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I’m going to share with you everything I know about YouTube marketing & optimization.
I know there are a few tutorials on the web about this but I wanted to show you…
How I do it.
Plus I have a few of my own twists and turns to thrown in!
YouTube sends the most engaged quality traffic to the blog
…so it makes sense to focus on growing it as much as possible!
What Will I Learn?
Why Bother With YouTube Marketing?
Since the blog launched YouTube has established itself as the 4th biggest source of traffic to the site.
Not only that but YouTube consistently delivers some of the most engaged traffic.
It has the lowest bounce rate, the best pages/visit, the best time on site, the highest opt-in rate, and the highest affiliate click rate.
As you can see – it is a traffic source worth spending some time on!
Getting Started
If you want to be really effective with your YouTube marketing there is a lot to consider!
In the ideal world, people will discover us on YouTube and either stay engaged with our videos on YouTube itself or visit our site.
We want to create as many opportunities as possible to get repeat exposure to increase chances of people clicking through to our site with our YouTube marketing strategy.
We also want to make sure we are extracting key YouTube ranking metrics like subscriptions, comments & likes to increase exposure further.
Don’t worry YouTube marketing is much easier to do than it sounds :)
Video Resource Preparation
The first thing you need to do is prepare some resources that we will use across all of our videos.
This takes some time to do but once you have prepared them you can reuse them over and over again across all of your YouTube marketing campaigns.
I’m going to drop you in at the deep end with the hardest resources to create first :)
Video Intro
One of the biggest problems with videos is you only have a short amount of time to capture & engage people or they move on to the next video.
The average time watched metric also plays a critical role in the internal YouTube search ranking algorithm.
I’ll share more tricks on getting people to stick around longer later but for now, let’s just focus on the video intro.
We also want to consider that as people move through our videos, they are going to be forced to watch the same intro over and over again.
So with that in mind, we need to create a video intro that is short & snappy to get people to keep watching.
I used Adobe After Effects to create my 6-second intro which contains my logo and brand colours.
Creating Your Own Video Intro
Now I realise that creating an intro like that might seem daunting for some people!
But it doesn’t have to be difficult and with a bit of elbow grease and a couple of hours you can knock out a professional intro.
You have a few different options-
VideoHive Template
VideoHive is codecanyon/themeforest of the video world!
They have a huge range of video intro templates you can use.
They are usually priced around $10-$20 each and can be very easily edited with Adobe After Effects. Just import your logo, pick a couple of colours and that’s it!
Take a look at these for example-
Animoto
You could also use Animoto to create your intro video.
They make it really easy to create videos using one of their predefined templates.
The free account has access to a number of templates that you might be able to use.
Even with the paid templates, I have always found Animoto a bit restricting but that might be because I’m comfortable editing video.
Fiverr
The other option you have is to look whats on offer at Fiverr.
As you can see there are a huge range of services available to create intro videos for just $5! Bargain!
Admittedly some of them are pretty poor, but there are some diamonds to be had – and well, you get what you pay for :)
Calls To Action
Throughout the video, we will want to display various calls to action depending on the context of the current video.
Sometimes this might be to get people to visit an affiliate link or sometimes to follow you on a social network.
Now what is really cool is you can actually add clickable external links directly into your video using Annotations!
I have prepared a video below that shows you my various calls to action as well as the clickable links!
Creating Your Own Calls To Action
First of all, you will need to work out what kind of calls to action you’ll be using.
For me, I decided I wanted something to direct people to my blog/affiliate links and something to direct people to social channels.
VideoHive
Again you can browse VideoHives huge range of call to action templates that you can use.
These are usually called ‘Lower Thirds’ in the video world!
I really recommend you get comfortable with editing these templates in Adobe After Effects. All I have to do is update the text and hit render each time I need a new one.
Here are some pretty sweet ones for just $8 a pop-
Fiverr
Again you can jump over to Fiverr to see what lower thirds are available.
To be honest you are pretty stuck for choice on Fiverr – there aren’t many people offering them as a service.
The other problem with Fiverr is if you ever need to create one or change text – you’ll have to pay for someone to do it and wait on them.
It really is a good idea to just spend a bit of time learning how to edit them yourself in Adobe After Effects.
Video Outro
You know how usually at the end of videos on YouTube you see a bunch of related videos?
As a content consumer that is awesome and allows us to discover new contest easily.
But as a video creator – all that does is take people away from our videos, reducing the chances of them clicking through to our site.
So I created a bunch of video outros like the one below that groups together my relevant tutorials. I have about 8 of these prepared showcasing different tutorials.
One of these gets shown at the end of every video and by using YouTube annotations we can easily interlink all of our videos, get subscribers and visitors to our site.
Creating Your Own Video Outro
This is where things are going to start getting a bit easier :)
I used Camtasia Studio (my editing software of choice) to produce this outro and although it looks tricky it’s pretty simple.
