Anyone use YouTube videos for clients?

[squidkai1]

Has anyone ever created a YouTube video for an offline client of theirs and used it to generate traffic to their website?

Reason I am asking is normally I don't do this, but one client wants to have videos created and ranked to drive traffic to their site and generate sales from.

For those that have done this for clients, are the conversions any good for this type of traffic? Would the conversions be the same as ranking a normal website? Anything to help with conversions?

Just curious and appreciate your inputs

 

[svracer142]

Can anybody respond to this?

 

[d1129]

There are too many variables to give a clear answer on this. I have videos ranked for just about everything from clickbank products to ecommerce stores to soley offline brick and mortar stores.

First, with local businesses it depends on the search volume, obviously. The view to conversion ratio is low for most of my videos but if the presell is good then my conversion coming from the actual visitors that click the link in the videos is usually great. ILike I said this depends on a lot of variables. I have some videos that do so much better than sites ranked on the same page.
If you are targeting a local business keyword with say 100 searches a month you may not notice much of a difference.

Second, The type of video is crucial for conversions. It's all about the presell. Get potential customers excited about the business or service, address any questions or concerns they may have about visiting said business. Just a slide show or even more "commercial" type vidoes tend to not do to well. Make the video more personal, either a review from a customer or the owner talking about the business. Highlight the benefits for the potential customer - don't just run through a list of services. Make it personal, speak directly to them.

Ranking a video for your client will only help them, even if it doesn't drive much traffic. Any time you can get another listing on the page helps. The great thing about videos is that you can usually rank them in google in a couple of weeks at the most, so it's not like a website that can take months. I would say it would be silly not to do it for your client.

 

[squidkai1]

Thanks for the information and exactly what I needed.

 

[joshmp5]

Youtube is a very significant, (provided you know how to utilize it, which many dont) source of good, profitable traffic. It is also a GREAT STARTER for people trying to get into CPA network leads.

 

[martinovich]

 

[Grunge]

There are too many variables to give a clear answer on this. I have videos ranked for just about everything from clickbank products to ecommerce stores to soley offline brick and mortar stores.

First, with local businesses it depends on the search volume, obviously. The view to conversion ratio is low for most of my videos but if the presell is good then my conversion coming from the actual visitors that click the link in the videos is usually great. ILike I said this depends on a lot of variables. I have some videos that do so much better than sites ranked on the same page.
If you are targeting a local business keyword with say 100 searches a month you may not notice much of a difference.

Second, The type of video is crucial for conversions. It's all about the presell. Get potential customers excited about the business or service, address any questions or concerns they may have about visiting said business. Just a slide show or even more "commercial" type vidoes tend to not do to well. Make the video more personal, either a review from a customer or the owner talking about the business. Highlight the benefits for the potential customer - don't just run through a list of services. Make it personal, speak directly to them.

Ranking a video for your client will only help them, even if it doesn't drive much traffic. Any time you can get another listing on the page helps. The great thing about videos is that you can usually rank them in google in a couple of weeks at the most, so it's not like a website that can take months. I would say it would be silly not to do it for your client.

Spot on mate. If I may just compliment what you said, I think it also comes down to the client's overall goals and what mediums can be leveraged on to achieve those goals.

Like you said, ranking videos in just a few weeks compared to months is the major point. What I would tell my clients is to take up video marketing to get that initial increase in traffic to their site and ultimately leads and sales while we're working on the rankings of the site.

I have found in my previous clients that if you do not get them results fast enough, they'll leave for another company or not renew their contract with us. Most clients are not really willing to wait for six months to see some traffic coming in or rankings showing up. It's not because we're not helping them see the picture but rather the fact that most businesses don't even know whether they're gonna be around in six months.

The way I promote video marketing is: video marketing brings in both short terms and long term results and SEO brings in long term results. Video marketing allows businesses to brand themselves as the most logical choice in their marketplace to buy from. When clients hear that, they tend to jizz in their pants.

 

[the-dream]

It all depends on how convincing the video is. If it's just a powerpoint type thing then it won't be effective but if it's a professional looking video with convincing people in it then it will be a lot more effective than just a web page I'd say.

 

[Pro Link wheeler]

Yeah it would be a plus point if you are using the video medium too,Such video makes good or impression on clients and it looks more professional in a way.

