Petit Robot Media and Marketing Blog

SEO - Google Local Listings

2010-02-18T11:53:00.000-08:00

When thinking about seo, it's very important to address not only your organic search listing, but also your local listing. For those of you that are scratching your heads... your local listing is what comes up next to the little map at the very top of the Google search results. It is only specific to the area you are in or if you type in a particular city within your search terms. (ie. Atlanta BBQ)

I have many clients who get most of their leads from their Google local listing, even though their organic ranking is on page one as well. As a general rule, it seems that leads are more likely to click to on a local listing versus a paid listing or organic listing if they are looking to do business within the area.
My own experience also causes me to click on these listings as a preference because I KNOW they are local and that I won't have to wade through as many organic results.

Here are some tips for bringing your local listing up higher in the local search results.

Claim your listing - If you have been in business for awhile or have switched locations more than once, you may have more than one listing floating around out there and not even know it.Multiple address associated with the same business names as well as different phone numbers can be detrimental to your local listing. By signing into your Google account and claiming the listing (which WILL require verification either by phone or mail) you can combine multiple listings, fix incorrect information and most importantly add all of the lovely stuff that makes your listing stand out.

Categories - Once you have claimed your local listing, it's important to make sure it comes up for keywords that make sense. Selecting appropriate categories or MAKING YOUR OWN is a huge part of SEO for a local listing. You will HAVE to select one category that is provided by Google. The rest you can associate with search terms that are specifically relevant to your users. For example, you're a realtor, but you specialize in condos and townhomes. Make your specific categories "condos for sale" or "townhomes for sale".

Keywords in business description - Your description for your business should contain your keywords as well as great marketing text. Don't load this section with keyword non-sense, use them in a way that makes sense, but definitely use them.

Dataproviders and IYP sites - Having matching and correct business information on the following data IYP sites is crucial.

infoUSA
Superpages
Localeze
YellowPages
Yelp
InsiderPages
Niche Industry Sites (BBB, Vertical Directories)
Acxiom
Yahoo
Citysearch

Other sites receiving significant votes: Niche Civic/Municipal Sites (Chamber of Commerce, Local Directories), Merchant Circle, UniversalBusinessListing, Yellowbot.

Full address on your contact page of your website & .kml file hosted on your website - http://www.geositemapgenerator.com/ a KML file, hosted at the web site, can be considered to be a somewhat authenticated/trusted source of information about the location and status of a business.

Thanks for reading!

Kelly Stevens - President, Petit Robot Media and Marketing

Hello to 2010

2010-02-17T17:36:00.000-08:00

Hello 2010. We have been offline and very busy, but we are back and ready to start sharing our latest marketing suggestions and tips for 2010. Stay tuned!

Design Inspiration 1950-1970

2009-08-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

http://devkick.com/blog/design-inspiration-european-graphic-design-from-1950-1970/

Enjoy!

The "Does My Website Suck" Checklist

2009-08-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

Checklist 1:

Online Video viewing nearly doubles since 2006

2009-07-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

Online video watching nearly doubles since ’06

Study: Web video draws more users than social networking sites, Twitter

Americans' appetite for Web video, from clips shared on YouTube to TV programs and movies, continues to soar, nearly doubling since 2006, according to a report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project released Wednesday.

"The audience for online video-sharing sites like YouTube and Google Video continues to grow swiftly across all demographic groups, far outpacing the adoption rates of many other Internet activities," Pew said. "Fully 62 percent of adult Internet users have watched a video on these sites, up from 33 percent" in December 2006, when Pew last measured such activity.

"Over time, online video has become more deeply integrated into daily life, and has started to move into the spaces that are typically reserved for traditional television viewing," Pew said. "Overall, 19 percent of Internet users say they use video-sharing sites on a typical day," compared to just 8 percent in 2006.

Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here

Pew attributed the increase in large part to 63 percent of Americans now having high-speed Internet connections at home, and among broadband users, 69 percent "watch video on sharing sites" such as YouTube, and 23 percent "do so on a typical day."

Also, 35 percent of Internet users say they have viewed a TV show or movie online, compared to 16 percent who said they watched or downloaded movies or TV shows in 2007, Pew said.

The use of video-sharing sites far outranks other Internet activities, including social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, or tweeting on Twitter, the microblogging site, Pew found. Forty-six percent of adult Internet users are active on social networking sites, 19 percent download podcasts and 11 percent use "status updating" sites such as Twitter, the study said.

"Online video has evolved into an on-demand Internet activity," said Mary Madden, Pew Internet Project senior research specialist. "It’s an extremely powerful medium — the killer app of Web 2.0."

Pew said that "while much of the content on video-sharing sites is user-generated, there is also a growing archive of professional content available through YouTube and newer network-sponsored video portals such as Hulu," which went online in spring 2008 and is a joint effort between General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal and News Corp. (Msnbc.com is a Microsoft-NBC Universal joint venture.)

