Thursday, June 30, 2011

Channel Optimisation: YouTube


This month we’re talking channels and channel optimisation. There’s a dauntingly huge variety of channels you can use to distribute your content, but perhaps one of the most popular and well known (for video at least) would have to be YouTube.

Prior to YouTube’s release in 2005, there were few easy methods available for your average Joe with a computer to post videos online. Its simple interface and ease of use made it a hit, and now YouTube certainly boasts some incredible credentials; exceeding 100 million views a day and localised in 25 different countries across 43 languages.

With such a wide potential audience, you definitely shouldn’t shy away from thinking about optimising your YouTube channel! Here are some simple points to get you on the way;


Relevant and useful Tags
Be liberal with tags for your videos, not just in the tags section but the title as well. It’s fairly well accepted that ‘title tag keyword relevancy and position’ is one of the biggest factors that you, as a user, can influence.

Internal Linking
One of the best ways to have Google index a new web page is building internal links and YouTube behaves exactly the same. By using the Video Response function or putting your video into a playlist with other popular videos (relevant, of course!) you can help increase your traffic. Playlists have the double advantage of frequently appearing fairly high in search results.

Description and external links
It's definitely useful to note that the description part of any video shows the first 27 characters before it’s truncated with ‘...’ and needing another click to view the whole thing, it’s generally a good idea to include a link to your website in these first few characters!


Remember as well that you can customize your channel page. As with anything online, a smart and clean looking layout will leave a much better impression then a half filled in profile, default design channel page. So take a moment to make sure your company branding shows!


Author: Alice Cheetham

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