If you’re looking for opportunities to organically grow traffic to your business website and content, you’d be hard-pressed to find one more effective than YouTube.
Not only do nearly 60% of all people prefer online video platforms to traditional TV, but YouTube brings with it a massive audience of nearly 1.9 billion people worldwide on a monthly basis.
Think about it for a moment. Google is the #1 most popular search engine on the planet and YouTube, owned by Google, is the #2 biggest search engines. Therefore, to be successful in growing your business using organic content, you can’t just focus on written content like blog posts or Web pages that are designed to rank in Google using search engine optimization (SEO). Especially since YouTube videos are often included at the top of Google search results.
Google often includes YouTube video recommendations at the top of the search results pages, making it an effective organic marketing opportunity.
While publishing new long-form content like blog posts, you also need to decide when to create video content that can either stand on its own and drive traffic, or be embedded in your posts to compliment your written text. This takes time, energy, planning, and dedication.
Simply having a YouTube channel will never be enough to get the job done. Much like the Google search algorithm, the YouTube algorithm is looking to reward channels that publish content frequently and have growing levels of viewer engagement.
If you truly want to leverage YouTube to grow your business over the next one, five or even 10 years, there are a few important things you need to be aware of. Here are five tips that should get you started.
Tip #1 – Focus on the First Impression
If you really want to use YouTube to grow your business, there are a number of steps that you need to take before you even think about uploading your first video. Start by customizing your channel as much as possible – in other words, use this as an opportunity to make it look decidedly different in an interesting way when compared to every other similar channel out there.
Include some information about your business, your brand, and what you do. Make sure to link back to your primary domain for those SEO benefits. Customize everything from the colors to the cover image that runs across the top to make sure it falls in line with your current branding efforts.
When it does come time to upload your first video, make it a classic introduction. Record a short video letting people know who you are, what you’re all about, and why nobody does what you do quite like how you do it.
Your intro video should explain a little about your company and describe your goals for the YouTube channel.
Keep it brief – a minute or two will do just fine.
Set this video to automatically play every time someone loads your channel for the best results. Remember, you are going to have new visitors to your channel for a long time, so this intro video is important.
Tip #2 – It’s All About Playing the Long Game
When using YouTube to grow your business, it’s important to not create content in a vacuum.
Every video you upload is important and should be able to stand on its own, but each video should also play a larger role in supporting your long-term goals for the channel. Each video should play a role in telling the story of your business, your products, your goals, and your customers.
Think of the process of publishing to a YouTube channel like putting together a pitch presentation for investors.
When you prepare a pitch or a presentation, you’re telling a story. You might use a presentation maker and sequentially add slide after slide to the deck in a manner that it tells a story. Each slide needs to be related to the previous slides, and they all need to be building to something more powerful than any one of them could be on their own.
Your YouTube videos are very similar. Your channel is telling the story of your business and each individual video should contribute to that overall story.
It’s important to know the story you want to tell with your YouTube channel so each of your videos can contribute to the overall story.
Tip #3 – Spark A Reaction
YouTube videos are great because they naturally allow for multiple calls to action, so be sure to use this to your advantage.
Emphasize the ways in which you can grow your business AND your channel at the same time. So for every “if you like this content, please rate this video” or “please subscribe to my channel” that you include, throw in a “visit my website to learn more about my products and services” or a similar variation.
Don’t be afraid to ask your customer to engage.
Likewise, always make sure that you’re varying up your content as frequently as possible. This is how you keep things fresh and new and incentivize people to come back for more.
Tip #4 – Consistency and Dedication Are As Much A Part Of The Success As Content
But the most important thing to understand is that just like your business, growing your YouTube channel is something you’re going to have to work at. It requires proactive dedication – never assume you’ve reached the point where you can just let things run on autopilot. An easy way to be consistent is to create a schedule. That way, people know when to expect your videos and you have a way to keep yourself accountable. Also, YouTube rewards consistent channels by pushing them higher in the search and recommended lists. Don’t forget, as a business, YouTube generates revenue by selling ads on videos. Therefore, when you create consistent quality content, you position yourself for YouTube to promote your videos to a wider audience. Creating regular videos is hard work, but the harder you work, the luckier you get. When you post consistently, you put more opportunities into the world, more hooks in the sea, for people to find and discover you. You never know which video might open the door to success. You can stack the deck in your favor by uploading more often.
Tip #5 – Tech Costs Can Be Low, But Time Investment Should Be High
A “YouTube business” can quickly become profitable, because you don’t need to invest a lot of money to make it happen. A camera isn’t that expensive nowadays, and you can even create a channel that relies on screen recordings (tutorials, gameplays and so on).
But what you do need to invest, is time. YouTube businesses rely on content, so you should create that regularly (preferably several times a week).
A common question we hear is: “How often should I upload to YouTube?”
The answer is, “As often as you can.” It depends, of course, on how busy your life is, and how challenging things are for you right now. If you can only manage one video a month, that’s better than nothing, so long as you’re consistent about it.
Ideally, we recommend a minimum of at least once a week.
It’s better to upload one video a week for 52 weeks and stay consistent throughout the year than to upload 52 videos in the first month and only upload sporadically afterward.
You learn so much more about content creation that way, and your channel benefits from the long-term consistency. Plus, you can avoid burnout that way, because you’re pacing yourself. Consistent creators get rewarded by the audience and the platform.
If you have the bandwidth, infrastructure, passion, and hustle, don't feel limited to only posting once a week. Posting more than once a week will grow your influence faster.
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