In the past few years, YouTube has become an important marketing tool for businesses of all sizes. A recent study reported that more than half of small businesses are using YouTube to connect with their audiences, and it’s no surprise why: According to Social Media Examiner, Facebook posts have a reach of just 2% while videos get a 14% reach. But if you’re looking to leverage the power of video, it’s critical to follow these three steps:
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the foundation of YouTube marketing strategy. Keywords are the words that people use to search for products and services, and they help you target the right audience. They also help you rank high on search engines like Google, which is important because more than half of all clicks go to the first result on a SERP (search engine results page).
For example, let’s say that you’re an optometrist with an office in New York City who specializes in eye exams for children. You want to attract more customers so that your practice can grow faster than its current rate of 10% growth per year; however, most people aren’t aware of what kind of eye problems children face until they take their child into an optometrist’s office like yours.
Your goal would be to find keywords related specifically toward this issue so that when someone searches “eye exam NYC kids” or similar terms on Google or Bing/Yahoo!, they’ll see your website at or near the top of their results page–and then click through!
Identify Your Target Audience
The first step in any successful marketing campaign is identifying your target audience. This can be tricky, but it’s also the most important part of your YouTube marketing strategy. If you don’t know who you’re trying to reach, how will you know how best to reach them?
The good news is that there are several ways of figuring out who might be interested in your videos–and once you’ve done so, it’s easier than ever before for those people to find what they want on YouTube.
Rank Highly On Search Engines
The second step is to rank highly on search engines. This means that when people search for your keywords, they will be able to find your videos easily. Here are some ways that you can do this:
- Use your keywords in the title and description of each video.
- Add metadata tags (keywords) at the end of each video’s filename when uploading it to YouTube or Vimeo (e.g., “video-title-tag”).
- Add links back to related content on other pages within the website (this helps with user experience).
- Add links back from other websites that link directly into content on yours.
You should also optimize all videos with relevant keywords before uploading them onto platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (if applicable).