4 Tips for a Successful YouTube Channel

What strategies can you implement in order to give your brand a successful YouTube channel?

There are billions of hours of video on YouTube, and it would take several lifetimes to sort through all of it. While the network can do wonders when it comes to SEO and branding, there are a few best practices that you should adopt if you want to give your brand a successful YouTube channel.

Provide Rich Descriptions

YouTube is a search engine. If you want to rank highly, you need to be taking advantage of all of the optimization features that are incorporated into your channel. Descriptions on your videos will be among the most important of those features.

Fill your descriptions with rich keywords and a link to more content in order to improve your rankings and drive more traffic and success from YouTube.

Cross-Promote Your Content

Someone landed on your video – great! Try and keep them around by directing them to other content from your brand (possibly with links, as described above).

In addition to tags and meta descriptions, you are going to want to link your other content in order to create a much larger presence for yourself on YouTube.

Encourage Engagement

Calls-to-Action (CTAs) that encourage users to engage with your channel – whether it is to like, share, or subscribe – will be very helpful in generating success from your YouTube channel.

Much like Facebook’s EdgeRank Algorithm, YouTube takes into account engagement levels when determining the order of content displayed. By actively seeking engagement from your YouTube audience, you better your chances of reaching the top of the rankings for your keywords.

Short and Simple

Try to avoid lengthy, monotonous videos. People have a limited attention span, and there is no shortage of content to jump to if they lose interest in what you have to say.

Try and keep your content under two minutes, and engage your audience quickly. Do not wait until a minute and a half into your video to present your argument or main topic. Get it going right away and encourage your audience to stick around by not giving them a dull moment over the entire video.

These are just a few simple tips, but they are certain to help you generate a successful YouTube channel.

What do you do to maximize success on YouTube? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!