The appeal of online video is also evidenced by comScore's Video Metrix report last spring, which found that Internet users in the United States viewed 14.5 billion — yes, billion — online videos during March, an increase of 11 percent over February.

Google sites, including YouTube, as well as Fox Interactive Media, Yahoo and Hulu were among the top online video properties, comScore said. In March, "the average online video viewer watch 327 minutes of video, or nearly 5.5 hours," the company said.

Mobile video viewing

Pew also said there is "growing interest in mobile video viewing" by more cell phone users, with 14 percent saying they have watched video on their phones, compared to 10 percent in 2007.

"Cell phone users are more likely to record video on their cell phones than they are to watch it; 19 percent of cell phone users now say they have recorded video with their phone," Pew said.

More and more mobiles — from flip phones to smartphones — are coming equipped with video-recording capabilities.

"Video-sharing capability is increasingly being hard-wired into the mobile devices we carry with us all the time," said Madden. "So, while online video is far from replacing traditional TV viewing, the barriers to entry for new users are very low, and the sheer amount and diversity of content out there to watch is staggering."

Watching on the big screen

A small number of Americans are also watching TV and movies by using their computers for video content and hooking their computers up to large-screen TVs for viewing "from the comfort of their couch," Pew said.

Among those who watch TV or movies online, 23 percent say they have done this, although Pew said it is mainly men who are more likely to hook up the computer to the TV, and who are "almost twice as likely (as women) to rearrange the living room in this regard."

Driving the computer-to-TV video interest may be the recession.

"Americans who have cut back on cable or TV expenses are more likely to watch online video on their televisions," Pew said. In another recent report, Pew found that 22 percent of Americans say they have cut back on their cable or TV services over the past year, but only 9 percent said they cut back on their Internet service.

"Those who have canceled or cut back on cable and TV services are more likely to have 'rerouted' their online video viewing to their television screen," Pew said. "Among this economizing group ... 32 percent have connected their computer to their TV screen to watch Internet video."

"I think it’s interesting to see that the convergence of the Internet and the TV that many experts have predicted is marching ahead and may have received a boost from those who have cut back on cable costs due to the recession," Madden said. "Another nudge consumers have experienced recently is the digital TV transition, which has prompted many Americans to purchase high-definition TVs" for improved viewing quality.

Reaching all age ranges

Those in the 18-to-29 age range "continue to lead the adoption curve in online video viewing," Pew said in its report, based on interviews with 2,253 adults between March 26 and April 19.

Nine out of 10 Internet users in that age range use video-sharing sites, compared to 72 percent a year ago. "On a typical day ... 36 percent of young adult Internet users watched video on these sites, compared with just 30 percent in 2008," Pew said.

Those ages 30 to 49 "also showed big gains over the past year," with 67 percent now using video-sharing sites, compared to 57 percent last year.

"Online video viewing is still far from being the norm among Internet users ages 50 and older," Pew said, adding, "However, this segment of the Internet audience continues to grow each year."

Among Internet users ages 50 to 64, 41 percent said they watch video on sites such as YouTube, up from 34 percent last year, Pew said. "Likewise, 27 percent of wired seniors ages 65 and older now access video on these sites, compared with just 19 percent who were doing so at this time last year."

Forbes Study Has Google SEO at the Top of Web Marketing

2009-07-29T13:52:00.001-07:00

Forbes Study Has Google SEO at the Top of Web Marketing

Shared via AddThis

Advertising 101 for Small Business Owners

2009-07-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a great how to article from Design*Sponge

YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE ONLINE. DO THEY KNOW THAT YOU ARE?

A lot of the previous Biz Lady columnists have devoted time to showing you all the ways you can promote your business via PR, branding, and elevator pitches. Well, I hope you followed their advice, because this post will be all about how to get started spending money to find new customers. As the header of this paragraph says, your customers are online. How do I know this? Because you’re online. And the chances are good that your customers are a lot like you. So, let’s take a minute to think about where you spend most of your time on the web.

CLICK HERE for the rest of Aaron’s Advertising 101 for Small Biz Owners after the jump!

I bet it’s safe to assume that you spend time on:

Social Networking sites: Facebook is obviously the biggest social networking site around. They also offer a simple, self-service advertising platform that lets you target customers based on a whole bunch of factors including geography, gender, age, interests, and even relationship status!
Search Engines: Many people know this, and many people don’t: when you search for something on Google (or Yahoo, or Bing), the results you see on the top of the screen or on the right hand side of the page are often “Sponsored Listings” (they’re marked as such). Advertisers pay the Search Engines each time you click on their link. If you choose the searches you want to appear on correctly, these ads are can be highly effective. You can find a great intro to Search Ads on Google right here. The same basic information applies to the other search engines, even though the software is a bit different. You can learn more about the advertising options offered by the major search engines by visiting their advertising pages: Google, Yahoo, and Bing
Blogs or other websites: Think about the blogs or sites you read. Almost all of them give you the option to advertise. Contact the ones that seem like the best fit for you and your customers to learn more about the options they offer. Don’t be afraid to send a simple, one-sentence email to any website that says, “I’m new to online advertising, but would love to learn more about the options that you offer.” If they don’t respond or if they do anything that makes you feel dumb, they’re NOT WORTH YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY. Remember, they should be TRYING to sell you and teach you everything you need to know to make a decision to buy, and that gives you buying power. Don’t be afraid to use it. Don’t like their prices? Make them a counter-offer and see what happens. Many sites will say no, but some will say yes or will at least negotiate with you. It’s a buyers market out there. Really.