All I have done is get a black background and overlay 3 videos with my logo. Took about 15 minutes to make in total!
Having this play at the end of every video is a huge benefit and keeps people moving around your content nicely!
Slide Template
If you are going to use slides at any point in your videos, you will also need a background template to use.
This is one of the easier things to create and that’s coming from someone that sucks at graphics!
Just fire up your graphics package of choice and create a 1920×1080 image-
Now you can use this as a background in PowerPoint or your video editing software of choice!
YouTube Video Thumbnail Template
One of the other templates you need to prepare is a YouTube video thumbnail.
If you didn’t know you can now upload a custom image to be used as your videos thumbnail.
This gives us extra opportunities to stand out in the search results and in the related videos sections.
In fact what you might notice in that screenshot is how all of my videos dominate the related videos section – more on that later ;)
This is what my template looks like and you’ll see I have imported a bunch of gradients to make new thumbnails quickly & easily.
Watermark
The very last thing you will need to prepare is a watermark to overlay in your videos.
Sometimes you will see my logo in the bottom left corner of a video – this is just a semi-transparent version of my logo saved as a PNG.
When you import it into Camtasia Studio you can place it on its own layer to just sit in the corner nicely :)
Video Resource Preparation Complete!
You should now have everything you need to create great videos that keep people engaged with you and your content throughout YouTube.
It might look quite daunting at first but even a novice can put all of this together in less than a day. And once you’ve got everything prepared, you don’t have to do it again!
All of these little things add up to create a great user experience for your viewers but also serve to get as much value as possible out of YouTube.
Take time to prepare them – you’ll grow much faster!
YouTube Channel Optimization
Next we need to spend some time on our YouTube channel.
YouTube recently moved over to a new channel design based on Google+ which has really improved things in terms of YouTube channel optimization opportunities.
It has also introduced some new features that you can use to suck traffic back to your site!
Upload Channel Art
The first thing you should do is upload some channel art.
This is the header image that spans across the top of your channel and you can put whatever you like on it!
To be honest, mine could be a lot better, but it’s the best I can do. I included the award logos to build credibility with potential new subscribers.
You can download a template from YouTube to create your own.
Then all you need to do is select edit channel art and upload your image-
Add Channel Links
In the bottom right corner of my channel art above you’ll notice some text that says ‘Click Here To Visit My Blog’ along with some social icons.
YouTube lets us add these links to our channel easily and I suggest you do the same.
When you uploaded your channel art you may have noticed a second option that says edit links.
Add a link to your site as well as all of the links to your social profiles. There are nearly 20 different social profiles you can link up!
Update Channel Description & Keywords
If you click on the about tab of your channel you will notice you can add a description which makes it prime for YouTube channel optimization.
Just write an honest statement of what your channel provides but also use this opportunity to include relevant niche keywords.
Don’t go all out crazy keyword stuffing. Keep things human friendly because it’s easy to get carried away with youtube channel optimization:)
Once that is done you can also provide a list of related keywords for your channel.
This option is actually tucked away and quite hard to get to. But if you place your mouse under the bottom right of your channel art, a small menu will come up-
Click on channel settings
Here you can add a bunch of related keywords for your channel.
If you have keywords with spaces in like YouTube Marketing you would type in “YouTube Marketing” with the speech quotes.
Channel Layout
As an optional last step you can also tweak your channel layout.
If you look at my channel you will see I have selected a tutorial to use as the channel trailer.
This allows you to feature whatever video you want front & centre.
Underneath that, you will see I have added a playlist I created (more on that later, important stuff) along with my popular uploads and last my most recent uploads.
You can edit/remove items by clicking on the little edit pencil button.
If you want to add new items just scroll to the bottom and click Add A Section.
Tweak it to your heart’s content and once you are happy that is all of your YouTube channel optimization taken care of :)
YouTube Video Optimization
So you have your video resources prepared and you have optimised your channel it’s time to take care of your YouTube video optimization.
A side note, when creating your video remember you have less than 15 seconds to convince your audience to stick around.
The way I do this is by opening with ‘What You Will Learn’ and quickly listing what I’ll be teaching. I do this in both my videos and blog posts.
So now you have a video ready to upload, complete with your intro, outro and calls to action!
I’m going to show you the behind the scenes setup of this video.
YouTube Keyword Research
Now before we start any kind of YouTube video optimization, we need to know which keywords we want to optimize it for.
The problem is the YouTube keyword tool is dead but try this.
The keywords it suggests are usually irrelevant and the monthly search volumes are wrong.
So what I tend to do is use the Adwords Keyword Planner to get a few seed keyword ideas.
Then just type these into YouTube search and take note of the auto suggestions-
Note down a primary term you are going to target and a few other secondary-related terms.
