Video marketing with YouTube: 5 Ways to Improve Search Results in 5 Minutes

Video marketing on YouTube is an incredible opportunity for internet marketers. It’s already kind of hard to remember, but before YouTube hit the scene hosting video was a source of endless frustration. It is technically challenging, bandwidth-hogging, fraught with file format peril, and poses unique search challenges.

Unless you just post your videos to YouTube and let Google handle all these problems. You the intrepid video marketer, on the other hand, get to focus on the fun stuff: Search engine optimization (SEO). And YouTube gives you a wide array of opportunities to help ensure that users find your video, and ultimately, your site. Depending on how well you choose your long-tail keywords, it’s possible that you could get a video ranked on page 1 with just five minutes of work. The golden rule: every time you type something on YouTube, expect it to get indexed.

1. Your username: Don’t call register L0serB0y1987 unless you’re marketing a product to dweebs who were born in 1987. If you’re promoting an eczema product, do some keyword research and register as EczemaTreatmentsAndCures. Google does factor in the username.
2. Your video’s tags: Obviously, we humans use tags as search aids. You think you get irritated when you click on an email that says “Urgent matter” and end up with a Nigerian bank scam onscreen? Google does too. You should tag your video with the keywords you want people to use in their searches for your product. Keep that set of keywords tight, to improve  targeting.
3. Description: The video description field seems to be limitless, and it is indexed. Drop in an article or two. If you don’t have one handy, use one from an article directory like EzineArticles. Just be sure to include the resource box. It’s required by licensing terms, it’s the right thing to do regardless, and it won’t hurt your search results.
4. Related videos: Make sure the related videos feature is either turned off or features other videos you did (if they’re in the same niche).
5. Name of video: Duh. Still, don’t get cutesy with your video’s name. Keep it readable but keyword-packed, just like the title you’d use in an article directory or social bookmarking site.

Remember that Google (which owns YouTube) indexes every bit of text it finds when you post a video. Make sure your contributions reflect that reality every step of the way, and you’ll reap the benefits in free traffic.