YouTube Best Practices For Small Businesses & YouTube Channels

YouTube can generate a lot of traffic for Small Businesses. But you have to follow some simple Best Practices and guidelines if you want to give your videos their best chance at success.

YouTube has changed a lot since its inception on Feb. 14^th, 2005. It’s gone from a platform for one-hit video wonders, to a massive, ever increasing mega video monster.

You can find videos about pretty much any subject or topic you can dream of on YouTube. It’s become a main staple for entertainment all around the world.

You can pay-to-play videos on YouTube, which has become BIG entertainment for many people.

And because of the massive size of the YouTube audience, it’s become a top place to market products and services as well.

But despite this, businesses often find that their videos don’t generate the interest they hoped they would. Even when they pour large amounts of money into them, their videos just don’t get found, and get the likes and shares one would hope for.

And because they don’t garner any attention, their channels don’t gain subscribers like they had hoped for either.

This is a big problem, especially for Small Businesses with small video budgets. With the cost of having a video professionally created, a flop can have a major impact on your advertising dollar.

And yet, YouTube IS one of the best ways to gain attention for your Small Business. YouTube ads generate millions of dollars per year.

That’s not the only way to make money from your YouTube videos though…

It can also be a great way to pick up “mailbox” money, as some call it. Because if your channel is monetized, and you gain a large following, just having your subscribers and visitors watch your videos can make you money.

Money sent automatically to your PayPal account every month.

So how can you give your videos the best chances to get the attention, likes and shares that will help send traffic to your business?

Well, fortunately there are some important things you can do to help ensure success with your videos…and these things can be used by Small Businesses, as well as YouTubers.

It doesn’t matter what the purpose of your channel is. It doesn’t matter what type of videos you make. These will work to help get your videos found, get you more likes and shares, and get people to subscribe to your channel. And all of this will help grow your YouTube channel too.

I’ve noticed that there is a fairly even spread among YouTube channels in any niche missing out on the attention they could be getting, if they simply made a few easy to do adjustments to their videos.

So here they are…

3 Key Things Businesses Need For Success YouTube Videos

Pay attention to detail…

Your videos and content can be optimized for best results. Proper optimization will give them the best chance at getting higher search ranks than others. So you can have your videos show up above your competitors in Google search, as well as on YouTube.

➜ Your video description is very important.

When creating your own descriptions, don’t ignore those first words and just put links to social channels, your website, etc.

Make sure that you pay just as much attention to your description as you would your description for your blog post on your site.

And just like your On Page SEO for your site, you only get a few lines of text to get this done. 160 characters to be exact, so make them count.

Make sure that your video description is compelling, one that will grab attention. And add a good 2-3 paragraphs of content to describe your video below that, with your social links, website link etc. below that.

Don’t forget to copy and past your video title at the bottom of your description.

If you are stuck, do some quick research to see what’s working for others…

Do a quick Google search for videos in your niche. Pick the top results that aren’t ads and study the descriptions under video results. This will help you get a better idea of how you can craft your video description to rank in organic search.

And I have one more tip here for website owners; if you are transcribing your video and posting that transcription to your blog along with your video (and you should) you can use Yoast to help you with your description SEO.

Simply create one description for your video, then copy that and paste it into the very top of your video description.

Then just create a new description using Yoast for your blog post. Be sure to mix it up quite a bit so you have two great descriptions. One for your blog post and one for your video!

➜ Use Custom Video Thumbnails.

Did you know that you can change your video thumbnail and use a custom thumbnail?

Yes, you can create a custom thumbnail for your video and upload it instead of the default thumbnail to better portray what your video is all about at just a glance.

Because your viewers should be able to determine exactly what your video is about from the thumbnail alone. This should be evident without them having to look at the title or description.

So take advantage of this YouTube feature, get creative, and upload something eye-catching! Here’s how:

Simply navigate to your creator studio on your YouTube channel.
Select the video you want to add the thumbnail to and click “Edit”.
Once inside the video editor you’ll see an option at the bottom that says “Upload Custom Thumbnail”.
Simply click the button and upload your custom thumbnail. And you are done!

➜ Attention-Grabbing YouTube Video Titles

Your video titles are very important to the success of your video. Be sure to make your title enticing and interesting so they are curious about what’s in your video.

Do some research, go to Google and take a look at what your non-paid competition is doing. What do their titles look like?