It is also worth doing a few Google searches for your chosen terms to see if Google has any current video results on the 1st page. They tend to favour review & how to/tutorial targeted videos.
I went with Link Emperor as my main keyword. Along with Link Emperor review, Link Emperor tutorial & link building service.
Upload The Video
Just before you upload your video you should rename the file to include your keywords.
So I simply renamed my video to Link Emperor Review & Tutorial.mp4 and then uploaded it.
Once you have uploaded your video you have a few options.
This video ranks on the first page of Google & YouTube search results for a bunch of terms like Link Emperor, Link Emperor Review & Link Emperor Tutorial.
Title Optimization
The title of your video should include your primary keyword as close to the start as possible.
Just like with onpage SEO of your website don’t go crazy with keyword stuffing.
In my Link Emperor example I just kept it simple with-
Link Emperor Review & Tutorial – An Easy To Use Link Building Service
Description Optimization
The description also provides a few opportunities to scatter our keywords and improve on our Youtube video optimization from an SEO perspective.
If you follow all of my youtube video optimization tips you will have also learned how to optimize a YouTube video for search engine as well.
I always start my descriptions with a link to my blog/relevant post on the first line.
Then I write a unique description about the video weaving in my primary and secondary keywords where possible.
For extra brownie points I use up any remaining characters/words with a partial transcript of the video.
This lets you get picked up for lots of extra long tails while making the most of the description field.
Take a look at this videos description.
Tag Optimization
This is one of the most overlooked areas of YouTube video optimization.
A couple of minor tweaks can have a massive impact!
YouTube uses these tags to help it work out what your video is about and to display it in search results and/or as a related video.
So before I unveil my secret twist to take advantage of this, enter your primary & secondary keywords.
You may also pick some of the relevant keywords that YouTube suggests as well!
My YouTube Tag Optimization Twist
Remember the image before where all of my videos dominated the related video suggestions in the sidebar?
Here it is again if you missed it-
Not too bad huh?
Check out what it looks like when the video ends-
That is complete and utter YouTube related video domination!
Out of the 32 suggested videos in the player and sidebar, 29 of them are mine.
Once you watch 1 of my videos on YouTube it is very hard to escape :)
So how do you go about YouTube related video optimization? The secret is in the tags!
I add the following 3 tags to every single video on my channel-
- Matthew Woodward
- MatthewWoodward
- MatthewWoodward.co.uk
As you can that very small tweak, is very effective ;)
Thumbnail Optimization
During our video resource preparation we created a YouTube video thumbnail template.
Just open that up, change up the text/colours and click on customised thumbnail.
Upload it and this thumbnail will be used in search results & relevant video listings throughout the network.
Annotations
If you added any calls to action or outro to your video you need to head over to the annotations section.
This is what the Link Emperor video looks like in the annotations editor-
It is pretty easy to use and I just use the spotlight annotation to overlay anything that should be ‘clickable’
There are options on the right to mark the start and endpoint, along with where it should link to.
If you are having problem creating clickable annotations to your website read this.
Closed Caption Optimization
The last point of optimization for your video is with the closed captions feature.
A lot of people skip over this but what it allows you to do is upload a full transcript of the video.
YouTube automatically syncs this up with the video which serves a couple of important purposes.
Firstly it allows people with disabilities to read along instead of listening. I am constantly surprised with the amount of emails I get from people thanking me for creating them for that very reason.
Secondly, YouTube can’t understand the context of a video automatically. So by providing a full transcript it knows exactly what is said.
It’s like having the video in article format, which is much easier for YouTube to digest and understand what your video is about.
This means your video will have even better chances of appearing for related searches and long tails!
I used to transcribe all of my videos myself but now I just outsource it.
I also use the transcripts when I post the videos on the blog here so they serve a few purposes and are well worth having.
YouTube Video Playlist Optimization
When you do a search on YouTube you can either get a video, a channel or a playlist returned as a result.
This provides yet another opportunity but this time with YouTube playlist optimization.
A playlist is pretty much what is says on the tin, a list of videos that play in a predefined order. You can add your own videos or other peoples.
This is a great way to try and rank for some shorter tail phrases.
Creating A Playlist
Just browse to any video and click on Add To which looks like this-
Give your playlist a keyword-focused name – In this example, I created a playlist targeting the term link building tutorials.
I kept it nice and simple with a title of The Best Link Building Tutorial You Will Ever See.
Now just repeat the process until you have added all of the videos you want to your playlist.
In this example, I added all of the tiered link building videos in sequential order.
Optimizing Your Playlist
Next open up the video manager and go to the playlist manager.
Click Edit to the right of your newly created playlist and you can edit the title and add a description.
Just like you optimized video descriptions before, you can use this box to optimize your playlist description to rank for your target keywords.
Make sure it is set to public on the right-hand side!
The Results
Once you have setup your playlist and let some time pass it will begin to appear in the search results!
