Thanks so much for spreading the gospel over here on Ana’s blog!
Let the church say Amen.
You crack me up, Ileane! You do a great job with your videos and after watching that video response you did for me last year I really look forward to seeing more of you on YouTube. But as you said, I totally understand not having the “camera ready hair” and getting prepped after coming home from work.
You really are a natural in front of the camera though and I enjoyed watching you!
Videos have a high commanding power when it comes to ranking a site. On this premise, it’s best to pack your videos with the right amount of link juice for the search engines to find. That would surely complete your video promotional campaign.
I started out with YouTube a few months ago and slowly getting into the groove. Still a bit self conscious about being in front of the camera so I tend to do more of screen casts and presentations, which also seems to be working well.
Good for you, Shamelle. Yes, screencasts can be very useful… especially in certain niches
Hi Lisa,
Youtube can certainly be a great source of traffic and as you mentioned many forget that it’s second largest search engine after google. Additionally youtube videos rank much easier than any other web page, actually I have read somewhere that videos rank 53 times better than text pages and from my experience this is more than true, thanks for sharing all these tips…
Hi Kostas,
Yes, it definitely doesn’t hurt that YouTube is owned by Google, huh? They do like to favor their videos in the SERPS. 🙂
I would hardly call YouTube ‘untapped.’ If you look at most keyword niches, you’ll see plenty of people targeting traffic by making keyword videos. I say, don’t encourage them! It’s obvious what will happen if every IM who has been booted out of Google starts spamming up YouTube 🙂
Hi Chikara,
LOL, true but comparing it to the number of spammy content pages in Google, I would say the problem is not nearly as bad.
There is no doubt that video marketing and promotion is great way to attract targeted visitors to your site, but my main problem is I don’t have any idea what type of video should I should create and my niche is software development. If you can suggest me something I would be really grateful to you.
Hi Aasma,
I understand that certain niches don’t automatically or logically translate to video. The approach I always suggest is to think about industry news and create videos that give your opinion of what’s going on in your niche. There’s always some kind of news in any niche that the people are following or interested in.
Also, you could consider using Camtasia and do screen recording videos to help other software developers with their projects.
Thanks Lisa, For your suggestion… I think you’re right news is always there for every niche, so I can concentrate to create videos related to niche news and we can even represent our own view.
YouTube certainly is a great free service to market just about anything. I see articles like this fairly often that tell us we should put a little effort into YouTube. Some people say making a video is fairly easy, but either I am picky about the quality, or I am not that good with video creation or editing. I have tried in the past to make a video, and after spending more time than what I would like I kind of pushed YouTube to the side for the time being.
Thanks for your reply Lisa, as my YouTube account is already enabled for monitizing now and I am definitely going to upload some videos and promote them, hope they become viral someday 😀
Hi Lisa, This is awesome. I currently have 150 videos, but I know that I should be doing better and I have plenty of content to make videos about. I feel more motivated after reading your post, so thank you so much for that!
Really nice post, it reminds me of a theory I lectured about a few weeks ago. The basic idea was that Youtube has the community already, and everybody can get to you rapidly. When I was 9, I made my first Youtube account. At age 9, with very little knowledge about what people wanted, I was able to make a video that received well over 15,000 views in a span of a month. That was huge for me.
But the real kick came in when I realized the power of it nearly six years later. I didn’t do a lick of promotion to gain those 15,000 views. I spent about ten minutes making the video, and it just took off. It was unique – and I didn’t even mean for it to be.
If I were to make a brand new blog and make the same post, though, it would require a TON of promotion to get 15,000 views in the first month. If you were to share the article on Twitter, you probably wouldn’t get a big response, either. That’s the difference. Youtube is already powerful and EVERYONE can get a big slice of the pie. I had 10 subscribers before the video was released – I gained nearly 400 after it was released.
The real trick is to market yourself onto YouTube, attracting a YouTube-schemed audience, and then pull them in. That’s a difficult task in itself – Youtube users are (and no offense to those die-hard-youtubers – I’m one, too) generally too arrogant and lazy to go to your website after the video. They make decisions with their eyes, not their brains.
I think the blogger who can really capture Youtube’s full power will come out on top. Always.
Wow, 15,000 views in one month is pretty darn good for ten minutes of work! Nice ROI. 🙂 The teaser strategy I mentioned in the post also can get more people over to your site. But you’re right…. there’s a certain percentage that just won’t visit no matter what you do. Nevertheless, you gotta love the exposure potential.
