Using YouTube for Search Engine Optimization
Over the last couple of years, I’ve had success with doing SEO work for a few of my clients. I noticed their visits had increased according to Google Analytics. In addition, my clients reported a jump in phone calls and website inquiries.
I wanted to let my visitors know about my success, so I filmed a few of my website design clients talking favorably about my services and uploaded them to my YouTube account. YouTube is the third most visited website right behind Facebook and Google according to Alexa. It only makes sense that I take advantage of YouTube’s power.
Another reason for uploading the videos to YouTube is because I didn’t want to have the videos hosted on my server. Videos can really eat into my bandwidth which could cost me major $$$ that I don’t have. Google has way deeper pockets than I do, and they host my videos at no additional cost to me, so using them to host my videos is a no-brainer.
When you upload a video to YouTube, a screen like this appears. Make sure that you fill out the title, description, and tags fields.
Title – Be sure to tell the truth and give the video an accurate title with some relevant keywords. Dr. Blackburn is an Atlanta Restorative Dentist and he’s giving a testimonial of my Website Design and SEO services, so I’m not lying to YouTube.
Description – Do the same here, but you can actually add links to your website in the description. Notice that I have http:// in the URL. If you do not include this, the URL’s will not be hyperlinks. You can also further explain what the video is about. Don’t be shy. Say as much as you can.
Tags – Google references what’s in the title and descriptions, but this is almost like the meta keywords. This isn’t as important as the first two, but fill it out anyway. Put every keyword or keyphrase that you feel is relevant to the video in this section.
Recently, I just received a call from a dentist asking me about my SEO services. They told me they had found me on Google, so I did a Google search and there I was in the top 10.
If you look at the screenshot below, you’ll see that the video I made is on the first page of Google for the phrase “seo for dentists in atlanta ga” and even ranks above my own website page about Dr. Blackburn.