As you can it’s #1 for ‘best link building tutorial’ and is currently at the top of page 2 for ‘link building tutorial’.
Perhaps I need to improve on the description some more!
Other YouTube Playlist Optimization Strategies
I have to admit creating a bunch of playlists on YouTube has been on my to-do list for a while now.
But I thought I would share with you a couple of strategies I plan to use to take advantage of this.
Grouping My Own Tutorials
The first thing I want to do is go through all of my tutorials and assign each of them a very top-level category.
Off the top of my head, I have content that could easily be broken down into categories like SEO, Link Building, Social Media & Traffic Generation.
Just like the example above I will create playlists that target broader industry terms like social media marketing.
Curating ‘The Best Of’
You could also use playlist to curate ‘the best of’ any given topic using your own videos and other peoples.
Think of things like-
- The Best Link Building Tips
- The Best SEO Tutorials
- 10 Wordpress Tutorials You Need To watch
You could easily expand that into other niches, that’s just a few examples of things I plan to create :)
With a bit of time and planning both strategies will offer some quick wins!
Is It Really Worth The Effort?
I know all of this seems like a lot of hardwork, so I thought I would share all of my stats with you.
First of all, let’s take a look at YouTube stats. Appearing in search results, related videos & the channel page itself has created-
- 60,085 views (30.4% of all my YouTube views)
- 330,520 minutes watched (that’s 230 solid days of watch time)
In terms of website traffic that has sent-
- 14,658 unique visitors
- 60,391 page views
- 7 minute 54 second average visit duration
- 265 email subscribers
- 2,008 affiliate clicks
So all in all, I think the extra bit of effort is more than worth it.
Having people exposed to my videos for an extra 230 solid days alone does it for me!
Note: After optimising your videos and channel, don’t forget to track your rankings with a Youtube tracker tool.
Wrapping It Up!
So there you have it – a practical introduction to YouTube marketing.
You know everything you need to know about YouTube video & channel optimization and if you follow my best practices you have also learned how to optimize a YouTube video for search as well!
In the next part of the series we will be looking at some tips and tricks to get YouTube subscribers and views for your channel.
And if you want to include other social media in your marketing strategy, please, check out our Facebook, Snapchat and Kik‘s posts.
159 Responses
Hey,
I read your article about Practical YouTube Marketing Part 1 – Channel & Video Optimization which is very nice and you guide step by step that is very awesome. This post help for those who want to start a career on youtube or who are beginners keep it up.
Thanks very much – glad you found it helpful.
Dear matthewwoodward, i am very grateful to have come across your tutorial it was indeed a handful of knowledge. thank you very much for your immense efforts to put up this article to help us out. more grace to your elbow sir.
You are welcome, I’m pleased it was helpful for you.
Excellent post. Really helpful like other articles. Great work Matt. Thanks for sharing.
Glad to help
Hey Matt,
It was really a useful article and it is helpful too. New techniques like 360-degree videos are the latest and future of video marketing. It generates good leads.
Yeah and I’m sure that is going to get adopted much more in the coming years
Hi Matt, If you use the same video transcripts on your YouTube channel plus your own blog can your blogpage get penalised for duplicate content?
The transcript you upload isn’t publicly facing to Google spiders
Awesome post Matt. I have been using youTube optimisation for years with awesome results. This guide is a must have!
Thanks Nev :)
This is very informative, and exactly what I was looking for to start creating my own Youtube channel. Mine will be more personal in nature, but I’d love to figure this out.
A question, and forgive me if this was answered and I missed it, but what software do you use to record screen shots? So, if you’re showing examples live in google? Also, do you use a mic or just your laptop?
Thanks!
Hey Lisa, I am using Camtasia Studio :)
I use a headset based microphone to capture clear audio, but if you were going to be appearing in the video I use a tascam dr22wl with a lavalier mic
I know about that trick. Maybe some tip how to get top on youtube related section except youtube optimization part?
Well the optimisation is kind of what gets you to the top =/
Cant agree with you. There is another part too.
Hi, Matthew. Into title section you said that will reveal How to DOMINATE related video results but i didnt found it on your post at all. Maybe i missed something or you forget to add that. Can you tell me where i can watch your tips about this trick?
Did you read the rest of the series?
Oh sorry.. now i see. But can you create something hack blueprint about youtube tag hacking or getting top on other videos via related section. It would be perfect.
What do you want me to create that is not already explained in the post?
Nope. You are explained how to show your videos on related section from your own video. But this is not about other’s videos.
Ohhhh I understand, in that case then just view source code of your competitors video and copy all the tags from the keywords meta tag
Nice share. Thank u MW :)
No problem :)
Matthew,
In terms of annotations…I have associated my website with my youtube channel but when I edit my video on youtube and try to add annotations I can only see the standard options of speech bubble, note or title and I can see nowhere to add the kind of linked graphics that are in your videos.
