4 Ways to Optimize Your YouTube Channel for Conversions

If you are well versed in the digital landscape, you’d probably know that video marketing has become increasingly popular. Since the onset of COVID-19, 96% of consumers have increased their time spent watching videos. A Wyzowl survey revealed that 85% of businesses use video as their primary marketing tool (up from 61% in 2016). Around 92% of those who use videos cite them as a vital component of their overall strategy.

As a Google product, YouTube has risen to fame and popularity with over 4 billion videos being watched daily – which also comes out to about 60 hours of new videos uploaded. Marketing your videos on YouTube can help give your content visibility in both YouTube and Google searches. In addition, a YouTube channel serves as a hub for all your company’s video content, allowing you to promote your products and services to a platform with over 800 million unique visitors per month.

With all that in mind, optimizing the Youtube channel should be essential to any brand’s online marketing strategy. This blog will highlight the different ways you can elevate your business’s youtube channel to where it needs to be.

The following ways are:

1. Focus On First Impressions

Focusing on first impressions is crucial for your Youtube channel because it makes your profile visible to consumers and, therefore, could generate better leads and conversions. Therefore, the first impression should always positively impact your business.

Here are three steps you can use to boost your First Impressions:

• Complete Your Youtube Profile

The platform allows content creators to write an introduction for their channel. This section is located in the About tab of your profile. You need to carefully review your introduction if you have already written one and review the structure used. The upper character limit is 1000, but you don’t have to fill it all in. Short and sweet is still applicable in many cases regarding business account introductions. 

It would help if you stuck to getting your point across at the beginning of your channel’s introductory description because only the first 150 characters appear on Google. In comparison, only 100 characters appear in the Youtube search feature. However, if you do not convey what your channel is about in the first few lines, consumers might miss the essence of what you’re trying to showcase. The solution is to include strong keywords in the first lines of your introduction. This way, consumers will understand what you’re trying to achieve and find it easier to align their needs with your channel.

After completing that, you would be advised to move on to the branding section of your channel. This is located on the Home tab section of your profile. Ensuring your brand is consistent with your logo and banner helps users easily recognize your business on Youtube. You can go ahead and add a link to your website on your Youtube channel as well. This would be the perfect medium you can use to direct consumers to the different landing pages on your website. For example, you can direct them to product pages, subscription pages and your contact information page. 

• Clickable Thumbnails 

The thumbnail of your videos is what the consumer sees in the SERP and on Youtube. So designing your thumbnails to stand out effectively is the next step to gaining visibility and improving your CTR (Click Through Rate). Some creators take general direction by taking static visuals from your original video and incorporating an exciting but relatable text to go over it. The text needs to be informative and have a sense of mystery consumers want to discover. 

When it comes to imagery, a good rule would be to have a theme for your designs but not make them all look similar. But be sure to include your brand’s logo in all your thumbnails. This is to ensure your thumbnails are recognized easily by users but aren’t overstimulated by constantly seeing the same design. This is where your followers would see your brand’s creativity on display.

• Featured Videos And Trailers

This next feature is optional but can add extra value and make it look more attractive to consumers visiting your page. You can find yourself turning channel visitors into followers if you incorporate these features onto your Youtube channel. Let us explain what these are first. 

A channel trailer works like a movie trailer. It plays a short or long video that showcases your brand and covers the content you upload on your channel. This would target the top-of-funnel consumers and boost brand awareness. If a Youtuber user hasn’t subscribed to your channel, your channel trailer could be a deciding factor. 

 On the other hand, featured videos start playing on your channel when a subscriber visits your channel. This video is usually the latest content you have uploaded or would be a video you feel defines your brand. This feature targets consumers who would consider your content to solve a dilemma they face. For example, it could be a tutorial, motivational or product description video. If you choose to use these features, ensure they are consistent with the branding of your logo and banner. This would allow you to add a CTA option like Learn More, where consumers can directly contact your business for queries and information.

2. Align Your Content To Your Marketing Funnel

Now that you’ve prepped your Youtube channel for first impressions, it’s time to dive into the content side of your videos. You can get consumers to click on your videos, but only when your content is top quality is when you start gaining loyal subscribers. 

To ensure that happens, you follow these three tips:

• Content For Each Stage Of The Funnel

While finding your ideal audience is necessary, they all might be experiencing the customer journey at different levels. Therefore, your content should be able to direct consumers down the marketing funnel leading to conversion. In addition, we need to identify the content required for each stage of the consumer marketing funnel.

The first type of content is for the top-of-the-funnel consumer. This content would introduce consumers to your brand. The aim would be to convey your business stance and show users the human side of your brand. This would create brand trust among users for your products or services. 

The next stage is the middle of the funnel content. This content gives consumers a walkthrough of how your products and services can be utilized. 

