YouTube Success In 3 Steps

So you have made your video based around a really great keyword phrase, but their are still some important steps to getting your video ranked and watched.  First, you need to cover what the viewer sees when they first see your video flash up in the search results. 

The first place you should put your keyword phrase is in your video file name. This will tell YouTube what the video is about.

Why?

YouTube can't actually "watch" your video to see how relevant it is to your target keyword, (although they can transcribe your video) but, YouTube can read your video's file name.

If your keyword phrase is "sales funnels for beginners" for example, your video's file name should be "sales funnels for beginners".

After your title, the thumbnail is the next most important item for getting people to click on your video. There is a lot of data on what works and what doesn't but here are the general rules.

I would recommend you use an application like Canva to design your thumbnails. Canva has built in templates, but you can also use custom dimensions as follows:

YouTube Thumbnail Dimensions

Optimize your YouTube thumbnails with these dimensions: 1280 pixels wide by 720 pixels tall, with a minimum width of 640 pixels. A ratio of 16:9 is ideal as it's used most often in YouTube players and previews

In this video, Sean Cannell gives a really good overview of how to build and optimize a thumbnail using Canva

Your video’s description serves a number of purposes.  Primarily it is to help YouTube understand more about your video when ranking.

However, it is also a place to put links to affiliate products, free downloads etc.  This is the first step in monetizing your YouTube channel

Your video description helps YouTube and Google understand the context and positioning of your video. The better they understand your video, the higher you’ll rank, both in YouTube and Google searches.  More often than not, you will also show up in the Suggested Video sidebar.

Here are the basic guidelines for the description:

• Include your keyword in the first 25 words
• Make the description at least 250 words
• Include your keyword 2-4 times

This will help to optimize the description which tells Google and YouTube what your video is about.

Here is that example of a description for a Brian Dean video that’s optimized around the keyword “On-page SEO”.  You can see the target keyword three times, including in the opening sentence.

Tags aren’t as important as title and thumbnail…but they do help YouTube know what your video is about..

Here’s how I use video tags for my videos:

1. My first tag is my exact target keyword or keyword phrase.
2. I also include a few variations of that word or phrase. 
3. Finally, I make a few of my tags other topics that my video covers.

Targeted tags not only help you rank for your target keyword, but also get you to show up more often as a related video in the sidebar area of YouTube

TubeBuddy is a great tool for optimizing your tags for YouTube SEO. It has a wealth of tag research tools  for finding the best tags for your videos. 

These quick tutorials takes you through how to use the best ones:

TubeBuddy Tag Explorer - Quick Guide

TubeBuddy Tag Sorter - Quick Guide

TubeBuddy Tag Sorter - Quick Guide

If you don't have TubeBuddy, you can get it for free here

In this example of one of my videos, you can see how popular different tags are and how your video is ranking for them.

The light blue number alongside the "Kartra" tag is the rating for that keyword.  You are looking for a higher value that shows a popular keyword with low competition. 

The numbers in green show where you rank in YouTube search for that keyword phrase.  So you see this video ranks #1 for "Kartra Marketing Campaigns".  

One of the quickest ways to start earning an income from your YouTube channel, is through affiliate marketing. 

You don't need to spend time developing your own product, instead you review and recommend ready-made products as an affiliate.  

You sell a product, the product vendor (or affiliate platform) pays you a commission. 

When you see people unboxing or reviewing products on YouTube, you are also likely to see a link in the video description that takes you to Amazon to purchase the product. 

This is the Amazon Associate program and the video host will receive between 2% and 10% commission for each item purchased.  This doesn't sound much, but if you are recommending high ticket items like cameras or drones, it can add up.

Also note that the Associate gets paid a commission on any other item the customer purchases in the same transaction.  So if they also add a tripod, a lens and a camera bag, then they get commission on those.

I know of YouTubers that earn several thousand dollar per month in Amazon commissions and remember that a video can stay on YouTube for many years so it can keep on giving. 

This is my particular favorite, mainly because it can be a source of recurring income.

If you make a video tutorial or do a review of a software product, you can add an affiliate link in your video description for viewers to sign up for a trial or purchase the product.

Most software products are delivered as a monthly or annual subscription and you get paid a percentage for as long as your referred customer keeps using the software.

Here are links to some of the products with the best affiliate programs.  And yes these are affiliate links so I will receive a commission if you sign up for a paid product.

