Introduction: There have been some post asking "how" to promote your site on youtube. So I thought an introduction is due. My youtube channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/survivalistboards <-- wait for the background image to load. As of monday, May 19th at 1:00pm central time: Videos Uploaded: 260 Video Views: 1,121,520 Channel Type: Director Channel Views: 42,361 Subscribers: 1,908 Everyone of my videos is watermarked with my site address. So my site URL has been seen about 1.1 million times. I am also a youtube partner - meaning I get to brand my channel with a banner. Plus, a banner appears next to every one of my videos. This means I have 260 banners on one of the top ranked websites world wide - one banner for every uploaded video. Step One: Create yourself a youtube account. It helps if you use your site address or something related to your content. Youtube account names are almost as good as a full website name - so its very important that you get this right. Dress up your account page. This means changing the colors from white to something else, or add a nice back ground image. Please do not use a background image that repeats itself 100 times - it gives me a headache. Step Two: You need a camera and some video editing software. Camera - Something that takes video & sound. Software - The easiest video software to use is Windows Movie maker that comes with XP service pack 2 or Vista. Step Three: Film the video Step Four - editing the video: This is maybe the most important thing you can do. Be sure to put something like "This is a "your website name here" production" at the first of the video. Put some kind of logo at the introduction of every video. Use some kind of background music, just a few seconds long. Never use anyone elses copyrighted material - ever. This video should be 100% your original production and your property. At the end of the video put something like "Visit the website "your site here."" Posting the video: In the video description, on the top line post an address to your site. If the video is going to embedded in your blog or page, post a link to that page as well. Video Title: Short, sweet and to the point. Video titles are more then just a title, they are keywords. So put the important words first in the title. Leave out unnecessary words, such as "The" at the start of the title. Instead of making a title like - "the wonderful video", just name it "Wonderful Video". Video Description: Link to your website goes on first line, then a break to the next line. Put as many key words into the video description as possible. Copy the words from your "Key Word" box and paste them into the bottom line for your video description. Bait and Switch This is a practice that I do not use, nor do I endorse it. When you edit your video, in the exact middle is where the preview image is going to come from. A lot of people will put a picture of a pretty woman in the exact middle of the video. That way, the preview image of the video is the woman - not some ugly guy sitting there talking. Videos like this usually get more views then those that have a bland preview image. Pretty women: Get a nice looking pretty woman to help you do the videos. Sex sells and that goes for youtube as well. Youtube Partner: Once you have a few videos uploaded, sign up for a youtube partner account and brand your channel. This will allow you to put a banner next to every video and at the top of your youtube profile page. This is my banner that appears next to everyone of my videos Success on youtube comes at a cost, so its not free. The cost is lots of hard work, thought and planning. Organize your video introductions so they look semi-professional, just a simple picture, logo and music will do just fine. Make the videos personal: If someone off your website ask you a question, instead of clicking the reply button in your email - make a video about the question. Make the video personal by saying something like - "Mark from Texas writes in and ask." Then make the video about the answer to his question. Refer to the website in your videos Mention the website and ask people to visit. Make videos that match the topics of your site, except one personal nitch: Most of my videos are hiking, camping, hunting and gardening related, except for one group of videos - my bar-b-qs. Every once in awhile I will throw in a bar-b-q video just to break things up a little. As an example, here is a bar-b-q video I did this weekend - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVpxYTI1iHQ Since I started posting videos on youtube, more of the traffic to my site has come from youtube then google. Thank you for your time.
Importance of copyright: Example 1: A few months ago I found a website distributing my videos on their site. The catch was, the person had to install a tool bar / spyware on their browser to view my videos. The site would give a 30 second preview of the video, then it would go to something like - "If you want to see the rest of the video then sign up here." The guest was then prompted to download an EXE file. So I sent that site a nice email telling them they had my property on their servers and it must be removed in a reasonable amount of time. The videos have to be offered at no obligation or not at all. Within about 4 - 6 hours all of my videos had been removed. Example 2: A few weeks ago I found a guy who had uploaded about 6 of my videos to his account on another video hosting site (not youtube). Plus, this person had signed up to run ads on my videos - so he was making money off my labor. So, I sent an email to the video hosting site. In the email I explained that the copyright logo and my website name are clearly visible in the videos. The mail also contained links to all of my videos that I claimed copyright infringement, plus a link to my website, plus my email at the websites domain name. Within about 24 hours all of the videos had been transfered from that other person account to my account. Copyright, along with your website name are very important for when you have to make a claim to your video. Keep all of the raw unedited videos. Just in case you have to sue someone for copyright infringement, you have all the raw footage that the video clip was made from. This can help prove your case if need be. Keep in mind people can download your videos from youtube - protect your property. Personally I use a watermark program that marks the entire length of the video. That way if someone takes my video apart and splits it up, the watermark will still be there. Selling your site and videos: Plus, if you ever decide to sell your site, the videos are a good tool to negotiate with. If the new owner wants the videos and the right to broadcast the videos, that is an extra X amount of money. Explain the youtube accounts, banners and branding to the buyer.
this is great stuff to help understand the real power of you tube and online promotion, thanks for taking the time to do this, dave
Thanks for the share bro, this will be a very BIG help for me. rep added and thread bookmark. Youtube here I come
Good info. I'm actually surprised that a simple email was all it took to get them to comply. That seems almost too easy. I would expect the type of people that would steal your content for there own use would have such a sence of entitlement type of personality that more aggressive measures would need to be taken to get them to remove your videos. I'm glad for you that that was not the case. At least your watermark got some extra exposure
Agreed with all the kudos comments - one of the best coupla posts here in a while. Really informative. All I need now is that video camera....
How do you then promote your vids to get more views and blog posts with your video? "Video Responses"?
I agree that if you have a business and you're not on youtube then you need a heavy slap!! #3 website in the world... it ain't rocket science guys... get yourselves/business on youtube and let's see the people behind these flashy websites... :>)