YouTube videos for affiliate marketing generate increased conversions and user engagement!
I have seen affiliates increase their sales by 30% with the addition of a quality YouTube video and channel.
This includes increased conversions for embedded videos within the site as well as increased traffic resulting from higher search engine placement within Google. Yet, I am amazed at how few affiliates take advantage of this channel as part of their affiliate marketing strategy.
Last week, I attended a “Tricks Most People Don’t Do On YouTube” workshop at my co-working space, Hera Hub. Christina Fleming, of Murasaki Media (), led an engaging hour on how to optimize YouTube videos. I furiously took notes as I immediately saw the benefits for my affiliates.
10 Optimization Tips for YouTube Videos for Affiliate Marketing
- Engage With Titles. Take the time and thought with your YouTube titles as you do your blog posts. Titles determine clicks and views. Your titles should be content specific. Powerful titles include the following phrases:
- How To – an example would be “How to optimize your YouTube Videos for Affiliate Marketing” versus Affiliate Program Overview.
- Advice – “Advice For Optimizing Your YouTube Videos for Affiliate Marketing”
- Learn about – “Learn about Optimizing your YouTube Videos for Affiliate Marketing”
- Tell Me About Yourself. The description box is essential for search engine results as well as desired call to actions. Include:
- Reason to watch the video or read more in first three sentences that the user. This information is visible without having to click ‘More’
- Keyword word phrases. Unlike your blog post, keyword placement is not essential for ranking
- Links to your website. This is great for SEO and serves as a call to action
- Considering pasting in your entire script for SEO purposes
- Close Caption For The Search Engines. By including your script in the Subtitles and CC setting, you increase your search engine rankings. Do not select automatic for this option as the search engines do not recognize automatically generated subtitles.
- Get Custom. Take advantage of the real estate YouTube provides you to enhance your brand. You can do this by selecting Edit on your YouTube home page.
- Create a custom header
- Choose your highlighted video carefully. It serves as an introduction to new followers.
- Create custom playlists, these work similar to a Blog Category. For instance, I might have a Playlist on Shareasale Tools For Affiliate Marketers
- Thumbnails Make An Impression. Instead of giving a random still shot selected by YouTube the prime real estate of your video, upload your own thumbnail.
- You can upload your thumbnail under Channel Setting and clicking on the Verify button
- Make it “Pinterest” pretty using Photoshop or tools like Picmonkey
- Include the title
- Image size should be 1280×720
- Ask For Action. In your video and description, don’t forget to ask the user to Like, Subscribe or click on one of your affiliate links. You would be surprised how a simple reminder increases your conversions when using YouTube videos for affiliate marketing.
- Link It Up. Speaking of links, did you know you can add links directly into your video using the Annotations setting? You will see the Annotation option when you click Edit. There are a couple of restrictions for this feature.
- You can only link within YouTube to other videos or Google Plus. We all know how Google Plus snuck in there.
- Be sure to click Open Link to New Window for the link so you aren’t taking your follower away from their original intent
- Keep It Private. Under the gear icon next to Creator Studio button, click on Privacy on the left hand navigation.
- Clean It Up. Take down old videos that no longer serve your audience and brand.
- Use your network. Finally make sure you leverage your network to boost your videos. Likes, subscribes and comments all play a huge role in your search engine rankings. Ask friends, family and your professional network to engage with your videos. Just make sure they watch the WHOLE video otherwise big brother Google will know.
I hope you found these tips as useful as I did! I look forward to seeing your commissions increase with this engaging and powerful tool!
Not in one of my affiliate programs? Well how did that happen? Click here for a list of my programs to see if any meet your needs.