Just wondering if anyone has backlinked to their youtube vids in order to move them up the SERP - and if it helped any?
Putting a backlink to a Youtube clip on your website won't do much for your SERPS. If you add a link to your website on your YouTube video, that may help a bit but it'd mostly add more traffic to your site as opposed to helping your SE rankings. YouTube can be powerful, but you need to know how to run it.
I embed the niche videos that I make on my web sites (ie - My video about the 2009 Portland Pirate Festival is on the Events in Portland page). When you create a video, add a link to your site at the beginning of the description and, when you're editing the video, you can always brand or watermark your videos with your URL. Just make sure the content of the video and the links are advantageous to your viewer. In other words, don't post a link to a site that has nothing to do with your video content.
totally true. I own several youtube channels, some for promotional use, another as a partner for adsense income, and one for fun. in total, I letterally have over 2500 video's online. If i put a websitelink in the description of them all, it would take me hours of work, and hardly any SERP result in the long run.