Introduction
There has been a lot of buzz recently about how to get traffic from YouTube. And a lot of people are selling products that will teach you how to do this.
So I thought I would spend a few minutes and spill some of the secrets of how to get traffic from YouTube.
1. Create videos and upload them
This is the most obvious way to get traffic from YouTube. It’s probably also one of the most difficult and time consuming.
To do this all you need is some sort of screen capture software that lets you make short videos. My personal favorite is Camtasia which costs around $300. I believe you can probably find some cheaper or possibly free ones if you do some research.
All you do is make a short video showing the viewer how to do something.
I like to keep my videos relatively short; it should be in the range of one to four minutes.
I upload my videos to YouTube and choose a very good title for the video.
I also leave the description blank except for the URL to my website.
At the end of my video I mention that the viewer can get more information by clicking the blue link over on the right hand side. And that is how I get my traffic.
I also choose appropriate tags and a category for my video in YouTube.
When I’ve completed all this I go through my “New YouTube video upload checklist” so the videos can start getting traffic.
Please note that if your video is not informative or helpful then people aren’t going to click on the link on the right hand side. In fact they’re not even going to finish watching the video; instead they will just click the back button and search for something else.
2. Make comments on other people’s videos with a link back to your site
Another way to get traffic is to post relevant comments on people’s videos. One of the benefits of this is that you don’t actually have to make any videos.
Unfortunately there are a lot of people doing because it’s so easy. I believe that it has in large measure lost some of its effectiveness because of this.
But I did think it was at least worth mentioning.
3. Post a video response to popular videos
Another way to get traffic is to find a video that is very popular and post a video response to that popular video. This allows you to leverage the traffic of the popular video.
You should keep in mind that not all popular videos accept video responses.
So when looking for popular videos make sure that they have one or more of your responses. This will ensure that that person is in fact accepting video responses.
Also make sure that your video response is relevant to their popular video or they will never accept it.
4. Pay people to advertise on their popular videos
Another thing you can do to get traffic to make money is to find popular videos and offer the person who published it a small sum of money in return for putting a link to your website in their description. Or you may want to have them link to your affiliate product in the description.
Not all people will want to do this but if you ask around you will probably find some.
If you’re looking to promote an affiliate product then you need to make sure that the video matches the affiliate product. If it’s a video about cute bunnies then having a link to a stop smoking product will not work very well.
You could also pay the person to put an annotation at the end of their video which is just a pop up text box that invites the viewer to click on the link in the description. This will help increase the number of people that click on the link in the description.
What do you think?
I would love to hear your thoughts so leave a comment below!
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Nick,
You keep putting out great usable information. I have to admit I never thought of posting comments to YouTube videos as a way to generate traffic. It only makes sense doesn’t it, commenting at forums and blogs drives so much traffic why not videos?
Thanks Again
Thanks Scott!
Nick,’
I always enjoy all your post,they are real and nice ones.
I need to start applying some of the technics you teach as soon as possible.
Thanks
Yes applying them is critical!
Well done once again, Nick. I know that it can be hard for a lot of people to sort through all of the information out there about internet marketing, so it’s great to know that you’re there to give everyone tips for specific traffic sources like YouTube. Great job.
Thanks Mark!
Thanks for this post.I got great help from this.
I’ve been hearing about YouTube as a means to drive traffic to a website a lot recently and have started to consider creating my own videos. As a person that isn’t overly creative though, this seems like a difficult mission to me. How long does it take you to make a video from 1 – 4 minutes in length? Do you generate a lot of traffic from each to make it worth the time? Thanks again for another thought provoking post.
Once you get going it doesn’t take that long to create the videos. A four-minute video will take anywhere from eight minutes to an hour. Really depends on how much editing you need to do.
It also depends on how much preparation you need to do before you start recording.
nice traffic tips i will read more from your site some other day
Just when I realize that I am doing enough to generate traffic to my website, you come up with a novel way to increase traffic. I don’t really know how soon I’ll create a video. Maybe I should use my point-and- shoot digital video camera to do that. Thanks for the idea, Nick.
When I first started thinking about creating videos I was a little nervous. I have no training in video production, recording, editing, etc. (I am a software engineer by trade). But I just went out and did it and learned a lot along the way.
I believe video has fantastic potential that we have not yet seen.
Hi Nick,
I like your articles, and I will try the method you teach ASAP.
thanks.
Sounds great. Let us know how it goes.
Hi Nick
Your post is really helpfull for newbie’s like me,I am liitle bit confuse that what type of videos will get traffic for my Tech niche site?.
Thanks for sharing nice information.
There are a few things you can do. You can make a video comments responses to videos related to technology.
Or you can make some videos to answer peoples’ questions.