In a previous thread I posted "How to pimp your site on youtube." In this thread I will explain "Why" you should pimp your site on youtube. 1. According to Quantcast, youtube is the #3 website worldwide, source - http://www.quantcast.com/youtube.com When you post a video on youtube, its more then a video, its a selling point for your website. There is a chance that millions of people can see your video. And then there is the chance that nobody will see your video. The better / funnier / sexier the video - more people will watch it. 2. Free storage: If you rent a server chances are you have limited storage room. Even with a dedicated server, you may only get X amount of hard drive space. Youtube offers unlimited storage capacity for your videos. Then just embed the videos where ever you want them. Right now, I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 - 50 gigs of videos uploaded to youtube. Offloading those videos to youtube also means you have less to back up on your own server. Its just one less worry that site ops do not have to bother with. The less data you "have" to backup, the easier the backups get. 3. Free memory / CPU: If you have an active website with a forum, the MYSQl queries can suck the memory right out of a server. Hosting your own videos, with who knows how many people watching them will only eat up more of your server memory and CPU. Youtube offers unlimited memory and processors to feed your streaming video needs. CPU & Memory is one of the biggest cost of website owners. Off loading the streaming video to another server would be like having a whole second / free dedicated server. Most server OPs would love to have a dedicated server. Well, youtube is your dedicated streaming video sever. All you have to do is create a free account to get your free dedicated streaming video server. 4. Free banners: How could any site owner not want free banners on the #3 website in the entire world? Its simple - just sign up for a youtube partner account. Once you are approved as a partner, you can upload a banner that will appear next to every one of your videos. These banners can also be animated gifs so they really catch the eye of anyone watching your videos. The more videos you have, the more banners you have - its a win, win situation. These banners can have your website site name on them, or some kind of advertisement for your site. 5. Free TV commercials: Even though youtube is not a "real" TV company its close enough. If you have ever thought about running a TV ad about your website - youtube is the place to do it. Instead of the TV ad being local to where you live, or local to where it is broadcast - youtube is worldwide. Instead of having to hire a company to film the video for you, all you need is a video camera and some video editing software. 6. Free links: Even though youtube uses "Do not follow" on links put into video descriptions, that command just blocks search engines. If a link is put on the first line of the video description, where people can see it - there is a good chance the link will be clicked by a real person. In the video description, the link location is very, very important. A link to your site should go on the first line of the description. Then hit the enter key, break down to the next line, then type in a description. 7. Curiosity killed the cat: Sometimes the owners of videos will go through and check to see who is embedding their stuff. If the owner of the video does not recognize the site that is linking to their videos, they are likely to visit your site and see just "Who you are and why are you embedding my videos." If the maker of the video likes your site, they might just stick around. 8. Use a little sugar: Kind words go a long ways here. If you embed a video from youtube, try to post some good stuff about the video and the author. Then send the author of the video a message on youtube telling him / her you have their video embedded and a link to your site. If the author is impressed with what you and your members had to say, they might sign up and post a thank you. The more brown nosing you do, the more likely the person is to stick around. 9. Targeted traffic: Your videos should fit into a certain nitch. A lot of people on youtube are looking for videos on "certain" subject matter. All you have to do is tap into that group of people that are looking for your "nitch" and show them what you can offer them. This part 2 of a youtube 3 part series. The next part is going to discuss "how to get members / visitors" on your site by using someone else's youtube videos. Even if you do not upload a single video, its possible to direct traffic to your blog / forum by using youtube videos - but that will be discussed later.