 

[hiimadam]

I am generating 400 leads a month for property managers via youtube. KILLIN IT

 

[plessard]

Some great responses here. As all things it is how you use it and what they client really wants. Some clients are thrilled just seeing that they own half the 1st page for a keyword even if they can never prove it made them money. Video ranks fast. Include a phone number in the video title and now there number is in the serps on page one. Distribute the video to more than one vid site and you get multiple rankings. For longtail you can usually accomplish this with a good title/description and submitting the rss feed of your channel and a few social signals from places like Twitter. I have generated serious amounts of leads for national companies that needed to rank in hundreds of cities using video. All the back links from the vids to landing pages on a big national site provide some great rankings as well. Good luck!

 

[cbar126]

Let me pinch in. I do this for my local clients.

3 types of videos.

1. pictures of their products or projects converted into videos
2. screenshots of their positive reviews, then convert them into video (look for reviews everywhere, tripadvisor, manta, yelp, etc, take a screenshot, goto the next do the same, create a video do a slides before that say "Look our reviews online!")
3. talk to them about new products or whats new in their market, record the conversation, do a video using images of the products your clienat is talking about, edit the conversation and added to the video

I use camtasia, animoto use the cheap $5 animoto and edit with camtasia.
also powerpoint to video.
buy videos on fiver
buy a intro in fiverr for each client, add this intro at the beginning and end of the video, include a slide with the info of your client at the end, give them 10 secs extra in that slide.

save the video with the keyword you want to rank like, emergencyplumberinclarwater.mp4
use the keyword in the title and add the phone number, so after indexing looks like:
Emergency Plumber in Clearwater | (333) 333-3333

Use the url and the keyword in the first line of the description like:
http://www.yourclientsite.com Emergency plumber in Clearwater, we provide the bla bla bla

I use social dominion bot I bought from a member here, it works great, gets views likes shares to the video, be careful, just do a bit per day, then wait to see the rankings, do a bit more, etc.

Also, for rankings purposes, create a google plus page, add the link in the footer of the site to the plus page and add the address of the business in the footer as well. Now you can copy the address exactly like you have in the footer to the description of the video in youtube and this will count as a citation (powerful if you rank the video and share it).

 

[worldwebsolutions]

I am generating 400 leads a month for property managers via youtube. KILLIN IT

hmm.. can you expedite more on it

 

[trshosta]

Rather than use it for SEO purposes, I am thinking of making professional commercial type of videos.

 

[wally666]

Absolutely it's a good idea. I think a lot of business owners don't realize what video can do for them, so it's your job to fill them in. Here is a pretty good bunch of stats for how video helps businesses. Put these to memory and when you talk to them, you'll have some convincing things to say.




http://www.videobrewery.com/blog/18-video-marketing-statistics

 

[Petras]

We (#1 seo Google au) have created introduction video. It helps to bring attention of customers who are in the rush to open another site.
I've just noticed more YouTube views vs original site views from search engines!

We did not try SEO on YouTube - not our specialization, but idea is promising. YouTube is #2 Search Engine by search volume and video is much more engaging vs static text.

P.S. I am collecting posts as "black hatter" to be allowed post pm responses
I am just newbie in it so bear with me ...

 

[Daisysiegal]

Absolutely....problem is...good video production cost $. If you market to mid-sized biz...i think you could sell this service.

 

[Chief Ranker]

Absolutely....problem is...good video production cost $. If you market to mid-sized biz...i think you could sell this service.

Good video production doesn't cost a lot surprisingly.

If you're making real life videos, a tripod and hand-held camera are all that's needed. You have to realize, anyone with decent computer skills is able to create incredible, television quality videos just with free software you can download from the nets. This lowers the barrier of entry for video editors. It makes it so you can find a freelancer on craigslist and pay him a few hundred for a quality job.

Also you need to realize business owners expectations, they're not going to mind if it's not superbowl ad quality. Just a simple quirky well made video that gets the message across will amaze them. "Holy $&#& I'm on YouTube now look at me!!!" Is the general reaction you should expect, not "The quality is lacking, my face is blurred in this segment, I want this text to be green," etc, etc.

The most challenging aspect here is the script development; making a video that is memorable, fun, creative, etc.

 

[Arsis]

As a gift to my clients, I like to take videos they have already done, that aren't ranking for anything and reupload them properly optimized and get them ranked for a couple longtails. They love it and it helps hugely with retaining them as a client.