Here are the steps, from the beginning for the uninitiated:

1. Make sure you have oodles of film or TV show reviews published and easily found on your website (or wherever you had them published) before contacting IMDb.

2. Go here: IMDb/Help Desk.

3. Contact IMDb and ask to be allowed to submit External Reviews.

4. After you have been approved, log into IMDb with the log-in information supplied to you.

5. Go to a film or TV show page on IMDb where you want to submit a review.

6. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where it says “Contribute to this page”. Click “Edit Page”.

IMDb, Contribute to the Page, External Reviews

 
7. Scroll down to where it says “Links to Other Sites”. The sixth entry down you will see “External Reviews”. Click “No Change”, scroll down and select “Add 1 item”.

IMDb, Links to other SItes, External Reviews

8. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click “Continue >>”.

9. Under “Action” then “URL” paste in the URL for your review. Under “Description”, type in your website, your handle, whatever you want to use to identify yourself on IMDb. If you need help, there are instructions above this section in yellow with all the information you need.

IMDb, External Reviews, Submission Page

10. Once your information has been input, click “Check these updates >>”.

11. Now you will be on a screen that tells you that “Your updates are ready to submit to our data-editors.”

IMDb, Submitting Updates, External Reviews

If the information you entered is correct, click “Submit these updates”. You will now see a message containing this:

Your updates have been sent to the IMDb data editors for review. If they’re approved, they will normally appear on the site within the next few weeks. For specific details about this and a more current estimate of processing times, check the processing times page. For questions on the submission process we recommend visiting the Contributors Help message board. There are also a number of helpful resources at our Contributors Zone.

12. An email will be sent to the email address you used to sign up for External Reviews informing you of your submission. The email will also contain a submission reference number.

That’s it. You’re done. Now you just have to wait for your review to appear.

Did you find this post helpful?

It is also a tremendous marketing tool for your website, a new way to build your brand, and a entreatment to a constantly expanding user base.

Next Time

Hopefully some of the strategies presented in this series will help you with driving traffic to your website. There are many out there, many. I only spoke about the ones that I had personally used thus I could give you my impression on them.

The others I did not touch on I hope to grow proficient in. When that happens, I will discuss them in another post or series.

If you already use other YouTube methods to drive traffic to your website not discussed in this series, please share them with everyone in the comments section below. It would be appreciated.

Did you know

George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

 
ProMovieBlogger has its own YouTube Channel, written about in this post. Here is ProMovieBlogger’s YouTube Channel for our viewing pleasure and here is where you can subscribe to ProMovieBlogger’s YouTube Channel.

And now, on with the Strategy or as George W. Bush would say, Strategery.

Where to get the videos to upload to YouTube

For videos on YouTube, this is your start point. If you have no videos to upload, you have no need for YouTube strategies to drive traffic back to your website.

A few source suggestions:

1. Get them from YouTube. Download them from YouTube onto your harddrive then re-upload them to your YouTube Channel. Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome have some dandy browser add-ons programs that get the download video job done in swift fashion.

2. Get on the mailing lists of film PR firm. They will send you trailers to your inbox (links to zipped files or hosting sites).

iTunes Movie Trailers

 
3. Apple’s iTunes Movie Trailers page. Apple allows you to download trailers from their website all the way up to high-definition formats (720p and 1080p). The problem with Apple’s trailer site is they do not have all the latest movie trailer releases, just some of them.

4. The Yahoo! Trailer page. Almost the same deal with the Quicktime Trailer page except there is no on-screen download option. On this site you will need a browser download program or you need to know your way around the files on your computer. If you play a movie trailer or clip, the file will download itself on your computer into your temporary internet folder (that’s how it used to happen anyway). If you know where that is, you already have a copy of the trailer on your harddrive. If you don’t, you will need a browser program for the download. Three other analogous movie trailer sources to the Yahoo! Trailer page were mentioned in this post: 7 Movie Trailer Resources.

