How to Use YouTube to Drive Web Traffic

February 20, 2015
3:54 pm

Posted by DMA Solutions Team

With YouTube being the second largest search engine and attracting over 1 billion unique monthly visitors, you can imagine the marketing opportunities this platform offers are powerful and compelling. The fresh fruits and vegetables that you grow and sell are beautiful and provide endless opportunities for video inspiration. However, attention spans are short. With over 100 hours of video being uploaded every minute, it is crucial that the visitors who DO land on your YouTube video accomplish exactly what you want them to do while they’re there. And what is it that you would have them do? Visit your website of course! Here are three tips that will help you successfully use YouTube as a tool to drive traffic back to your company’s website.

Have a Clear Call-To-Action

If you want people to go to your website, simply direct them to do just that. You’d be surprised how many people will do this if you just ask. A call-to-action can be a simple text slide at the end of a video with the link to your website, or you can mention it in your intro. You can also make use of the annotation tool to place your website link on already existing videos. You don’t want to be too pushy with this, but a gentle reminder that you have a website where the viewer can find more information is all it takes to see an increase in traffic.

Put Your Website Link at the Beginning of the Video Description

Don’t make the mistake of placing the link to your website at the bottom of the video description text. This makes it complicated for the viewer to find because they’ll need to go “searching” for the link by scrolling down. By putting your URL in the first line of text in your video description, you will make this much more accessible. This provides the viewer instant access should they want to know more about your brand at any point during the video.

Use Channel Art to Establish Trust

If a consumer and/or buyer likes the content in one of your videos, it’s likely they will click to view your channel. And just like with your other social media profiles, they will make immediate judgments based on what they see. The easiest way to build trust within seconds is to create a fun and professional look and feel using your cover photo. This is something many people forget to take into consideration on YouTube, but it is an important part to your overall success. YouTube offers a large cover photo option that you’ll want to make sure you take advantage of. (Download the Photoshop template that YouTube provides here). Be sure to design a cover photo that not only looks beautiful, but also generates interest and curiosity for your brand and the products that you grow and sell.

These tactics are simple, but don’t let the simplicity undermine the importance. Though we’re continuing to work on our own YouTube efforts as well, we’ve come to realize that it takes consistency to generate traffic results. Video is an area that, as marketers, will require more focus in 2015. If you’re willing to implement these tips on a regular basis, you’re much more likely to get the results you’re looking for.