Again, you can try using Yoast via your WP post editor to sculpt at good title too.

If you follow my posts you know I always like to include some extra value for you. This time I have a little something to help you create great titles for any purpose, even YouTube videos. So here’s a little bonus for you to download and use:

Don’t Just Post & Pray

Many businesses think that you can just create any old video, upload it to YouTube and people will come in droves to watch, like and share. The old “If you build it, they will come mindset.”

Wrong.

Just like posting anything, anywhere online, this theory just doesn’t hold water.

You need to stand out from the crowd. And aside from your video content, there are some simple ways to get that done.

➜ YouTube Paid Ads

Use the YouTube advertisement video option to boost your reach and views. You’ll do this using the YouTube Advertising feature.

You can also reach this feature by clicking on “Advertise” in the YouTube site footer, like you see in the image below.

Once you have a video uploaded to YouTube, you can use this feature to make it a YouTube ad…

➜ Share Your Videos Yourself

Sharing your videos yourself will help boost your views. So once you upload your video, be sure to go share it around. This doesn’t have to take a lot of time.

Take a few minutes to share your video around; blogs, forums, Social, guest blog post, Medium etc.

Doing this doesn’t cost you a dime, but the word of mouth you can generate can sure help your video go further.

Don’t Forget – YouTube Is A Social Network

Because it is seen as a video site, some miss the fact that YouTube is not just a video site.

Far from it. YouTube is the #2 search engine online. And you should also not forget that Google owns YouTube.

➜ Use YouTube Video Annotations

YouTube lets you add annotations and subscription requests to your videos.

Be sure to use this opportunity to put some kind of annotation in your video. And include a prompt to where they can easily subscribe to your channel. For this you can use arrows, or even inline ads.

➜ Recommend Your Social Channels

Don’t forget to urge your viewers to visit your Social pages. You can add a feature to like your Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus pages.

You can even place a link to your website or blog. So if visitors to your site is your goal, it never hurts to make it easy for your YouTube viewers to visit your site.

So there you have it; some simple practices you can start using right away to get your YouTube videos to rank better in organic search on Google, as well as on YouTube.

And since a lot of businesses and YouTube channels fail to utilize these tips and features, you might just stand a BIG chance of outranking some of your top competitors!

Of course, your videos themselves are important too. I’m not going to get into this in too much depth here, because this post is mainly about Optimizing your videos for best results.

Bonus – Tips For Successful YouTube Video Content

But we’ll touch on a few things that will help make your videos more enticing to your viewers once they decide to watch.

➜ Grab Their Attention Right From The Start

The first few seconds of your video is crucial to getting your viewers to stick around and watch your entire video. If the first few seconds of your video doesn’t catch their eye right away, they are likely to click away from your video.

Be sure to quickly state what the video is about and move right into the interesting stuff. Don’t waste time with commentary or logo reveals that will turn them off.

That’s not to say that an awesome logo reveal can’t be used, but it’s recommended that you keep these intros down to below 6 seconds.

Your viewers will want to jump right into your unique, informative, interesting content right away, so be sure to dive right in.

➜ YouTube Video Quality Is Essential

Make sure that your video displays well. It should be clear and easy to see, not fuzzy or pixelated.

Make sure that your sound is recorded for optimal audio; you don’t want a video that is too low to be heard, or so loud it blows their eardrums out at first.

➜ Your YouTube Video Content

All of this is for naught if your video is, well, boring. Or if it’s confusing or not well laid out.

Be sure that the information or ad copy in your video follows a sensible line of thought. That It makes sense and flows well from one topic or subject to the next.

You also need good quality imagery and/or footage. Don’t skimp on your imagery, because it’s what video is all about.

Whether you are giving instructions in a video tutorial, explaining the benefits of a product or service, or simply creating an ad, your video needs to have all these elements working together to be successful.

I’ll have some more information about creating YouTube videos for you in the future. Haven’t decided whether to put that here or over on Video Graphics Edge, but I’ll be sure to let you know when it’s ready.

Perhaps I’ll even get around to an Adobe Premiere Pro tutorial on How To Make A Simple YouTube video…

Anyway, I invite you to try these tips on your next YouTube video. You will be surprised at what they can do for your views, likes, shares and subscriptions to your channel.

Thanks for catching my post about YouTube Best Practices for Businesses! I’m glad you took the time to stop by.

Until next time…

All my best!