Basic Strategies

 
Be First
Be the first to upload something onto YouTube (e.g. a trailer) and you will reap the most hits for that upload. Example: I was the second person to upload the official teaser trailer for Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) onto YouTube. After fifteen hours, it had over fourteen thousand views (more hits potentially equals more people visting your website from that video). During that day I had almost hundred and fifty visits to our movie website from YouTube (a combination of traffic from all our YouTube uploads). Small potatoes for the big sites, which is why most do not bother, but good for the small guy looking for another traffic referral source. If you have branded your upload (discussed in detail below), you will reap the reward you are looking for from your YouTube upload: the viewer taking action and visiting your website.

Strikes and New Channels

If you have uploaded numerous videos onto your YouTube Channel, have embedded them in your website, and have garnered a copyright infringement strike (or two) against your channel, stop uploading to that channel and start another YouTube Channel. Why? You only get three strikes. If you get three copyright infringement strikes, your YouTube Channel will be terminated and all the embedded YouTube videos on your website will be worthless. I spoke of this happening to me numerous times here: How to Create a YouTube Channel that Drives Traffic to Your Website: Introduction. Your embedded YouTube trailers and clips will not show anything, only why there is nothing showing i.e. you are a copyright violator.

Be wary of these movie studios

I would be wary of or outright abstain from uploading anything from Warner Bros. Entertainment, Summit Entertainment, Sony Pictures Movies & Shows, Dimension Films, Open Road Films, and Revolver Entertainment. I spoke of why ad nauseam here: How to Create a YouTube Channel that Drives Traffic to Your Website: Introduction.

How do you get permission to post a trailer? You can’t unless you email each company and wait for a response. If you take that route, good luck.

Your best bet is to look at what other people are uploading and more importantly look at what they are not uploading. Catch the vibe before you blindly upload to YouTube and getting a copyright infringement strike against your YouTube Channel.

When the Underworld: Awakening (2012) Movie Trailer came out, I wondered why no one was uploading it to YouTube (I wanted to download it and upload it to one of my channels). Then I figured it out. They were being taken done quickly and people were getting violations. I stayed away from the trailer and so did many others. A movie trailer is not worth having your entire YouTube Channel terminated over, especially if you put a lot of work into it.

I would also stay away from uploading movie clips though I have gotten away with it in the past e.g. X 2011 Clip. TV spots (commercials) are okay. I have never had any problem with those.

Upload and Back-Up Strategies 

 
Branding

1. Your YouTube Upload Descriptions: On the first line of your descriptions for your uploaded videos to YouTube, place a back-link to your website’s home page. YouTube automatically makes this a working link so one click and a person is on your website.

Something that I do that others do not, something time consuming but that has bared fruit, is posting relevant links to the uploaded video in the description. You can see an example of that in the three articles and their links in the description here: X 2011 Clip. Once the viewer has watched the video in question they might want more. Those links will give it to them and give your site additional traffic and pageviews. Its laborious though, especially if you have a gaggle of links that could be posted. An augment to the single post strategy is posting the titles of all the relevant stories and then posting a single link, a link to the tag on your site that is posted in all the articles. Example: The Dark Knight Rises Trailer 2012 HD. Note the link in the description that brings up all the posted articles in the bottom of the upload.

2. Your YouTube Upload Titles: I go with the title of the film, what it is that I have uploaded e.g. Trailer, the year (obtained from IMDb), Official (optional), whether its high-definition, and the URL to the website I wish to back-link to. Example: Jack and Jill Trailer 2011 HD. Many do not do the last part but I do. A person can easily cut and paste the URL from the title of your upload into their browser, hit enter, and visit the URL in question. This in addition to your URL in the top line of your description for your upload gives you a potential home page traffic one-two punch. Be aware though, some movie studios do not like it when you place your URL in the title. Some feel it denotes ownership. Remember my story about I Spit On Your Grave (2010) included here: How to Create a YouTube Channel that Drives Traffic to Your Website: Introduction?

3. Your YouTube Channel: Put your website logo and its URL everywhere on your Channel. Use your Channel to promote your brand and drive traffic to the home page of your website. If one of your uploads becomes popular, some people will venture to your YouTube Channel to see if there is more of the same. When they get there, your branding and your website home page back-link will be waiting. I spoke of where and how to post home page back-links on your YouTube Channel and branding it in these videos: How to Create a YouTube Channel that Drives Traffic to Your Website: Set Up.

