Chapter 11
How to drive sales using YouTube Cards?
Adding a YouTube card to your videos creates a clickable call to action (CTA) that prompts
viewers to respond.
In this chapter, you’ll discover how to create and use YouTube cards in your business
videos.
Why YouTube Cards?
YouTube cards are the solution for driving actionable results from your video content.
They let you add more visual components with underlying objectives to your YouTube
videos instead of just annotations, making your videos more interactive.
The cards can appear at any point in your video, and can include images, outside links, and
even content that’s downloaded when viewers click.
You can add five different types of YouTube cards to your videos:
1. Video or playlist: Promote your video content.
2. Channel: Promote another channel.
3. Donation: Feature a nonprofit or cause of your choice and encourage donations.
4. Poll: Encourage viewers to engage in a multiple-choice poll.
5. Link: Link to an approved website off of YouTube.
You can add up to five cards in one video. YouTube cards can be displayed on mobile
devices and you can add them to TrueView ads.
Add YouTube Cards to Your Video
To create and add cards to your YouTube video, go to your YouTube Video Manager and
find the video you want to add a card to. Click on Edit below the video’s title.
On the next screen, click the Cards tab in the top navigation bar/
Here you can create new YouTube cards to add to your video. Click Add Card and then click
Create to the right of the card you want to create.
You’ll be asked to fill in the necessary information to create the card. For example, if you
choose the Channel objective, enter the channel username or URL, a custom message, and
teaser text
Different types of YouTube cards will ask for different information but they'll all ask for
brief teaser text.
Some cards have certain constraints. The Donation card, for example, requires the
nonprofit to be an IRS-validated 501(c)3 public nonprofit. If the nonprofit isn’t in
YouTube’s directory, there doesn’t seem to be another way to add it.
Once you’ve added the card to your video, you can adjust when the card will show up in the
video. Just
drag the card on the time marker below the video to the spot when you want it
to appear.
Drag the YouTube card’s icon on the time marker to the spot when you want it to appear.
After you set up the first card, you can add up to four more cards to the video. Watch the
video and make sure that the cards appear where you want them to before you publish and
move on.
Preview the video and YouTube card before you publish. Also double-check for typos and
errors
4 Ways to Use YouTube Cards in Your Videos
Businesses can use YouTube cards in a variety of ways, such as to drive sales for a product
or leads to a landing page. But if you really want to stand out and leave an impression on
viewers, consider one of the suggestions below.
Note: When using YouTube cards for business, there are a few additional general best
practices to keep in mind:
• Place cards that are meant to direct users somewhere else (including other videos)
toward the end of the video. While there are exceptions to this, you typically want
viewers to finish watching your video before sending them elsewhere.
• Keep the cards relevant. Only place cards that send users to a landing page on
relevant videos. If the video isn’t relevant to the landing page, send users to a
second video that is relevant, bridging the gap.
1. Send Viewers to the Next Video in a Series
If users subscribe to your YouTube channel, they’ll be alerted whenever you upload new
content. This has always made YouTube the best social media platform to release a video
series that requires viewers to see each part.
Using YouTube cards to send users to the next video in the series (or to the playlist of the
series) will help you get more views on the collection of videos overall
Including both a YouTube video card and a playlist card will help drive playlist
subscriptions and video views.
GoPro’s “Searching The Maya Underworld” series used both strategies in one video. At the
end of the trailer promoting the series, they added two different cards to increase
viewership.
The first card sends viewers to the next video.
The second card sends viewers to the series
playlist, which they can subscribe to. If users come into a series midway, a playlist card can
also help them backtrack to see the content they missed.
2. Direct Viewers to an Influencer’s Content Featuring Your Product
Influencer marketing is an effective way to lend credibility to your business and get a lot of
attention quickly. YouTube cards can help you capitalize on this.
Feature industry influencers in your YouTube videos and then use a card at the end to send
viewers to their channel or one of their videos. This works a lot like guest posting on blogs;
you both benefit.
Few businesses have mastered influencer marketing quite like Red Bull, so it’s no surprise
that their YouTube marketing reflects this. The under 2-minute video in the image below
shows athlete Shane McConkey in action.
At the end of the video, a YouTube card appears with a link to Shane McConkey’s
documentary trailer. This is a solid incentive for an influencer to contribute to a video,
helping you connect with new audience members.
3. Get Viewer Input to Drive Content Development
Use polls for a truly interactive experience and to drive engagement. They also let you
gather opinions on what content viewers want to see next.
4. Highlight a Nonprofit You Support.
Charitable actions and giving back can have positive impacts on your business’s reputation.
While most YouTube cards prioritize driving new leads and sales (which are smart
decisions), some businesses produce entire videos dedicated to highlighting nonprofits,
accompanied with a donation card at the end.
Charitable actions can improve a business's reputation and can be especially powerful for
small businesses in tight-knit communities.
Final Thoughts
On social media, interactive content is becoming essential to capture users’ attention, and
YouTube cards are designed to do just that. They can drive specific actions or add more
depth to your video. Because videos are dynamic and engaging on their own, cards serve as
a fantastic touchpoint that will appeal to users and help you build rapport.
Whether you’re sending viewers to your blog to learn more or using a poll to make your
videos more interactive, YouTube cards are strong tools for marketers
Chapter 12
YouTube SEO Tips 2017
YouTube videos are everywhere. And YouTube isn’t shrinking; no matter how popular
Facebook Live is, no matter how viral Instagram stories are, and no matter how trendy
Snap chat is.
YouTube isn’t dead. It isn’t old school. It isn’t lame. YouTube is a red hot tool for search
engine power, and you can benefit from using it. In this chapter, we will cover some of the
advanced ways to increase your YouTube search visibility..
