On-line Course Marketing using YouTube. Video Relevance
Relevance to your YouTube video
This far, we've talked about the advantages of YouTube in marketing your online courses, the outline of a teaser structure, the basic process of how to increase sales through YouTube and have seen that views are key to conversions from YouTube We get views by increasing two factors on the video:
- Relevance is determined mostly by YouTube Video Title, Description along with other textsual elements which include video tags.
- Popularity - driven by Views, Ratings, Comments
I've put together a short summary / checklist as a guide for you. Find the checklist here.
Let's begin with the attributes of Relevance:
Relevance of YouTube Videos
Relevance measures how pertinent the content is in relation to words someone typed into the search such as if someone searches for"cats" you'll come across videos about cats. The videos that have the highest amount of references to cats are more likely to be at the top of the list. The relevant attributes we have are: Title and Description as well as various content, such as video tags.
Title It is precisely the same. The name of your video. It has two purposes for your title:
First - to be relevant - and it is important to use the search terms or keywords you're hoping to get. This will make you more likely to be discovered
Second - the next objective is to get people to click on your video and take the time to.
Once your video pops up in the search results the name of your video helps entice people to watch. It should be interesting, descriptive and precise.
Be aware of these when selecting the YouTube Video title: YouTube Video title:
- Most Powerful Title: It is by far the most significant wording in your YouTube video. It can have a significant impact in bringing your video to the top of related search results and has a significant influence on whether people click on it or not once they find it in the results of a search.
- Descriptive: Be descriptive of the information in your video.
- Accuracy: Be accurate in the details of what you have included in your video. Nothing turns viewers off faster than a video that does not fulfill what the title says. Also, the #1 reason for dislikes on a YouTube film (that gives a thumbs down) is the fact that it doesn't live up to what they title promises.
- Keywords: Consider the key keywords you want to target with this video and include them in your video's title.
Take note that words that appear near the beginning of the title for your video have more importance to search engines. Make sure that the primary keyword is near the beginning of your title.
It's true that "Learn the art of sleeping train your child" is not as good than "Sleep train your child"
You only get 100 characters in your title so choose wisely!
YouTube Video Descriptions:
Next up is the Description. This is the space for 500 odd characters or 1000 words to add below your video for a description of the video. People do not see this until they click to watch your video.
There are two main objectives to your description for the video you create:
First - is to be pertinent or appear in searches. Similar to the title it is important to incorporate relevant search terms in the description. However, there is more space to play with. You can even list keywords in the middle of the description. It is also important to describe precisely the content of this video.
The third goal of the description is to convert. This is another place for you to make people feel a call to move. It is possible to present a few key reasons to look at your website, or to take a look at your courses.
My video descriptions look similar to this:
- Quick call to take action e.g. "More lessons on mysite.com" (ensure the link does work) as well as inform them what to do while they are there. E.g. Join for a no-cost trial, or go through the online tutorial.
- Optionally here you can list some other resources available at the site including... info/resources/lessons/videos/download (list a few specific items or topics)
- An introductory description of the content in this video. Include a lot of key words.
- Then follow up with a second invitation to action, and also an additional link. E.g. "And you can access more information about this on mysite.com"
- You can also list additional key terms in your search in relation to your subject.
Most people will leave their description of the video empty. Please don't! It's a big chance to boost the likelihood that you'll be noticed and boost the number of conversions.
Subtitles / Close Captions / Transcript
A second thing that is often ignored and will determine how likely your content will appear in a search is the subtitles or closed captions or transcripts of the video. It is basically an outline of the things you are saying in your video.
Close Captions or subtitles are an excellent option to increase your keywords exposure. If you use the word "leadership" in your video often then it's likely to be mentioned in your subtitles.
Google and YouTube are constantly trying to improve the chances of someone who searches finding what they want and transcripts are a big help in this. You can include anything you'd like into your video title, even a dishonest title, the transcript will be tied to the audio and forces you to be honest. Because of this, YouTube as well as Google can put more trust in your transcript or captions. Speech recognition is used to verify that you aren't able to cheat on search terms.
An important note on the transcript. If you do not have one or can't produce one, don't fret about this one too much. It's not as crucial as the title and description.
Tags
Last but not least, the final thing to look into for its relevance is the use of video tags. YouTube lets you add Tags to your videos. They are simply keywords that let YouTube understand what your video is about and what phrases it is expected to pop up next to.
This one is pretty simple to deal with. Your video Tags should describe what the video's content is. Also consider including words that describe the problem you're solving. Consider words someone searching for your video might use.
You have approximately 500 characters to fill in the Tags section. I'd recommend using as much of that space as you are able to.