Upload Tags

Type in tags relevant to video you upload: Title, actors, etc. Remember: think of YouTube as a search engine. The tags make your upload relevant to certain search queries.

YouTube will initially make tag suggestions from the content of your upload title. Some of these will be helpful, some will not. Trial and error will tell you which to use and which not to use. Example: High-definition. YouTube might suggest this as a tag if you have HD in your title. If you upload is HD, take YouTube’s suggestion on that one.

How will tags for your YouTube Channel uploads drive traffic to your website? Its a domino effect. It happens by virtue of popularity, links, and your YouTube Channel. Popular videos garner YouTube traffic (the Title URL and description back-link advantageously come into play). Some of that traffic is driven to your YouTube Channel (by the inquisitive hungry for more) which in turn is driven to your home page from the home page link on your YouTube Channel. A bottle neck effect happens through all of these transitions but home page traffic is home traffic.

A video becomes popular because of what it is and how easily it can be found on YouTube. One of the ways it can be found easily is by its tags and if those tags are closely associated with the video in question.

Also, post something in the tags of all your uploaded vids so they all show in the related posts section (to the right) when one of your videos is viewed, one unifying tag. This potentially equals more hits for your videos (then your YouTube Channel, then your home page). Another benefit of this is if someone clicks that tag, all of your uploaded videos containing that tag will show up.

Back-up your Uploads

Back-up your uploads and keep all the trailers, clips, etc. you upload to YouTube in a file somewhere on your harddrive.

Rooney Mara, Shower Back, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 

 
If your Channel gets terminated from copyright violations, you will still have all of the trailers, clips, etc. to re-upload (drag and drop is great for that) in a new Channel. You will not have to go find them and download them again.

Post Candy onto YouTube

Post videos to YouTube that people are searching for (YouTube notes when videos are uploaded and page views), videos that people will be searching for, and videos heavily viewed already.

If people are searching for a particular trailer, post it yourself and get in on those pageviews and potential back-traffic.

If you know something will be popular, like a copy of the Royal Wedding that recently occurred in England, try posting that. The Movie Reel Trailers did and earned forty-six thousand views on that video before that YouTube Channel was terminated for copyright violations (unrelated violations to that upload, written about here: How to Create a YouTube Channel that Drives Traffic to Your Website: Introduction). How many of those people ventured back to the Channel’s home page? The owner of that Channel knew people would be searching for that footage after the wedding, he or she uploaded it, and their educated guess turned out accurate.

Re-post and tag (e.g. Title URL) popular videos on YouTube, videos with page views in the millions and/or with eye-catching avatars. They will attract attention for you as well. I have been experimenting with this a little. You’ll note the playlist “Funny News Reports” and others on this particular YouTube Channel (completely un-movie related playlists but keep the Royal Wedding example in mind). See the views for the videos in that and other playlists there? A few of those are potential website home page views via the Title URL and the description back-link by the curious.

The YouTube Channel Designs are not twins of the same Google mother, and…

I wish more of the old YouTube Channel design was maintained and carried over to the new design. They have the same name but are dressed differently.

Ann Kenny, Tura Kenny

 
Some of the fun of a YouTube Channel have been taken away (but at least they are positively evolving, unlike MySpace). Its more business now, which is good if you are a movie webmaster because you are running a business.

Sign Up For an Account

If you have a GMail account, go to YouTube, click “Sign In” and sign in with your GMail address and password. If you do not have a GMail account, go to YouTube and click Create Account. When you sign up for a account, you will automatically be signed up for a GMail account.

Setting up a YouTube Channel (The Old YouTube Design)

Now that you have created your YouTube Channel, you are presented with a blank palette on which to paint and create.

Color 

Choose a color scheme that matches the color scheme of your website. This provides continuity between the two. You will find this option under “Themes and Colors”.

Profile Picture 

In general, use the logo for your website. Go to “Settings”, “Profile Setup”, and select “Change Picture”. YouTube allows you to upload from your computer. Personal Experience: I have seen a lot of YouTube Channels with provocative Profile pictures and an absurd amount of Channel Views. Honey attracts the bees.

