With your YouTube Channel created and setup, there are strategies that you can employ that will drive traffic from your YouTube Channel and your uploads back to your website. These strategies apply to both the old YouTube Channel design and the new YouTube Channel design.
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.