Thanks
Do you embed the linked graphic into the video before you upload it and then use a spotlight annotation?
A very detailed information has been given regarding youtube optimization from scratch, I have recently launched a YouTube channel, and after reading this article I feel my channel has a lot of weaknesses and errors in the channel according to your post, so I think that I must re-optimize the channel.
If I got any success, I will tell you.
Terrific article. Thanks
I hope it serves you well :)
i dont know wether this issue is already past, but i had to enable monetization for my videos to be able to upload a custom thumbnail. good thing is, you just need to enable it for one of your videos and it even can be status unlisted…
I’ve never had monetization enabled =\
Hey Matt
This is a great starting point for your audience but i’m sure you know this only scratches the surface of what can be quite a daunting ecosystem.
I’ve put together an in-depth guide that I hope your audience will find equally as useful. – This is a great starting guide but the topic is very detailed and it takes a lot of steps to be fully optimized.
i’ve put together an in-depth guide here – http://www.faqtube.tv/youtube-video-optimization/
Also as a sidenote the YouTube keyword tool has now unfortunately been retired.
This was a great post, all good but only applicable if everything you produce is made by you. I have already made 10 videos before realizing it… I think I can’t even monetize them due to the images being taken from google… My videos took me HOURS to make, I hired someone that made my intro and outro but the content is mostly in violation of image copyright, that’s why I feel it is pointless… If I get hit with opyright infringement, I have to pay a lot of money. Otherwise, I’d be happily making youtube videos.
Is there anyway to avoid this? I’d like to take and create my own images but I’m not skilled enough or have enough capital to hire professionals. Is there anything you can say on copyright? It really sucks and I see tons of copyright breaking content everywhere online.
Personally I hate slide show videos because well, they aren’t really videos.
But why don’t you just use images with the right license (use google advanced image search) or buy them from stock places?
I’d love to ditch slideshows all together but I just started Youtube yesterday so gave this a shot. Just trying my best to stay legal AND interesting. Often times stock photos aren’t interesting enough to gain attention
I just don’t want to show my face on videos that I’m trying to get 100k views for. I’m slowly realizing that the only way to make money on YT is to show your face and market your own image which I wanted to avoid.
Ahhh I see, well you don’t’ have to show your face – I’ve not shown my face on any videos and 2,793,640 minutes watched on my YouTube channel
Just an update… I’ve remade videos with just a voiceover and my face in a little box on the side, also wearing a women’s wig. I know it’s ridiculous but I know a marketer that just shaved his head and wore dark tinted sunglasses, and he appeared on Dr. Phil show to promote his website. I’m going to try promoting a product, really hope it works as it’s my first one… I will probably read your full guide. Thanks for the tips.
Hahaha sounds awesome good luck!
Thanks! Amazing post. Anyway, what tools your using for the audio?
Just a Blue Yeti microphone with no editing
awesome tutorial buddy
Thanks John!
Hi Matt. Amazing post as always mate! Quick question: how do you add the newsletter signup to the intro of each of your videos? It’s a great idea and I want to do it for a client of mine. Cheers mate. L
That is with https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/get/leadplayer/ :)
Hi Matt,
Is there a reason why you don’t add a link to your newsletter sign up anywhere in the videos or description?
I was just wondering your reasoning for this as I know you have mentioned that this is the number one goal for your site.
Many thanks for the great content
Stuart
The majority of my videos have an email opt in splash screen that comes up at certain times in the video.
I have come up with a way of doing the whole process using tools that most people have on their computer two parts call for Fiverr
Video Intro
Fiverr
Calls To Action
I can’t find a free software to do this so it’s off to Fiverr for a ‘social media video’
YouTube Video Slide Template + Thumbnail Template
I use paint.net free and get the free add on ‘editable text’ so you can change the text for new videos
Video Outro
PowerPoint, make your video outro template in Paint.net save it as a .gif open up PowerPoint add your .gif then add your videos. File save as > windows media video there’s your video
outro
Put the whole process together using windows movie maker. key point for getting the video to show up with no black lines save everything as 16:9
Sweet thats a nice time and cost efficient way of doing things :)
Hey Matt! I have been following your blog for quite a while now. I realy have to say that your transparency amazes me.
Of course its great to have your own videos in the related/ suggested videos section. It will increase retention no doubt.
On the other hand. Do you think that using tags from allready ranked videos will show your videos in their related section? :)
There is onlu 1 way to find out :)
hey Matthew, in regards to video tags twist: you’ve added them as being your YT user name? meaning your YT user is : Matthew Woodward ?
then you’ve added some other twistts of it like : MatthewWoodward and MatthewWoodward.co.uk?
Think of them as branded tags, like branded anchors!
