By Samantha Gluck
Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube provide inexpensive, but effective, ways for businesses to market their products and services. One of the primary reasons businesses market through these channels is to gain higher page rankings for their websites. A higher ranking means the business site will appear higher in search engine results -- increasing awareness of their products and services.
Are Google and YouTube Related?
Yes, indeed. Google owns YouTube. Because Google owns YouTube, videos originating from the site rank very high in the search engines. Google uses a highly-guarded, secret algorithm to determine the ranking of YouTube videos similar to the one used for Web page ranking. This system determines the authority of a video channel or Web page. The higher your YouTube video is ranked, the higher its authority and the higher it will appear in a key word search.
Will My Popular Video Also Help My Website Rankings?
Yes and no. Outgoing back-links on YouTube contain “no follow” code. This renders YouTube channels useless for building back-links to directly affect page rankings of an outside website. A popular video channel on YouTube may not directly affect your website rankings, but there will be an increase in traffic to your site.
This may result in more clicks, link-backs, comments, etc., which can then increase the ranking of the site in key word searches. Because of this increased traffic, your popular YouTube video can indirectly have a very positive effect on your website rankings.
How Do I Increase the Popularity of My Video?
First and foremost, no matter how much you promote your video, if viewers do not find value and meaning in the video content, it will not have enough popularity to make a difference.
- The first step is to perform some key word research to determine how people search for the content in your video.
- Then, search on YouTube using these key words.
- Look at the highest ranking videos that come up and note the key words used and other content on their channel page.
- Leave meaningful comments on these channels. This will create YouTube back-links to your YouTube video channel, thus increasing your video’s exposure and popularity.
Using social networking platforms effectively to promote your business requires constant updating and promotional activities. It can add up to many hours of work outside of core business operations, but when done properly, the value added in the form of brand awareness and authority are priceless.
About the Author:
Samantha Gluck has had over a decade of experience helping businesses better focus their websites to enhance ecommerce and Internet presence by utilizing Web analytics, relevant design elements and marketing campaigns.