1. Write long, detailed descriptions for each video.
The longer and more detailed your video description, the better you’ll be able to rank for
relevant searches. Here’s why: Contextual keywords are at the heart of all Google and
YouTube searches.
What do you do, then? You create a long and detailed video description that will inevitably
contain some or all of the relevant keyword verbiage.
The below example of Dove’s video description shows how a hashtag and website link can
be used in the video description field to maximize ROI
Because it hosts user-generated videos, YouTube is often referred to as a social network.
Detailed video descriptions are often applauded by the YouTube community and can help
you gain followers.
Long-tail keywords are as important on YouTube as any other site as they allow you to
provide specific information on five- to seven-word key terms through the usage of
contextual information
2. Carefully research and select the right keywords for each video.
Since YouTube’s videos are also searchable through Google, it makes sense to optimize for
both search engines.
In fact, YouTube is second only to Google as the most heavily used online search engine.
Here’s what video results look like on SERPs:
Know that the devil is in the details. Adding as much text information to a video as possible
provides both humans as well as robots (and whatever hybrids, like Stephen Hawking, may
exist) with the necessary contextual information.
3. Embed and share videos wherever possible.
Direct video SEO for contextual keywords is great (70% of all Google search results in 2012
included video), but where YouTube is very useful in hosting video content is for videos
used on social media and the web
Video embedding and sharing buttons are already included in your default options, so you
don’t even have to do anything special as a creator unless you want to limit the distribution
in any way.
The more websites, forums, chat rooms, and social networks link to your video, the more
likely it is to be found. This is basic SEO backlinking applied to video content.
4. Curate themed playlists
In addition to having videos as a way to increase viewership, having playlists (curated lists
of videos) also increases channel time, engagement, video length, and other important KPIs
that improve your ROI.
Anyone can create a YouTube playlist by clicking this button:
When you’re in a playlist, you’ll see a list of videos in it while watching the current video.
You can then navigate through the playlist.
This format provides a more immersive channel experience, and curating great playlists
can have a greater impact than creating videos. Spotify built its entire $10 billion brand in
the face of stiff competition from Apple, Pandora, and even YouTube because of curated
playlists.
Here’s what it looks like:
Playlists are heavily promoted by YouTube, and your video is more likely to be viewed as
part of a playlist than on its own in YouTube’s ecosystem of over 1 billion unique monthly
users
5. Watch your metrics, and grow your subscribers
On YouTube, having subscribers equals having clout. In fact, you can even link your
YouTube account to Klout to find out a general estimate of your YouTube clout in relation
to other social media platforms and influencers across all channels.
For brands, businesses, and organizations on YouTube, the key metrics to measure the
success of video content marketing campaigns are a bit different. Here’s an idea of key
metrics to look for in video SEO:
Subscribers do increase views, which can increase your Adsense affiliate revenue, but
that’s just a side project to help the channel pay for itself and sustain itself.
Where your video ranks in YouTube searches, the click-through rate of people who view it,
and the bounce rates of people leaving after watching only one video are your true
measurements of video content marketing success.
6. Optimize videos for the correct length
If you’re creating a video ad, the requirement is less than 1 minute (30 seconds is even
better), but for video content, you’ll need videos that are ideally 10 minutes or longer
Hollywood has taken note, and Dreamworks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg explained during a sitdown discussion at CTIA’s Super Mobility Week that studios are focused on providing 3-5-
minute video clips with the Game of Thrones level of production.
Shorter videos are also often preferred when making live clips on other social networks,
like Facebook,
Vine, or Instagram.
With mobile video usage on the rise, a 5-10 minute video will suffice, with 20+ minute
videos serving as tent poles to draw viewers.
Some podcasts and vlogs stretch longer, but until you get the hang of things, these are the
lengths you should focus on.
Remember, quality counts. Most popular videos are shot in at least 1080p, and both 4k and
360-degree videos are on the market, while TVs are reaching beyond 8k as of this year’s
CES trade circuit.
Spend the time, money, and resources to professionally shoot, edit, and animate a video to
increase the likelihood it will be viewed more widely
7. Consider crowd sourcing views
Market research is an important part of marketing, but to perform this research with online
videos is difficult
You can solicit views, but you need to keep in mind YouTube’s community guidelines. Some
companies have found success using services like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to crowd
source video views.
Here’s how it works
Instead of directly buying views, firms hire crowdsourcing platforms to perform market
research: “Watch this video and let us know what you think by filling out this survey.” Each
person is compensated $.10 to $1.00 for their time.
This market research increases views, which does help your videos rank, and it also
provides the extra benefit of giving you hundreds to thousands (however many
crowdsourced tasks you pay out on) of surveys about the video’s quality. This feedback can
be invaluable in creating more content.
8. Be thorough
Have you ever noticed how much information is crammed onto the packaging of anything
you buy, from candy to electronics?
Businesses succeed by pushing through mounds of paperwork and grinding away at
providing the most information possible. There’s no example of a popular YouTuber who
doesn’t meticulously label their videos.
Here’s what YouTube’s video upload form looks like, asking for closed captioning, language,
category, tags, descriptions, and other information:
You can also add filming time and location, enable/disable commenting and ratings, control
whether your video can be embedded on external sites, add annotations, and more. Watch
a few YouTube videos, and you’ll see how often these features are used.
Conclusion
Having a presence on YouTube is incredibly important, especially with the push for
spherical video content and video search results. Creating professional video content is
only the first step.
Making it visible requires meticulous labeling and attention to detail to create a finished
product