YouTube provides many excellent ways to increase traffic to a blog. More traffic means more profit from ads on a blog, more referral commission or more sales of affiliate products. A brief look at the statistics for YouTube, and ways of using YouTube, should convince anyone wanting more blog traffic to see the potential of joining.
More than 14 billion Americans are using YouTube, according to a recent Comscore report, and people in the UK have viewed more online video content in 2010 than in previous years. Another report compiled by Comscore in October 2008 showed more searches being done through YouTube than on Yahoo! YouTube is now the second most used search engine in the world after Google.
A video uploaded to YouTube can be indexed by Google and shown in search results within minutes. Recent video marketing research indicates that many people prefer to view video content than to read through a page of text on a screen, and video content counts for a quarter of searches on Google.
Videos are highly visible when they show up in search results at Google, and they drive traffic to a blog when a blog is linked in an original video or promoted throughout the YouTube website. A clickable link can be shown on a YouTube video using annotations, or an advanced video editor can be used to display a blog URL across the lower part of a video when it is playing.
Any registered member can set up a YouTube channel and link a blog to a profile page. A blog can also be promoted in the space provided for information about the channel creator.
Registered YouTube users can comment on videos, and these comments are read by many video viewers. Anyone can click on a name to find the profile of a person who commented. Comments should always be relevant to video content and never be self promotional, but adding valuable comments and responding to them is another good way to get people to subscribe and visit a blog.
The value of a video on YouTube goes beyond the scope of being found by other users and people searching for video content.. In addition to uploading videos to YouTube, bloggers can also embed some of the videos at YouTube in their own blog posts. Video content posted on a blog should increase traffic and create more interest in the text, ads and links posted on that blog.
A funny, fascinating or quirky video on YouTube can quickly go viral when shared online through social media networks. Videos are also popular in bookmarking communities.
The best way to drive traffic to a blog from YouTube is to upload original or topical videos, although nostalgic clips from old TV shows can be good for sharing.
Odd news items are also popular, but a YouTube member must have authorisation or permission to upload copyright video material. Many media sites and content producers are happy for their videos to appear on YouTube and to be shared in social updates and bookmarks.
The best types of video content for search engine optimization include topical news, instructional 'how-to' guides, places to interest, travel destinations, sports and music videos.
Video marketing on YouTube is a great way to reach target traffic and can rapidly increase the number of visitors to a blog. YouTube is more than just a video hosting website, it is a big social network and a busy search engine.