3 Easy Steps to Increasing Online Video Click-Through

BY Rachel Cagle
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Your client is finishing the perfect online video to showcase their company. The message is clear and concise and the graphics look stellar. Now it’s uploaded to YouTube and it’s time to reap the benefits of all that hard work. One problem, the video isn’t getting as many views as the client had hoped. What is happening?

An infographic by One Productions showcased in a MarketingProfs article by Laura Forer has the answers. For starters, every minute of every day, about 100 hours of online video is being uploaded. That’s a lot of content, even for the three billion searches that are conducted via YouTube on a monthly basis. So, how can your client's videos stand out? Here are a few of One Productions’ tips on how to optimize your client’s videos to increase their click-​through rates.

Descriptions

Even though YouTube allows for 5,000 characters in its description sections, only the first 1,200 or so are displayed. That’s around two to three lines. So, the first few lines of your client’s video description need to be as enticing as they are concise. What do your client’s potential viewers need to know before they decide this video is the best choice? Put that first. There’s no point in a slow build-up.

Tags

Both viewers and YouTube itself use tags to narrow searches to a specific desired category. In that case, why not give the video as many tags as possible so that it ends up on more results pages, right? Wrong! First of all, viewers will get annoyed if they click on your client’s video and it has nothing to do with what they’re looking for. Second, YouTube will penalize your client if it discovers too many tags. Twelve tags should be the maximum amount your client uses.

Subtitles

The benefits of subtitles and closed captions to online video advertisers are numerous. Your client may think this text only caters to viewers who may be hard of hearing. However, captions are also a godsend to viewers who may be at work or another location where they can’t turn on a video’s sound. Not only that, search engines crawl closed captions and subtitles. If the subtitles are full of keywords, it’ll help the video’s visibility.

Not sure who your client’s avid video watchers could be? Check out the Online Video Watchers and YouTube Users profiles on AudienceSCAN by Admall from SalesFuel. They’ll give you demographic information on these viewers, as well as some insight into their purchase intent for the upcoming year.


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