YouTube and their Success
YouTube success stories are as frustrating as they are inspiration. Just look at channels like Ryan’s Toy Review or PewDiePie. If you’re like me, you look at these videos and thing “well heck, I could have done that!” The content isn’t all that remarkable—opening toys and screaming while playing video games—but millions upon millions watch every single video they post… earning the content creators millions of their own.
But here’s the thing—there was a time when Ryan, Felix, and their counterparts were just starting out, struggling to get their video views into the four-digit numbers and wondering why their content just wasn’t taking off.
Eventually, though, they hit the perfect combination of content, keywords and SEO techniques, and boom—success.
The inspiring part of all this is that you too can nail that combination of content and SEO for YouTube, which could be game changing for your website and/or brand. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world behind Google (which owns YouTube), so this is definitely an audience you can’t afford to ignore.
It’s All About The Keywords
YouTube SEO isn’t that different from any other SEO, so keywords play just as big a role here as they do on Google. So fill your video description with dynamic and regularly searched keywords, include keywords in your video title, and even use keywords in the file name of your video. Users won’t even see the file name, but it will still impact search results.
Pop Them Tags
You have the opportunity to include tags on every video you upload, and it’s imperative that you do this, and do it correctly. Don’t get overly specific with you tags either, use terms that the average person might use in a web search.
Use A Custom Thumbnail
This is the mark of a video that’s in it to win it, as opposed to the video that’s in it “to see what happens” and just let’s YouTube select a random video frame to use as your thumbnail. This single image often determines whether someone will click your video once it shows up in their search results, so don’t skip this step.
Sulu, Engage
Engagement (not the diamond ring kind) is imperative for getting your numbers to grow. Find ways to encourage your viewers to like or comment on your video. Every time they do, it increases the chances of someone else seeing your video, commenting, and continuing the cycle of success.
- Longer Is Better – I’m talking about video On Facebook, video content tends to skew shorter for better results, but YouTube rewards longer length videos—those around 11 to 12 minutes getting some of the best results.
- Mix The Right Formula – How-To videos, Tutorials, and Informational videos are the most successful formats, so if you can work your content into one of these formulas, great. People go to YouTube when they want a visual example of how to do something, so ask yourself “what do my customers want to know how to do?”
- Convert The Heathens – Not with fire and brimstone, but with the final frames of your video content. You see it at the end of every successful YouTube channel video—the few seconds at the end that give you a choice of watching other videos on the same channel, or subscribing to see new content in the future. If you got someone to watch your entire video, you have a great chance of getting them to watch more of your content, so don’t let that fish off the line!
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