Using YouTube for Business Findability

By Heather Lutze, CEO Findability Group Search Marketing and CWCC member

The unending popularity of video and video marketing surely is one of the major phenomena of our times. Starting back in the 80s with the launch of MTV, this form of communication has blown sky high with the advent of YouTube, the affordable video recorder, and now, video capability in many phones. Anyone can now make their own video — providing some pretty amazing internet marketing opportunities for creative and out of the box thinkers — and everyone else!

Long story short– if you are not using YouTube for business marketing purposes and to enhance your findability online– you are missing out big time.

Perhaps you’ve already noticed how YouTube videos stand out on a Google results page? When i’m searching for something, if videos show up on the results page, I’ll frequently click on them first.

Like me, there are scads of people who prefer to recieve information in this form, as opposed to just reading text. It’s time to take advantage of this preference. However, one point to remember is that fans usually watch videos for entertainment; they don’t necessarily wish to be sold.

But you can easily provide a compelling mix of the two. Video is fantastic for making “how to” and tutorial videos, showing off what your company does and giving fans useful information in an entertaining fashion.

If you can’t think of any ways for your particular business, service or industry to capitalize on the popularity of video, we’ve got you covered. Thumbonomics, Chapter 11 provides a full “YouTube Action Plan.” We show you to set up a company YouTube channel, create your own videos (for cheap!), optimize them for search engines, and give you heaps of ideas as what to put in your videos.

Using YouTube for Business — Things to Consider: 

• When you set up your company YouTube channel, (yes, you can have your own channel — isn’t that cool?) remember to use your important keyword phrases in the channel’s name, setup and profile.
• You don’t need to hire an expensive videographer. Videos can be spur of the moment, impromptu, and without high production values, and be even more credible than over-rehearsed and over-edited ones that are obvious sales attempts
• Of course, each video should also have one of your high value keywords in the title and the video description. However, the title needs to the appropriate to the actual content of that video.
• Always have a link back to your website or blog in each video’s information, in case viewers want to learn more.
• Produce videos of: company events, annual meetings, corporate retreats, product launches, interviews, upcoming press, conventions, etc.
• Remember, in this day and age, a dull video will lose viewers’ attention within the exciting and engaging culture that is YouTube. Videos provide a great way to exhibit the personality of your brand– and have some fun at the same time.
• If your company has existing videos — why not repurpose them, or portions of them?

Need some more video know-how and inspiration?

• Check out how I used the keywords I want to rank under in my YouTube profile: Heather Lutze’s YouTube Channel
• Check out how current Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper uses YouTube

Links to some terrific examples of video:

• Too Little Info
• Too Much Info
• Just Right (Most watched YouTube Video of all time!)

Of course, you always want to make sure you the effort put into your YouTube channel pays off in terms of views, calls to action and real life business. Contact us here at Findability Group to learn how we can assist you with using YouTube for business and to become more findable online.

Heather will be presenting The Non-Technical Approach to Search Marketing September 14th at the Chamber.  Seats are selling fast.  If you’d like to learn more from Heather as this special seminar get the details and register here.

Heather is the widely acclaimed speaker, trainer, and consultant who literally wrote the book on search engine marketing. Two books, in fact—The Findability Formula: The Easy, Non-Technical Approach to Search Engine Marketing and the brand new Thumbonomics: The Essential Business Roadmap for Social Media & Mobile Marketing. Her writing and in-demand keynotes are delivered with the same witty, “no-geek-speak” style that has managed to demystify internet marketing for countless business owners. Breaking free of corporate “cubicle” jobs over ten years ago with nothing more than a dream of entrepreneurship and a computer in the basement, Heather built her business into a multimillion dollar company—the Findability Group. Today she leads a dedicated and slightly obsessed team of search marketing pros—their mission—to connect clients with their perfect customers online.