Joe,
What was the first video that went viral? DO you have the link?
Aloha Lisa, very well done post and video. You offered so much value to those who may have overlook certain online marketing tools and simple methods, but the nice thing is that we’re able to go over your information to get all over again.
I’ve seen some of your valuable YT videos in the past pertaining to affiliate marketing tips and it’s just as good as it gets here. I’m glad I came by and thanks Ana, for having you as a guest here to share these tips as well. Mahalo, Lani 🙂
Aloha, Lani! Thank you so much. Really means a lot. 🙂
Lisa,
Fantastic post on YouTube… I’ve been very hit and miss with YouTube. I’ll get into it for a while and then I’ll let it go and then get into for a while… You get the drift.
I’m trying to really hammer out where I want to focus my time moving forward. Right now YouTube and Google+ seem like fantastic places to be.
Thanks!!
Ryan H.
Hi Ryan,
I understand. It may take some time to get your mojo working and to figure out what people in your niche want to watch, but the benefits are amazing if you are consistent and your subscriber base grows.
I did not think of YouTube at all but it makes perfect sense since I use it for virtually everything! Thank you so much for this great tip and I know it takes time and patience to see real traffic come in but it’s worth it.
Hi Amra,
Yep! And if YOU use it, so does your audience… so you might as well get out there and get in front of them right? 😉 Cheers!
I don’t think its just the confidence side of video that is off putting, but the technical side of video editing. A lot of people see this as a daunting exercise, which would require considerable investment both financially and in terms of time. And slide shows / animations are a bit of a cop out.
True, that’s why I recommend iMovie. It’s free with Macs and is pretty intuitive compared to most video editing programs.
Sssshhhhh! Dont tell everyone! lol 🙂
Only Joking. As you said, not many people know or can be bothered with this yet but I’m sure it will catch on soon.
Oh no! The secret’s out now! lol
Another social media insight. Yes, I do agree with you Lisa. Not many people would like hundreds of people to see their faces because of, well, confidence issues. We all have our issues and for some, it’s video-related. However, I think videos containing just animations, pictures and a few words do rank well. I guess that’s an option for the “video-phobic” person.
What’s your take on automation in YouTube? Generating views can really be a good idea but sometimes, what works on Pinterest may not work for YouTube, even if they are both social.
Hi Lanre,
You’re right. A very well put together screencast or animation can do well. However, there are such big benefits to letting people actually see the real person behind the site. It can build a tremendous amount of trust.
I’m not a big fan of automation if you mean services like TubeToolbox. My traffic grew organically over time and I think that’s the best way to go. I’ve never used those services so I can’t speak on that.
Great post Lisa!
It’s good to see someone that actually does something, write about it. Your thesis video tutorial helped me out a great deal ( and I mean it-no hype). Once again, you’re awesome!
The big downside, I think, why people detest youtube strategy is the technicality. Heck, it’s way strenous to put up a video. It’s even more strenous to put up a quality video( in terms of content and clarity) that’ll get lot’s of shares, like and embedds. I’ve seen a great many tutorials whose codes aren’t just visible. The only thing you get is a nice background music and some funny voices. Great post though. Great break down on youtube for traffic lovers.
Hi Victor,
No doubt the editing process does take time. I find that iMovie is one of the easiest, fastest editing tools to work with… especially if you are recording directly into the built-in Web cam.
It’s also helpful to create a template in your recording software that has your intro and outro built in so all you have to do is plop the video file in.
One of my goals is to produce a tutorial video on creating better quality videos. Seems to be a great need for that now.
This is top secret info…
So many individuals sleep on YouTube traffic. I love generating traffic and ranking from YouTube.
There are techniques that a lot of individuals don’t discuss that helps out to rank out other videos and search engines. You just have to play with it and test it. But overall, YouTube is POWERFUL!
Josh Garcia
People really are sleeping on it, but it provides a huge advantage for those who jump in and carve out their piece of the YouTube pie, huh? 😉
Thanks for these pro tips, never thought youtube can be this much helpful. But I really think its hard to start video blogging these days as I already tried on youtube but due to lack of subscribers didn’t get much views as I expected.
Hi Preetam,
It definitely takes time to master. I didn’t have many subscribers at first either, but the more I vlogged, the more I got the hang of it. You should try again! 🙂