Hey Matthew, thanks for this guide! I am following it step by step :)
Btw as a way to thank you I just bought GSA Search Engine Ranker thru ur link.
Keep it up ;)
Thats very kind of you thanks!
De nada amigo!.. Its the very least I could do after getting so much value from your blog for free :)
Gracias hombre!
Hi Matt
Really fantastic post and I’m very impressed by your overall thoroughness in your content production – I see why your blog has done so well as you give away way more content than others charge for.
I’ve just finished watching a UDEMY course on Optimising YT and it was nowhere near as informative as this.
Also, love the wacky coloured backgrounds to your YT tuts – they really ‘pop’ out of the background. I’ve been ‘influenced’ and have done the same for a few of my vids and they really stand out! Click here and you’ll see that my vids ‘pop’ just like yours:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=middle%20voice&sm=3
Thanks again for the excellent advice and keep up the great work.
Best
Tony
Hi,
I thought about creating some udemy courses but I thought it would be more work than it was worth – sounds like it might not be?
I like you using different photos of yourself thats cool!
Hey Matthew
Thanks for the response. I would definitely consider the Udemy course idea as they are really easy to setup and actually a very good way for you to find new traffic who might not necessarily have been looking for what you have on offer – I’ve purchased quite a few that have simply piqued my interest whilst searching. You could easily segment and chapter some of your existing tutorials and even upload those as free content?
Cheers
Tony
How would you say the average quality of a premium udemy course compares to the type of stuff I publish here?
I don’t think that you would have any quality issues Matthew as your content is very comprehensive. Udemy courses vary in quality depending on the author but on the whole are of a very good standard.
Some of the prices are ridiculous but most people wait for discount coupons. Some courses actually have list prices of several hundred dollars for the equivalent content of a book which is madness.
I think the main strongpoint of Udemy is the variety of available content by specialist authors – that’s where you would score strongly. I notice that Glenn from ViperChill has put a version of his Backlinks XXX course under the guise of an SEO program. So, the market is expanding :)
Well it certainly looks worth checking out and I could perhaps recycle some content into a udemy course.
Exhausting. And I’ve done it all … nearly. What a fab tutorial, one of your greatest, imho!
Thank you so much, I hope it was worth the effort!
Great to hear I hope it benefits you :)
This is super Matt, this work for everyone especially for me :D . Amazing optimize, Thanks
No worrys :)
Matt, maybe I didn’t explain myself. ( Or Maybe I’m still pissed lol) I’ll try again…
If you imbed a YouTube video onto a blog or website and buy a load of views and back links on Fiverr will it harm your website or blog in any way?
Or should you build quality links because your video is on your blog/site?
Thanks for your help!
No that wouldn’t affect your blog at all
Cheers Matt!
Look forward to your Post on Backlinking for YouTube Vids.
All the best,
Alison
Thanks Alison :)
Hey Matt,
I’m Ally from Chester.
Great Video – just wondering if you will do a video on the link building process when it comes to ranking highly in Google? Would really love to see more on this…
Also, I have another Question. I want to place my video on my website too – should the link building be different if I’m promoting the video on my website, as apposed to promoting it solely for ranking in Google?
I don’t want to penalize my website by buying a load of links on Fiverr etc.
Many thanks!
Hi,
Yes that will be part of the series
Which URL do you want to rank, your website or the video?
Hey Matt,
Think I will try to rank both….I want to create a YouTube Tutorial and put this onto my website but also want to just try and rank the video on Google without website – to give it best of both worlds…
I’m a little confused about the process of putting a video on my site, and then trying to rank it.
Hi,
Take a look at how I do the on page here – SEO Powersuite review or with the more developed https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/blogging/reviews/buzzbundle/
Optimization is very important for any content, video is not excluded. Its readily helpful for a marketer to consider the benefits a video would give to the audience at every point in time. This is what really determines how effective optimization would become.
However, I consider this tutorial very vital for online success.
Thanks Will – I agree you have to look at get as much value as possible from everything you do
WooooooooooW !
Massive Post Mathew !
This monster just got into my best-tuts list !
Thanks a lot !
Thanks Paul :)
Whoa!
This is one of the most comprehensive tutorials I’ve seen on youtube optimization.
Many Thanks for this Matt.
Thanks Shay!
I must say that this is an epic article on YouTube. I have learned some techniques on optimization and have bookmarked for future reference. The best part of this post is that there are lots of practical steps bloggers need to apply on it.
This comment was shared in kingged.com – the content social bookmarking website for Internet marketers where this post was shared.
Sunday – kingged.com contributor
http://kingged.com/youtube-marketing-optimization-part-1-channel-videos/
Thanks for the share :)
Matthew, thanks so much for taking the time to create this. While there are many posts covering optimizing individual videos, I have NEVER seen a guide delve into nuances of channels, play lists, annotations, etc. amazing. Thanks! –Aaron
Cheers Aaron, figured if I was going to do it I was going to do it :)
This is awesome, I too am glad you created something like this as I had wondered how you configured your videos. 1 thing I was looking for, and I may have missed it, was an explanation on how to “pause” videos like you often do, and solicit an email address with the option to skip and continue watching the video.
