Increase Views & Ratings on Youtube Videos

For those of you that have embraced the Youtube phenomenon & are struggling to get views on your videos here is a few quick techniques that you can utilise to really boost your exposure:

Video Title: The video title (aside from the thumbnail) is one of the most important things you’ll be using to grab the attention of the viewers. Make it catchy, don’t give too much away so that people will click through on the video to watch it.

Sex: Unfortunately, we all know sex sells. So do breasts. If you go to the Youtube Most Viewed you’ll see that most of the videos here have scantily clad women in them. If you have a few beautiful women at your disposal to help with videos then this is probably your best bet :p

Take the Piss: A good old english saying. A good way to get views is to make a mockery or do another version of an already popular video. Doing video replies also achieves this well. The more fans you can get to subscribe to your profile the better.

Choosing the right Frame Thumbnail: The thumbnail is the part of the video that most people pay attention to. This is what they see whenever your video is displayed in the Youtube listings. Quite often when you submit a video, the thumbnail that Youtube chooses is completely unrelated to the part of the video that you want to emphasise. Here’s a few optimisation tips.

Graywolf did a great videocast on Optimising your video thumbnails for more views:

Here’s another (albeit a funnier take) on the same concept:

Here’s a link to a Squidoo Page that shows you how to choose the right frame

Categories: The category that you submit your video to is important. Make sure it’s related to the subject matter of the video for maximum exposure & ratings. Don’t go submitting a comedy video into the Music section. But you probably knew that anyway…right?

Leveraging Social Networking: Social networks eat up good videos. If you build up power user accounts on digg or have a lot of friends on Stumbleupon then this can really get the ball rolling for your videos. Front page of Digg Videos section should net you up to 10,000 views. A successful video on Stumbleupon could lead anywhere up to 100,000+ views over a few weeks.

Embrace the Youtube Network: Just like above Youtube is a network of people. Network with them! Make friends, comment on their videos, rate their videos, tell them you’ve rated their videos & get them to do the same for you. Make communities & groups that you leverage traffic, views & ratings off.

So is Youtube a huge popularity. Of course it is. Isn’t Blogging? Aren’t most things to do with the internet? Problem is, how many of these people are actually monetising these efforts?

More to come