Video [#8] - YouTube Basics Quiz

Now we've got some good momentum in video! (if you haven't been watching this Video Series, you can use that link to go back... also if you have even the slightest interest in video or seeing what others are doing, please join our VBloggers group). After watching lots of videos lately, I see some common things that many may miss out on. I want to hit some basics in YouTube in this post - here's a checklist for you -
Quiz: Did you Know These Five Points?

1

Upload - You Can Use Drag and Drop
As long as you are using a "modern" browser, you will have the ability to simply drag and drop a video on the youtube uploads page. Doesn't get much easier than that! Sorry, but Internet Explorer doesn't cut it here (at least not until IE v9 comes out which is supposed to be imminently). Chrome, Firefox, etc all have the drag and drop capability. If you cannot unpry your hands from IE, you'll have to choose the "basic uploader" link.

2

Title Your Video
How many videos do you see where the title is Video.MOV or something like that. When you first upload a video, YouTube makes the title to be the same as the filename.
Change it!!! < three exclamation points there.
Title references are ultra important in search relevance. Please use your target keywords in the title and I'm not talking about just the street address of your listing (how many people are going to be searching for a specific address?) Use target keywords such as "Home For Sale in [City State]" or "[Neighborhood City State]" before your address.

3

Description and Tags
Don't overlook the description box to put in information about your video. Two things in particular not to miss. First of all, backlink to your site (preferably to deep link page specifically related to the video) as the very first thing! Backlinks as you know are essential. Furthermore, when somebody is watching your video, the description box has to be clicked to expand to see the whole story. You always see the first line of text always even without expanding. So you are using organic click-through design strategy as well as linking for search robot indexing. Next in your description be sure and use your search keyword phrase the same as you used in your title. Include other relevant details, but always think searchability and what terms people are searching FOR! Now for your tags, be sure and again pick what people would be searching for. Put quotes around search phrases to keep the keyword phrases together.

4

Choose a Thumbnail/Preview Slide
Once your video has been successfully uploaded and processed, go into the edit main page and note that there are three possible thumbnails for you to choose from. The thumbnail is what somebody sees before they actually click play. YouTube offers three points in time, near the start, at the midpoint, and near end of the runtime and often one thumbnail stands out as the best choice instead of the one that YouTube chooses by default. After you click the thumbnail that you want to use, be sure and click "Save Changes" button.

5

Use the Embed Code Options
By now you know that you can embed your video into your blog posts. (You get the HTML code and then copy/paste it into your blog). What most people MISS though is to choose some of the options that you can apply in your embed code. There are three options in particular to note. First, you should UNcheck the "include related videos" option. That way when your video finishes playing, it does NOT offer other persons' videos for the consumer to click away off to. Second, you can opt to auto play in HD format when your video is HD. Third, ONLY if your video embed is going into your AR profile, you will want to choose the "use old embed code" option. (Will Curry vlog demonstration).

As far as the resolution, you can decide between the leftmost sizes as both of these will fit within your standard AR blog space allowed width. If you are posting to localism, this has a narrow width (493 pixels) and you would have to do the custom setting option.

That's it for YouTube basics. How did you do on the QUIZ?? The real test comes when you post your next video!