As the second largest search engine (the first being Google Search), YouTube plays a vital role in the world of video marketing. With over a billion unique users month, you can’t afford not to use it, but as a company your main objective should be getting that traffic to your website. Here’s how:
Use a Link in the Description
Most videos you see on YouTube will have a include a brief summary and other information that is relevant to the video. Although the purpose is to tell the viewer about the video, you can make it even more useful by having a link to your website as well. By doing this people who are reading will see the link and possibly click it if they are interested. It just makes it easier for people to directly click something rather than type in your company’s name on Google. To increase the chances of people clicking it, you should give it some context e.g. saying “To see more videos like this, visit our full portfolio here” is friendlier and more informative than just posting a link to it.
Branded T-Shirts
If you put a video on YouTube that is interesting or helpful to your viewers and you happen to be wearing a branded t-shirt with your website address on it, the viewer can’t avoid seeing your branding inside the video. Even if they don’t read the description or see any other links, the information is likely to stick in their mind due to there being something visual and appealing to look at, rather than just words. This doesn’t just apply to t-shirts, you could use anything that has your web address or logo on it.
Video Annotations
Annotations are a good form of call to action when using YouTube. You can place an annotation anywhere in a video to highlight something important e.g. if you briefly talk about your product in the video you can use an annotation with a link to a page that has everything your viewers need to know on it. When applying these, make sure that you don’t use too many because it can look intrusive and messy.
Link On Your Channel
Viewers who are interested in your company and enjoy your videos are likely to subscribe to your channel. By this point they may have already visited your website but in case they haven’t you should put a link in your bio (which is on your channel page). You could also use your social media buttons too such as Twitter, Facebook, Google + etc. but the main place you want your viewers to head to is your website.
Teaser Videos
If you have a video you think is really special, you can use YouTube to create a short preview of that video and link it to the full version on your website using the methods mentioned above. This will lure them in and you will be getting valuable traffic from doing so.
Video Outro
Creating your own video outro is the strongest link you could possibly use. A 10 second outro to placed at the end of your video will be visible to everyone watching (if they watch until the very end). The only issue is that creating your outro can take time but anyone can make one using free programs such as Windows Movie Maker. Here’s a preview of ours below so you have an idea of what it could look like. As you can see it doesn’t need to be much, you just need to have a call to action and something to make it look more appealing, such as images and colour.
So really there are two different approaches you could take to get your YouTube traffic to your website. You can put your website address in the video itself, or you could link it outside of the video. Obviously you’ll get better results if you do both, but you should use whatever you think will work best depending on the type of video you are creating.