Internet Marketing - Don't Believe Everything You Hear

In the last article in this series we discussed one of the more traditional traffic strategies, Article Marketing. Because of my current series of article I felt that this should be the first tactic to review.

In this article, I want to discuss another technique using Video as a great method of directing traffic to your website.

If you've been on the web or, as a matter of fact, if you're breathing at all, you've heard of YouTube. You wouldn't believe the massive number of videos are uploaded on YouTube daily. These very same videos are visited by millions of people not only for fun but to be educated as well.

That being said, there is a great opportunity to get traffic to your website using YouTube, as well as the other video sites, for FREE.

There are a couple of things you need to think about when using videos as a traffic strategy:

1. Be Unique - if you're going to use video as a tool you need to create something different and unique. It needs to attract the visitor and then keep them interested. Much like the rest of the web, visitors tend to have limited focus and tend to leave real quick if the content is not exciting.

2. Great Title - Once again, like everything on the web, the first thing the visitor sees is the headline. Make it interesting and grab the attention of the visitor.

3. Create a Channel - YouTube provides you with the opportunity to create your own channel (ie. homepage) for free. You need to create a bio and include in that bio the URL you want your visitors to go to when they visit your channel. In this brief article it's tough to go into all of the details in creating a good channel.

4. Attract Friends and Subscribers - In order to get your videos noticed you must find ways to attract new visitors to your channel and your videos. One of the ways to do this is to visit other channels and view other videos in your niche. When you are there you can add comments to the video or channel and become their friend and/or subscriber. You can also rate their video as well. Then, add a unique, complimentary comment and in that comment request that the channel owner reciprocate and become your friend and/or subscriber. It's also important when adding a comment that you are at the top of the comment list and that, when reviewing the comments, that you pick a video that has frequent comments as well. This is one great way to get noticed by other video viewers.

5. Add Your URL to Your Video - Whenever you upload a new video you will be asked for a title and a description. Be sure to make the title interesting and more importantly, make sure that the URL you want visited is the first thing in the description. Then provide a description of the video making sure to include the benefits the viewer will receive if they listen to the video.

6. Be Prolific - One video won't work. You need to add as many videos as possible in order to start generating interest. Don't get too crazy worrying about how you're going to get this done. Set yourself a goal of getting one video per day of less than 10 minutes per video done. YouTube only allows videos of 10 minutes or less. In reality you can most likely get your point across in far less than 10 minutes.

There are a number of ways to create the videos to upload. I would suggest that the easiest way is to use a program called Camtasia ( a free version called Camtasia Studio is available on the web) to capture what is on your screen as you narrate the process or even something like PowerPoint. There are also several complimentary programs on the internet that you can use as well.