5 TIPS TO OPTIMISE YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY ON YOUTUBE

On our last blog entry we wrote about the main three reasons why video content can be a key element on a consumer’s purchase process. Today, we will give you five important tips to optimise your Digital Marketing Strategy on YouTube.

YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and second most visited site after Google. It has also become the second largest social media platform with over 1.5 billion monthly users, following Facebook’s two billion users, and more than twice the amount on Instagram, which is 700 million. 

Due to this fascinating growth, digital marketing specialists are investing every time more efforts to increase brand exposure and enhance sales by using YouTube.

If you want your digital content to stand out, here are 5 simple YouTube tips to optimise your Digital Marketing Strategy on this platform, allowing you to boost rankings on search engines, increase shares, and give your brand more visibility.

#1. KEYWORDS MATTER WHEN IT COMES TO VIDEO TITLES

Keywords placed strategically on your video titles will help you improve rankings in both YouTube and Google.

Use titles that are attractive to both viewers and search bots for your video to appear on the first page. The title you choose must be overall engaging, catchy, easy to read, and needs to make clear what the video is about.

Include important names and characters and be sure to mention any relevant location, especially if you’re targeting a specific area.

#2. WRITE YOUR VIDEO DESCRIPTIONS STRATEGICALLY

Video and channel descriptions are an important resource for bringing traffic to your content. YouTube permits up to 5,000 characters for descriptions, which means about 500 to 700 words, a good amount of space that allows you to provide solid context to viewers while making the most out of your SEO tools.

The first 150 characters are the most important. After these, YouTube cuts the description off and inserts a “Show More” button that the viewer has to click to read the rest. Many viewers never click on the “read more” button, hence you need to make sure you provide the most essential information in the first 150 characthers. Tell them everything they need to know about your video. You can focus on inserting more keywords and detailed information later.

The more original the content you provide on your video is, and also what you write on your description field, the easier it’ll be for search engines to understand what your video is about and which search queries to give it a ranking for.

Additionally, descriptions give you an opportunity to link to your affiliated channels, websites, and social media accounts.

#3. CREATE EFFECTIVE THUMBNAILS

Use a customised, high-resolution thumbnail when sharing your videos. Create your own on-brand thumbnails and use them to highlight the moment on the video that is more likely to intrigue YouTube users.

Viewers only have a moment to process what your video is about based on a tiny image in the right-hand column on their screens, so make sure your thumbnails are readable and easy to recognise.

It’s important that your videos are recognisable to viewers who follow your brand or channel. We advise that if you put a company logo on one thumbnail, you put it also on all of the others, so when users see your logo on the suggested videos sidebar or in search results they are more lickely to click on it.

There are some websites that can help you generate thumbnails, if you have a graphics department, use their skills to create one.

#4. USE TITLES AND THUMBNAILS THAT WORK TOGETHER

Most people decide to watch a video based on the combination of the thumbnail and title. It’s extremely important that your title and thumbnail work together to tell a story.

#5. CREATE PLAYLISTS

YouTube’s search tends to show playlists at the top of its results pages. For this reason, it might be a good idea to start grouping together certain videos in your channel based on type or subject, making it easier for your followers to access the videos that interest them in one click.

If you make a group of videos on a subject that a viewer has a particular interest in, users can access the playlist and watch every one in a single session. This can boost your YouTube engagement rate, which is a relevant factor when it comes to YouTube search rankings.

YouTube playlists also help you increase your search rankings for content with a greater variety of key phrases. Take this opportunity to include more keywords into your playlist titles.

To conclude, we recommend you to promote your videos away from YouTube because it´s a great way of generating more views. Point to your videos in blogs and social media posts increasing the chances of gaining additional shares and generating more views.