In addition to being the largest depository of videos, did you know that YouTube is now the second-largest search engine in the world?
For marketers, YouTube offers a number of opportunities to promote your business to millions of users worldwide. Because of its unique video search technology, you can easily find videos on just about any topic you need—from great vacations in Greece to how to grill the perfect hamburger, and everything in between. Just like Google search, the videos that are most relevant to the search terms show up first.
When someone searches on YouTube using a keyword that is relevant to your business, wouldn’t it be great if your company’s video showed up on the first page of the search results? How do you optimize your videos to make this happen?
Here are some of the basic strategies we use to maximize our clients’ exposure:
- Make sure that your keywords are part of your video title
- Try to keep your videos less than three minutes in length
- Optimize the description of your video with the same keyword phrases
- Make sure you use the same keyword phrases as part of the tags
- Always provide a link on your website to your video on YouTube, using an “anchor text” keyword phrase
In addition, when you post a video on YouTube, you’re able to track how many people have viewed it and what kind of comments it has received (positive or negative). You can post follow-up videos to keep the conversation going, and, if you post something clever enough to create a buzz, YouTube allows viewers to post your video to their blog or website, or pass it on to their friends.
YouTube is just one of the many tactics that you should be using in your integrated marketing program to maximize your brand’s exposure. If you don’t already have them, consider creating videos about your company. Topics could include a discussion of your company’s products or services, client testimonials, how-to demonstrations, community involvement, unique interviews or special awards, to name but a few.
Until next month…
How important do you think search engine marketing is to your overall marketing success? Here’s some food for thought…a recent study discovered that 92% of all buyers research online first before making a purchase decision.
The study found the following:
- The #1 position got 42.3% of all clickthroughs!
- The #2 position got 11.92% of all clickthroughs—that’s nearly 75% less attention than the top position.
- The #3 placement delivered an 8.44% clickthrough rate, almost a third fewer than the #2 and more than 80% less than the top result.
- The #4 spot gets 6.03%, #5 drops to 4.86%, and #6 has less than a 4% clickthrough rate.
The lesson here is that people trust the search engines to give them results in order of value. Obviously, not every company can afford to be #1 or #2 for every potential key word. The art and science of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to identify those search terms that make greatest strategic sense for you, your product(s) and your current marketing campaign.
Try thinking creatively. For example, we have found that optimizing specifically for a campaign can also deliver great results. One of our clients recently occupied the #1 spot (beating out a much larger rival) because we optimized for their marketing campaign, rather than their site as a whole.
This is just one of many creative SEO strategies that you can use to move up the search ladder. Remember to be creative and SEO will deliver big for you.
Until next month…
We all do it. In fact, some of us do it many times a day. We go onto Google, Yahoo or the host of other search engines looking for products and services that we need.
What comes back to us is a list of companies that can fulfill our need. Now look at these results from the perspective of your business goals…wouldn’t it be great to have a spot on the first page of people’s search engine results? Since market research shows that 90% of searches do not go beyond the first page of results, being on page one is invaluable.
Well you can. It’s called paid search. For mere pennies, you can get in front of prospects searching the web for your product or service by buying key words. When those key words are typed in, you will appear as a sponsored link or in a higher position in the regular listings.
Sounds great—but if you don’t know how to do it right, it can become an expensive experiment. So here are some of the strategies we use when conducting cost-effective search campaigns for our clients:
1. Be specific. If you choose a very generic word or phrase like “building” or “golf clubs,” you could be paying a lot of extra money for clicks that are completely irrelevant to your business. Instead of “building,” consider “new luxury condos in San Francisco.” Instead of “golf clubs,” try “performance fairway woods.” The more specific the better.
2. Listen. When you talk to your customers, pay attention to how they talk. Do they ask for luxury condos or high-rise living? Do they need a fairway wood or fairway metal? Use their language, because they search the same way they talk.
3. Try some good old-fashioned espionage. Start by researching your own site to see what words and phrases your prospects are currently using to find you. Also do this same exercise on your competitors’ sites. This information will be very helpful and eye-opening.
4. Keep modifying. The best part of search marketing is that it is 100% trackable. This means that you can continually test which words or phrases are generating the best results and modify them accordingly. So experiment with different combinations or synonyms of critical words that generate the best results.
There are very few true marketing techniques that are trackable. Search listings can be a very powerful and cost-effective tool to drive prospects that are looking to buy, right to your door. Paid search can be very tricky, so feel free to call us with any questions.
Until next month…
Let’s say you and your family want to go on a cruise to the Caribbean. If you are like most people, you will head straight for Google, Yahoo or one of the other major search engines and type in what you are looking for. The results that come back do not happen by accident. Those results are part of a powerful marketing strategy called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO.
So how do you get your company to come up when your customers search the Internet? The detailed answer to that question is much too long and complex for this forum, so we have outlined some basic “on-page” factors that you can implement immediately. These are adjustments to the format and text on your website that should help your site increase its rankings. Here are just a few suggestions:
- Determine how your customers and prospects search for you or your competitors and make a list of the most commonly used search words or phrases.
- Once you determine these key words and phrases, make them an integral part of your web message.
- Make sure that those key words and phrases are strategically placed throughout your website—and make sure they are grammatically correct.
- Be realistic with the phrases you choose. If they are too generic, you will get lost in the crowd.
For instance, lets take our example of a cruise. If a cruise operator selected their key phrase to be “cruise,” chances are they would not be successful since “cruise” is so generic and is used by so many. They would increase their chances by changing to “Caribbean cruise.” And they would increase their chances even further if they used “five-day Caribbean cruise.”
Try this test: come up with two to three search phrases (one to three words long) that you would like your site to come up high on the search results for. Type these into Google, Yahoo or any one of the other major search engines. If your company comes up, then congratulations, you’ve passed the test. If you don’t, then you need to seriously consider a comprehensive SEO plan.
Search Engine Optimization is a powerful and necessary tool in today’s marketplace. If you would like a complimentary analysis of your SEO potential, please give us a call.
Until next month…
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