Website URL 

Under “Settings”, “Profile Setup”, you will find Website (URL). Plug in your sites URL. Its very important. That is the primary way people will get from your YouTube Channel to your website.

Channel Description 

On the YouTube Channel, click “Edit” next to “Profile”. This will bring up a box where you can and should type in your Channel’s Description. The “Channel Description” can be about your website’s topics/categories or it can be about what people can expect to find on your channel e.g. movie trailers. It’s your sale’s pitch, make it good. “Channel Description” is also another opportunity to link to your website (though its redundant), to your social networking sites or any other URL you choose.

Channel View 

The “Channel View” option, top right hand side, is either “Player View” or “Grid View”. I choose “Player View” because it looks better in my opinion. The”Grid View” lets people see a large amount of the videos you have uploaded all at once.

Auto Play (Autoplay featured video) 

I enable the “Auto Play” option so when someone comes to the YouTube Channel, the “featured video” automatic plays. This is why the “Player View” channel option is a good choice. Having “Auto Play” selected means every time your channel is viewed, the video in the player is played and you get an additional video view.

Modules 

Their arrangement is up to you.

Two things people overlook (you will not because you are reading this post) are “Title” and “Channel Tags”: On the YouTube Channel, click “Setting”, its to the right of “Post Bulletin”. Under that you will see ‘Title’ and ‘Channel Tags’. Plug in a descriptive title for your YouTube Channel and descriptive tags for your YouTube Channel. For ‘Title’ and ‘Channel Tags’ ask yourself, what is the primary content of your channel?

A video walk-through for setting up the old YouTube Channel Design

Setting Up a  YouTube Channel (The new YouTube Design)

The new YouTube Channel design has all sorts of bells and whistles the old YouTube Channel design dosen’t possess but regardless of which you ultimately choose, you may have noticed that “Friends” has been completely eliminated. It’s all about “Subscribers” now.

A video walk-through for setting up the new YouTube Channel Design

And now, a question for discussion:

• Which YouTube Channel Design do you like the best?

Before we get to that, lets start at the beginning so that you know exactly where I am coming from and what perspective I have on creating a YouTube channel that driver traffic to a website.

YouTube Logo

 
In the beginning

I have been battered and beaten up by the YouTube channel-to-website traffic generation process. It began with a horror movie called Victim. I was sent the trailer in my inbox by a movie PR company (a resource written about here: 7 Movie Trailer Resources). After I watched it and saw its disturbing nature ( I watched it two or three times. I could not believe what I saw and what was implied), I downloaded the trailer than uploaded the trailer to YouTube. I knew this movie trailer was fresh, few had it ( a quick search of YouTube confirmed this). I tagged it properly (more on that later) and wrote a post for it: Victim (2010) Movie Trailer. Needless to say the trailer was popular on YouTube. I found this out because of the views it was getting and because I had placed a link back to the homepage of my site in the description for the trailer. People were clicking through to my site from that link. I began seeing traffic from YouTube on my WordPress Stats dashboard (written about here: Starting a Movie Website: WordPress Plugins). That Victim movie trailer was uploaded onto my first YouTube channel.

The first YouTube channel I created for my movie website (approaching two million ‘Total Upload Views’, nearly six hundred Friends, nearly three hundred Subscribers) got shut down for copyright violations e.g. uploading movie trailers and clips I did not have the authorization to upload. The headstone can be found Here. Two of the strikes were for uploading deleted scenes that were appearing on an upcoming release of one of The Twilight Saga segments (I know what you are thinking but the ‘Twihards’ are massive on YouTube). I got two additional strikes (which shut down the channel) because I had uploaded clips for I Spit on Your Grave (2010), clips (I Spit on Your Grave (2010): You’re Lost Alright, Pretty Little Thing Movie Clips) a company promoting the film sent to my inbox five months earlier.

