What makes a successful website? A well-designed template and quality content will only carry you to the halfway mark. To get beyond that, you need a clear strategy on how to advertise your presence. After all, if you want traffic, you need to let people know where you can be found. With a bit of ingenuity and planning, you can easily grab the attention of people across the world.
Many companies build brand-awareness for themselves through Video-Marketing. Regardless of the nature of your site, this concept will work for you, too. And with YouTube for a platform, you've struck gold.
YouTube: The World's Favorite Hangout
Do you think that's an outrageous claim? Look at these impressive statistics gleaned from their press-room:- One hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second.- Over 4 billion videos are viewed daily- Over 800 million unique-users visit YouTube each month- Over 3 billion hours of video are watched each month- YouTube is localized in 39 countries, across 54 languages- 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US- In 2011, YouTube had over 1 trillion views. That's almost 140 views for every person on Earth!YouTube-videos are indisputably an excellent way to promote yourself. But it takes more than sticking a video-clip up there to make the traffic roll in.
What Makes a Good Video?
Some videos take the internet by storm. They go 'viral' often. According to YouTube Trends-Manager, Kevin Allocca, people who have a large fan-following, play an important role in making a video go viral. He also identified 'unexpectedness' as a key factor behind these videos. Now asking a celebrity to promote your video might be difficult. But you can certainly work upon making it interesting and unique. Here are 4 things to keep in mind while promoting your website.
- Keep it short. Unless it's really spectacular, people will just move past a lengthy video for something shorter.- If you want your video to go viral, make sure it's top-quality. Not just in terms of image, sound and content, but also in creativity and presentation.- Title your video appropriately. Make it interesting and include your keyword, so that search engines pull it up.- Display your URL clearly on the video. This is very important. You can choose to begin/end the video with your URL, or have it running all through. Whatever you do, make sure it's included in your video-description, too.
The value of videos for website traffic cannot be underestimated. It's a tried and proven way of drawing people to your site. So capitalize on YouTube's popularity, and tell the world why you are special and where they can find you. Also, you can add the videos to your blog, google places pages and websites.