Did you cover this? If I missed it I apologize.
Hi,
I’ll go over that in more detail in a later series, but this https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/get/leadplayer/ ^^
You are living proof that hard work pays off.
This is superb information.
Thank you so much.
Thanks Terry!
Stumbled across you via your Sarah Starr interview so a big thank-you to her.
Stuart Ross gave me my light bulb moment this year, nothing I hadn’t heard before but the way it was put across obviously was sparked something.
Going forward I intend for my site to partner with half a dozen experts in their own field.
To turn to developing my own project into a success there are now 2 go to names whose advice I shall be following to achieve that. This post, the first I have read from you tells me it is essential you should be part of that duo.
Hi Clive,
Thanks for your kind words :) Although you should probably read this https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/blogging/how-to-start-blog-and-make-money/
Hi Matthew’
Another great tutorial !!
In part 2 will you be running through backlinking YouTube videos?
The reason i ask is there seems to be a lot of people who state you can backlink YouTube videos like it’s 2007 ( before the Black and White furry animals were unleashed ).
Would this philosophy now be a cause for concern with the recent closer intergration between YouTube and Google +.
Also there seems to be a fair amount of talk of videos created in Google hangouts which are automatically uploaded to YouTube ranking fast. Is this a technique you have tried?
Kind rgds
Vince
Hi,
I will be exploring this :)
Quality info there Matt!
Before uploading any of your videos, do you add your keywords to the property details of that video?
By property details do you mean the meta of the file, like when you right click on it and go into properties?
If so, no I dont ^^
Er, can you say COMPREHENSIVE!
Haha this is only part 1 :P
That’s really an awesome tutorial Matt. Youtube is really a great source to increase the exposure and create a great brand but that’s possible only with proper optimizations. Hmm.. I’m in a process of creating the ranking strategies on my case study blog but you made my day :) Neverthless will touch some other aspects in my own way.
Regards
Phanindra
You can do it without the optimizations, but I like giving myself the best chances :)
This is the best YouTube White Hat Tutorial i ever read!
You are teaching things in a way that suits all levels especially beginners who needs a real effective guide to get started.
I still remember when i first came across your website, it was from YouTube. Your clear voice, well made presentation and of course your high quality content captures the attention instantly.
You didn’t touch on the topic of Link Building for YouTube videos though you are a gray hat optimizer as far as i know.
(Quick tip for readers up here, link building for YouTube videos must be done the same way you do it for a website. Keep things highly relevant and avoid spamming your videos at all costs. Besides that, don’t ever buy YouTube Views as there will be a huge chance of getting your whole channel terminated).
We’ll be tuned for your future updates Matt, thanks for keeping that level of high quality content.
All the Best!
– Roland
There is such a thing as whitehat youtube and blackhat youtube?
Or are you talking about purely from the link building side of things?
Nice to know you discovered me on YouTube :)
Hi Matt!
Yes, of course i mean from a link building perspective.
What is BlackHat YouTube Optimization?
If you wondered around the “lose weight” niche, you will find many YouTube users who stole a video from someone else, bought tone of views and hit it blindly with ScrapeBox generating over 200,000 backlinks. Surprisingly, they rank on page #1 of YouTube and it usually takes around 2 months before YouTube considers to take their videos down. In 2 months, they would have made a good profit to allow them to repeat the process again! I might have sounded like promoting blackhat tactics, but surely i don’t! Their BlackHat YouTube Optimization is like BlackHat SEO, they work on the system of “Build & Burn”.
—-
P.S: For the readers of this comment who felt interested in that blackhat tactic mentioned above, please don’t try it as it is unethical, risky and much more complex than the way i explained it above. Focus on your quality content and you shall be rewarded with amazing results.
Hi,
Do you have any live examples of where that is happening right now?
The link building side of things really depends on your goal. If you intent to have your videos stick around for years then I agree with your statement.
If you intent on quick ranking for affiliate products that don’t stick around (or even to get videos appearing top of organic Google search for short periods) then “greyhat” link spamming is the way to go.
Exactly, different goals require different routes!
Outstanding effort young man, was just what I was looking for.
Cheers Stu! Hope sunny Spain is treating you well, pretty cold here :P
Yeah still living the dream Matt! Beer garden weather here ;-)
Even the heating can’t keep up with the weather lol
Great review Matt. I am thinking to give more time to yt then fb and you show me I am right. Thank you and I am waiting the next on youtube.
Happy holidays!
