A little article, I think I wrote in DP before. Re-wrote it on my blog... thought it may help some 'beginner' traffic seekers, YouTube is a great traffic source when used correctly! Getting Traffic with YouTube
Yeh, wasn't meant to be like an in-depth thing. Was meant purely for complete beginners who just... maybe aren't marketing their stuff with video sites, like YouTube.
YouTube traffic seems to be mentioned at least once a day here. yes youTube does get a lot of traffic but people go there for entertainment (sometimes howto instructions) but rarely in the mood to shop. You'll maybe get you video viewed a lot but it would have to be special for you to get lots of traffic from it. YouTube is designed to be a sticky community site. What you're recommending is for people to try to siphon some of their traffic for free. Which is actually a lot harder than it looks. For one thing look at all the distractions around your video on UT. There are far superior and easier ways to get free quality targeted traffic using video.
First of all who said anything about shopping? at no point did I say you had to promote an online store. Secondly, there are plenty of niche's which people get alot of enjoyment out of watching and you can get alot of traffic from. For example, I am a skilled card magician of about 6 years and I sometimes post free tutorials on YouTube or the odd performance and i've only done about... 12 videos so far and have about 380 subscribers. And I get alot of traffic from those videos alone. I think you'll find the superior way you're mentioning doesn't exist, YouTube IS IT, you can target your audience spefically because all sorts use the site. Trying to just rely on basic SEO and backlinks won't last forever, social and viral marketing is the way forward and video via a free service on one of the biggest websites on the Internet? yeh.. good luck finding a superior method.
But that is exactly why google paid a fortune for a cash burning website. to take it to the next level as the next generation marketing medium... Good article.. Bite sized too.
Hey, My buddies and I actually have a Director account in Youtube as we like to fool around with our own mini-films. I've never used Youtube for marketing purposes but managed to pick up some books and videos along the way. Thanks for the post, a good reminder for an apparently abundant traffic source
YouTube is great, but don't go spamming the comments with your website. It's the worst way to advertise on YouTube, you'll get hardly any visitors, and you'll develop a bad reputation; both on YouTube and on the internet overall.
Thanks for the brief explanation. I have never used youtube as a marketing tool but this read will surely help me someday.
I think if you make a pretty crazy video and connect it to your website, like "If you like it view more here" This is a good way to get some easy traffic.
Jon2k6 OK Jon2k6 apologies for assuming an individual using YouTube to get traffic would want the traffic to purchase something. I sometimes forget there are a lot of webmasters focusing on monetizing their site through selling ad space and PPC only. A model I fear is unsustainable for most. For a website like magic tricks where your audience are seeking visually animated presentations, and entertaining content YouTube would be ideal. Unfortunately, most merchants and service providers are not so lucky with their niche. For example, how would you use YouTube to promote DigitalPoint forum and how much traffic would you expect? KingofKings worded it perfectly: YouTube is like any popular social site (think myspace, yahoo answers, craiglist etc). As soon as webmasters discover that they can take advantage and siphon it's traffic, the quality of the site degrades. Like I said earlier, YouTube is designed to retain its viewers and keep them on the site so Google can server advertisements to them. Currently it does a very good job at it. However, as more videos (designed to take YouTube's visitors away) appear on the site the less sticky it will become. Is this in the interest of YouTube? I bet Google's answer to that is NO! They want to get advertisers to pay to advertise on YouTube, that's why they paid the big $ for it. And finally .. Here is the superior method : First, put a 30 second video together that communicates your unique value proposition and educates your audience about your niche/product/service. Basically make it a 30 second infomercial. This is the superior way to ensure any traffic you get is the highest possible quality, assuming you want the traffic to become customers. Second, put your video in front of an attentive audience on a site designed to showcase your video (I recommend LeadsByVideo.com) without surrounding it by other distracting video temptations. I built such a site so I know it works! Thirdly measure your success, and tweak your video using split testing techniques to test one version against the next until you get the highest conversion rate of good quality targeted traffic. The method I just described is sustainable for the long term. It does not work on the theory of "bastardizing a social website to siphon their traffic", and it uses video, a proven sales aid and the future of the net. If you've read to this point on my post I hope you agree with me, if not let me know. I am passionate about finding sources of quality targeted traffic for webmasters as I launched many online businesses and find that getting and maintaining quality traffic at a reasonable price is a constant struggle.
nice little article there..I'll def. be trying some things now on youtube to drive more traffic to my site's
Another simple way is simply to embed a Youtube video on your site. The top 5 sites who send traffic to the video (# views) get listed under "Links". Just to change the topic a little, I'm beginning to see more and more spam videos on Youtube.