With the DVD and the Blu-ray about to be released, it seems the company behind the home release did not want clips floating around (especially ones with over two thousand views each) plus the fact that I had branded the clips was not looked upon favorably. Through the company promoting the film (they were very understanding) and the copyright claims process (laborious) I was able to get those two strikes taken off my YouTube channel and it was restored with its original two strikes for The Twilight Saga (Summit Entertainment). What I should have done at that point was not upload anything else to that channel and start a new one.

I was not thinking clearly.

Clarity would come at a steep price later, a terrible learning experience.

Rooney Mara, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

 
The third and final strike came from uploading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) Teaser Trailer. I would seem Sony Pictures Movies & Shows wanted no one uploading that teaser trailer onto YouTube but them. The copyright claims process was of no use that time, though I tried. I knew no one at Sony Pictures to vouch for me to YouTube.

All of my uploads were gone. I had to start all over again. All the posts on my site that housed them now showed nothing.

If I started a new YouTube Channel right after the first one had been restored (after the I Spit on Your Grave incident had been resolved), that YouTube Channel would probably still be up right now. That channel was sending me hits from multiple uploaded trailers because of proper branding and links.

One note: YouTube keeps terminated channels stored for some time after they are eliminated so if you know somebody, the right somebody, your terminated YouTube channel may be able to be restored, just like it was for me.

There is another story that runs parallel to this one. One YouTube channel (not mine but one I was learning from when I started out on YouTube), The Movie Reel, had sixteen million ‘Total Upload Views’ and many major movie websites were using that YouTube channel’s uploads as embeds in their websites. In addition, it had millions for ‘Channel Views’ so I am guessing that YouTube channel had a good Page Rank as well. They got shut down for copyright violations, one of them being for uploading the same The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo teaser trailer. View the headstone for yourself. Its other two violations were from Summit Entertainment (The Twilight Saga) and Warner Bros. Entertainment uploads. The Movie Reel got triple tapped (did I just coin that) all at the same time. One day I checked their channel and I saw those three violations and nothing else. It must of hit the owner of that channel like a sledge hammer.

He, she or they had put a lot of work into it (which always struck me as odd because they weren’t back linking to anything, not a website, a blog, nothing). Their YouTube channel was not even monetized. They were just doing it for the love of doing it it would seem. They had started a new channel, The Movie Reel Trailers, (not until recently, which has also been terminated) and I have started multiple ones.

The second YouTube channel I had created that got shut down was due to compliancy. I had followed the strategy of starting a new YouTube channel when a strike occurred for a few channels, then my second latest channel received a copyright infringement strike from Dimension Films for uploading the Piranha 3DD (2012) Teaser Trailer that was presented on the 2011 Scream Awards broadcast. I thought: Its just one strike so instead of starting a new channel, I kept right on uploading videos to that channel like a true back-birth. Months later I received two more copyright infringement strikes at the same time: One for uploading a promo/sales trailer for The Grey from Open Road Films and the other for uploading the new Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (2010) Movie Trailer from Revolver Entertainment.

I was sent the dreaded channel termination letter once again. I love these YouTube emails:

This is the third notification we have received alleging copyright infringement in one of your postings. Consequently, your account has been terminated.

If one of your postings has been misidentified as infringing, you may submit a counter-notification. Information about this process is in our Help Center.

Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material was disabled due to mistake or misidentification may be liable for damages.

Sincerely,

— The YouTube Team

A hundred uploaded videos wiped out, a hundred holes in my movie website. The headstone is Here.

Lucky, I had learned from (some) of my mistakes and had saved all the movie trailers I had previously uploaded to that channel and to other  YouTube channels on one of my harddrives. I started a new YouTube channel,  bulk uploaded ninety-six of the erased movie trailers coterminous, then replaced (extremely tedious) the dead trailers in my posts with the live trailers.

With that in mind, that brings us to signing up for, starting, and setting up a new YouTube channel.

The future segment of this series:

How to Create a YouTube Channel that Drives Traffic to Your Website: Set Up

How to Create a YouTube Channel that Drives Traffic to Your Website: Strategies

How to Create a YouTube Channel that Drives Traffic to Your Website: Conclusion

Until then, a question for discussion:

• Does your website currently have its own YouTube channel?