The last stage is lower funnel content. This kind of content addresses consumers’ problems and shows that you care about finding a solution for your followers.

Once you have achieved a conversion, you can also start curating content for those loyal customers. This content can be aimed at lengthy videos showing your customers how to effectively use your products and get the most value out of your services. This content can be conveyed as a type of reward to those consumers that made it down the marketing funnel.

• User Engagement Through Content

 The usual way content is uploaded to Youtube is that brands take pre-recorded content and use editing tools to create a well-structured video. This allows you to ensure your content is picture-perfect, as you can review it multiple times before uploading it to your channel. You can also edit your videos professionally to ensure you have covered all the bases. This is an excellent way to upload content, but what is gaining more popularity is the use of live video content.

Adding Live video content can compliment your already uploaded pre-recorded videos on your channel. This live feature lets your followers interact with the content in real time. These videos are seen as more genuine to users and build brand trust. Live videos can be planned and prepared to appear as professionally produced as your pre-recorded content. Incorporate scripts and professional sets to ensure everything goes smoothly and your content can be ranked higher. 

To go live with YouTube:

1. Enable live streaming for your account at least 24 hours before you plan to create your first video
2. Stream from your webcam or mobile device
3. After broadcasting through the app, please save it onto your Youtube channel and start generating leads

• You Can Never Go Wrong With Playlists

 Navigating different individual videos can be exhausting to some consumers. At the same time, just watching one video would not be enough to convince consumers into the conversion stage of their customer journey. What is a helpful tool for Youtube channel owners is making playlists for your subscribers on your page. This way, consumers can watch videos about your brand, which will help them better understand your products or services. It also makes it very convenient to view as the following video is scheduled to play right after the other in a playlist.  

As a brand, you can group videos that revolve around the same theme or topic to give your followers a variety of playlists to choose from, depending on their needs. It would also show the viewers that you are dedicated enough to organizing different videos according to a niche, which would build better customer trust for different marketing funnel stages.

To create a playlist:

1. Navigate to your channel in YouTube Studio and select Playlists
2. Click the New Playlist link in the upper-right corner.
3. Give your playlist a title and description, and add relevant videos. You can make adjustments anytime, so it’s never too late to change anything.

3. Utilize CTAs For Conversions

Every brand wants consumers to be able to guide themselves down the customer journey organically. This is usually done by prospects engaging with your content which, according to the Youtube algorithm, would place your videos on consumers’ home pages. When content is viewed regularly, this creates organic direction down the marketing funnel for a brand. But remember that this doesn’t mean the result would be a conversion. 

There is still work to direct channel viewers to your landing pages to make purchases. CTA functionalities will help jump consumers onto these pages from your Youtube channel. 

These are the ways you can make that happen:

• Optimizing Your Titles and Descriptions 

Youtube is a search engine at the end of the day. Optimizing your channel to take full advantage of the mechanism will boost your ranking and open you up to promising lead-generating opportunities. First, you need to narrow down the right keywords. This data can be found on your channel’s analytical tab. You will find search terms that are related to your content and give you a better understanding of your audience. 

Select high-volume keywords and work them into your video titles and descriptions for the best SEO results for your channel. A helpful tip would include links to your web pages in your video descriptions. There is no limit to how many links you can add, but make sure they are relevant to the content you are uploading and the section of your targeted funnel. 

• Youtube Cards

It was mentioned before that links would direct users to your website if they are put into your video description. Sometimes, some consumers do not read the description of the Youtube video they are watching. In that case, you have the option to incorporate your links into the video directly. This is known as a Youtube card. The platform allows you to insert a limit of five cards anywhere into your video. However, your consumers will not miss these essential links now. Another option if you are part of the Youtube Partner Program is the ability to add end screens. This feature is a screen displayed towards the end of your video. In addition, brands can use this screen to insert their CTAs and push for conversion from viewers.

4. Youtube’s Ecommerce Feature 

Your brand could sell products and services you are trying to market on Youtube’s platform. If your channel meets eligibility requirements, you can create a merch shelf for your YouTube channel. Merch appears on a Store tab on your channel and in a scrollable panel below the video description. Viewers can click through any merch item to browse and buy instantly. Once you set up a merch shelf, you can also promote it by linking pins during live streams. But if you’re interested in selling via live streaming services such as Periscope or Facebook Live, pay attention to when YouTube holds live shopping events. They started this experiment in November of 2021, but they still make occasional appearances – so make sure to tune into these occasions.

With all this in mind, you now have the knowledge you need to conquer the Youtube landscape. The insights you receive from your analytics might differ, but in essence, you will still be able to apply this advice to your content. Remember to monitor your brand’s channel performance and tweak your content according to what your audience reacts to best. Experiment and do not be discouraged from using third-party tools or apps to ease your creative or optimizing process.