Have a look at your analytics and compare the performance of traffic
Just read your tutorial, excellent work mate, one other thing that I always add to the very end of the YouTube description is the Video URL of the actual video page. This creates a backlink to your YouTube video page whenever the video is embedded.
So in essence you are self linking back to the video on YouTube itself? I imagine adding a channel link would be good practice here as well with that line of thought!
That’s really clever Ian, thanks for sharing.
We likey ^^
Hi Matt,
Thanks for a really detailed post on youtube domination. I see this just a part 1 of the upcoming series. So just downloaded the pdf version of the post.
I am soon starting a youtube channel so all these tips will help greatly.
I had few questions as I am newbie :
Do you cloak the affiliate links in the video description or annotations? Does is it help?
I have seen many channels having the same videos. Is it ok to use some other’s video on your channel?
How do you promote your videos ? The backlinking stuff and social promotions? Do you create an exact plan like (flow chart) to do it? or some other thing.
Hi,
1) Yes thats how I can link to my own website
2) I wouldn’t do that personally, use playlists instead
3) Coming soon :)
Wooow…Matt….seem got complete menu of my dinner tonight in my table with my special one…and I must eat all..and without waste…..and now…..go action..thanks
Lick your plate clean!
Hey Matt,
Thanks for putting that together. I have been wanting to ask you how you work out your videos for awhile.
I have some work to do and will let you know how it works out.
Do you have any specific question?
OMG, Matt, this is a SICK YT tutorial!
I’ve just skimmed the post and it’s monstrous. I’ll have to set aside some time later tonight to read the entire thing.
I’m excited to dive in! Thanks for always sharing such premium stuff with us. :)
~ Ti
Thanks :)
freakin awesome post Matt, I thought you would never come around posting a tutorial on how to dominate YT, will definitely have to invest some time into this informative tutorial! :)
I will cover everything eventually :)
wow, your tutorial is very detailed. You could put that into a pdf report and sell this information as a WSO. Thanks for sharing on your blog!
Haha probably, you can do that if you want – we’ll split the profits ;)
Terrific article. Thanks. Vietnamrum
No worrys :)
Oh…thanks a ton Matthew.
This is the most awesome & thorough post on video optimization that I came across, and certainly helps a lot in dominating on YouTube.
We are excited and can’t wait to start acting on all suggestions.
Thanks Ravi!
You did it again! :) Your tutorials are simply brilliant Matthew. If you just add a keyword research tutorial to your blog, this would be the full marketing university blog. I love your work. Thx for being awesome! :)
Its coming :)
Great Matt, thank you, another great post as always.
Please, my biggest problem with youtube video is to make it ranked and appeared in google, please which is the good backlink strategy that works with youtube, and how to make backlinks to be indexed quickly in google.
Is it really true that spamming backlink dont hurt youtube video ranking? thank you.
Hi,
Well first you need to get the basics setup right before you even start thinking about links – have you done that?
If all you have done is make a slideshow video, you haven’t done that.
Epic and actionable. Great work as always.
Thanks James!
Nice tutorial :-)
I have been promising and threatening to upping my Youtube exposure for a year now…
Next year I think is my year of youtube :)
Thanks again :-)
Why not get started today :) Next year never comes ^^
I have already started :-) Just need to revamp the vids :D
I went through exactly that – https://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/blogging/income-reports/february-2013/
Your on a roll Matthew! I got about 1/3 though and realized I needed to send it to my kindle to read and really absorb tonight. Thanks for putting so much work into your tutorials.
No worrys thanks Ryan!
Great post Matt! Will be trying out your tip on adding your website/name to your tags.
Have you ever tried adding related niche names/websites as tags as well? Or at least the names of related high traffic videos to try and show up in their related video side bar?
Glad to see the seed was planted ;)
GREAT stuff Matthew.
You covered a lot of content that took me years to pick up, and also some that’s new to me, such as your outro.
Is Adobe After Effects really almost $1,000?
Thanks mate,
Matt
Just use the trial, create what you need in one clean sweep :)
Thanks mate! Does require the “O” word…organization that is, but I guess it’s never too late to start. :)
Exactly, get crackin :P
It’s free on torrent sites… not that I condone that. But I don’t judge people who can’t afford it either.
Excellent as always, but i have a question do you do any backlinking to your youtube videos or social bookmarking to get them ranked ? i hear that building backlinks to your youtube helps with the ranking
Thank you matt
Watch this space!
I beg your pardon , i don’t get it this response ..
Its coming later in the series :)
Loved all these ideas. Particularly liked seeing how you use after effects to build out your videos as that is something I was wondering about doing :)
Do you have a simple backlink strategy for videos that aren’t ranking after doing all of the above?
Thanks!
Saving that for later in the series!
I will def be tuned in for that!
Thanks =D
Hey Matt very informative, I will reading the entire post and implementing this youtube method tonight after the grind….
Anyways thanks for all you do and write about.
Let me know how you get on!