Kartra:  40% recurring commission.  All-in-one marketing software (this page is built using Kartra)

ClickFunnels: up to 40% recurring commission. Sales funnel building software

ConvertKit:  30% recurring commission. Email autoresponder software

Drip:  30% recurring commission. Email autoresponder software

Leadpages:  30% recurring commission. Landing page building software

RightMessage: 20% recurring commission. Web chat software and segmenting tool.

TubeBuddy:  30-50% recurring commission. YouTube research and optimization tool.

VidIQ:  15-25% recurring commission. YouTube research and optimization tool.

If you like the product, sign up to use it, sign up as and affiliate and make a few sales and the cost of the product is covered. 

If you want to learn more about Affiliate Marketing, I recommend you sign up for my good buddy Pat Flynn's 1-2-3 Affiliate Marketing course using the link below.  Pat built up a 7-figure online income just through promoting affiliate products.

Many people have built highly successful online businesses using YouTube as their principal traffic source, and you can too.  

Unlike Instagram and Facebook, videos posted on YouTube can continue to appear in peoples' searches and suggested video feeds for many years. This can provide a consistent source of leads for an online business. 

So let's look at the process for doing this.

This may seem counter-intuitive, but bear with me.

If you are serious about building an online business and the income that results from it, you need to focus on where that income will come from.

Brendon Burchard recently sent me an email. In it he gave me his viewpoint on what is needed to succeed in 2020 and beyond. Here is what he said:

I think there are only THREE skills required to majorly win in this digital economy.

Those skillsets?

• Create for online
• Serve online
• Sell online

These used to be for "lifestyle entrepreneurs." Now it feels like they are the modern equivalent of job security.

But what should you DO with that? How do we deploy these skills for a more abundant future for our families?

If you are going to create a product, there are only *FIVE things* that I would create and sell if I were you.

You don't need to create and sell all 5, but knowing these are the most popular and 100% virtual - no travel, no inventory, no office required - will really help you.

These are:

• Virtual group coaching,
• Paid live training,
• Online courses,
• Webinars (usually free, but often present the option to sign up for a paid program)
• Monthly paid memberships/subscriptions.

Brendon is a New York Times Best Selling Author with a multimillion dollar online business, so I tend to listen to his advice.

You have to decide which of these products or services you have or want to create. 

From there you can build the sales funnel to drive traffic to this. 

If you downloaded my free e-book, you will know what a sales funnel is.  If you didn't, do it now.  The link is below or just click here.

Every successful online business has one or more sales funnels. 

So let's take a look at an example.

This is a funnel I built using Kartra.  It is designed to work in partnership with a YouTube video.  You make a video about a particular topic.  During the video, you offer the viewer the chance to learn more by clicking a link to register for a Webinar.

Once registered, the viewer turns into a lead on your email list and they are sent a series of emails reminding them to attend the webinar (pre-webinar reminder sequence). 

They watch the webinar where you educate them on the subject you cover in your paid course or membership. During the webinar, you offer them the opportunity to purchase the paid program for a special, limited time price and they are taken to a sales page.  

If all goes well, they become a customer.

If this all looks like a lot of work, don't worry I have this all built out in Kartra as a Done-for-you funnel.  It is available free to anyone who signs up as a Kartra user using my affiliate link. 

I like to look after my Kartra customers. 

If you would like your audience to get to know you better, before you sell them a product or service, you may want to start by offering them something free to join your email list.

This is called a leadmagnet.  It is typically a PDF guide or e-book.  Sometimes it is a mini-course.

There are two things that are important about leadmagnets.

1. They need to connect people to your paid product.

2. They should be of high quality.

When I say they should connect people to your paid product, your leadmagnet needs to give them a taste of what they could learn if they purchased your paid product. 

There is no point offering a leadmagnet about fly fishing if your paid workshop is about gardening. Maybe that's an extreme example. but you get my drift. 

When I say "high quality" I don't mean it needs to be long.  In fact, it really should be short and easy to digest. People are short on time these days.  What I mean is that it should really help people and deliver great value so they come away thinking - "wow, if that is the free product, the paid product must be amazing!"

Again here is an example of a funnel that you can use to get people onto your email list using a leadmagnet.

Again you make a video about a particular topic.  During the video, you offer the viewer the chance to learn more by clicking a link to access the leadmagnet.

This link goes to an opt in form where they enter their name and email.  

They are automatically entered into an email sequence where they are immediately sent the leadmagnet followed by a series of emails.  

You are building your email list, which is a key component of every successful online business.