Using Video Annotations to Raise Awareness and Website Traffic

One of the easiest ways to raise the visibility of your site with video on YouTube is to use video “annotations”. Annotations are short textual notes that you can post in the video player and publish to your videos. And while annotations don’t yet allow you to link OUT of YouTube, they do allow you type in a URL in text form without linking, which is 1 step in the right direction to tying your great video content back to your site/brand name.

There are currently 3 useful types of annotations:

• notes
• speech bubbles
• spotlights

What do annotations and speech bubbles look like? This video has a brief example of both.

Why are annotations useful?

• Write in your domain name or
• Write in further information about your brand or products.
• Write in addresses, locations, names.
• If you close sales over the phone, write in a PHONE NUMBER.
• Expand the commentary on the content that’s in the video.
• While you cannot link outside of YouTube, you can raise visibility to other video searches and pages within YouTube.
• Make specific statements at specific times within the videos.
• If the reality of what was filmed in your video is ever changed, revised, or disputed, EDIT the video to and make annotations to improve the accuracy of what the video portrays.
• Link to other areas of YouTube to show other content – cross promote your products, services and content on the site.
• Think about how often good YouTube videos get embedded on blogs and other sites. This is an opportunity to have a full on endorsement and make your statement elsewhere, right in the video content.

We’ve seen annotations cause a rise in traffic for websites, both in specific domain name and URL type-ins and in “BRAND NAME” searches, causing them to rise on Google and other search engines.

Annotations can be found under your video editing options. They are really EASY to work with.

Incidentally, YouTube is also offering closed captions and subtitles which can come in handy for hearing impaired viewers and for multiple language situations. These too can be really useful tools for your videos.

Annotations give you a lot more flexibility within your videos to raise awareness of your site, products, services and brand. Right now they are free to use, so why not use them on your video content?