Are you with me so far? If so, you now at least know where to go to buy an ad online. Not bad!

HAVE A SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE GOAL FOR YOUR CAMPAIGN

Don’t assume that once you buy an ad, everything else magically works out. You need to decide if you want people to:

Learn some information (such as an event next week)

-Measure using: the number of impressions (or pageviews) your ad received

Just come to your site (for new companies or publications looking to build traffic)

-Measure using: the number of clicks your ad received

Take a specific action (buy something, register for your newsletter, most of us fall into this category)

-Measure using: number of actions, action value, cost-per-action (spend divided by actions)

The results of these decisions should guide every aspect of the rest of your campaign, from where you advertise, to what you put in your ad. Make sure that each element serves your ultimate campaign goal in some way – otherwise it’s not helping.

Pitfall to avoid: Trying to do all three at once. This leads to unclear campaigns which gives you data that’s really hard to analyze. (”Well, we got a lot of impressions, some clicks, and one sale…is that good?” Maybe!) If you really need all three things to happen, consider running a separate for each of your goals. It will make your life much easier when you’re trying to evaluate the results.

DON’T FEAR THE JARGON.

If you want to be a successful online advertiser, you’re going to have to learn some of the terminology. There’s no way around it. The good news is it really isn’t that hard. Here are some basics just to get them out of the way:

Impression: An ad “impression” happens when your ad is displayed in a browser on the screen. Every time you go to a web page, and there are ads on the page, each of those advertisers just got 1 impression.

Click thru Rate (CTR): This rate tells you how successful your ad is at getting people to click it. It’s calculated by dividing the number of clicks your ad received by the number of impressions it received. The industry average CTR is approximately 0.1% (Yes, that’s one tenth of one percent. (Pretty low, right? But think about it – how many ads do you see online every day, and how many do you actually click on?) For more info on average CTRs, look here.

Destination URL: This is the page your ad sends someone to when they click on it.

Call-to-Action (CTA): This is and the part of a web page or ad that tells the viewer exactly what you want them to do. It often takes the form of a “button” of some sort that says something like “CLICK HERE”, “BUY NOW”, or “ADD TO CART.” You’d be surprised at how effective they are.

Conversion: This is a fancy way of saying your “desired action” that you want a user to do once they’ve clicked on your ad and arrived on your site (ex, buy something, fill out a form, register for a newsletter).

As you move through the world of learning more about advertising online, you’re going to encounter many more terms that may sound strange or confusing. Don’t ever be afraid to ask what someone means, or just Google “what does _____ mean?” You won’t be the first, and you’ll find there are LOTS of sources to tell you anything you need to know.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT WHEN CREATING YOUR AD

Unless your name is Don Draper, creating the perfect ad is not an exact science. The tricky part is creating an ad that fits in to the overall look, but stands out enough to be noticed. Just be sure to remember:

The site(s) on which your ad will appear
The information you want your ad to convey (a sale, a product, a service)
What you want your customers to do once they click on their ad?
Why should your customers want to do the thing you’re asking them to do? Does your ad offer them something of value to their lives? Chances are that it does, but it’s your job to communicate that to them.
Do you have a special offer or promotion? Do you think people might like to know about that BEFORE they get to your site?

Common Pitfalls:

Over-emphasizing your logo in your ad. If no one’s ever heard of your business, why should they care about your logo, no matter how cool it is? Show them what you have that you think they might want. They’ll see your logo when they get to your site.
Making an ad that’s too blinky and annoying. I can’t stand when people do this, and I’m in advertising! An annoyed click is unlikely to become a happy customer.

IF YOU’RE JUST STARTING OUT, DO THE FOLLOWING:

Pick a dollar amount you’re willing to spend on your first 30-day test to gather some data. (You can do any number of days; 7, 14, 60, or 90 days. I personally like 30 because it takes a little bit of the immediate pressure off and gives your ad some time to make things happen.)

Choose a site (or sites) where you’ll run your first campaigns

Create your ad. If you have no idea how to do this, try any or all of the following:

-Email all your friends and ask them if they can recommend an inexpensive graphic designer you can hire to build an ad. If you’re reading this site, chances are you know someone who knows someone.
-Post something about it on Twitter, Facebook, or whatever social networking sites you use.
-Try Craigslist. You can find anything on there.

Set up a Google Analytics account. If you have no idea how to do this, follow the exact same procedure listed above to create an ad.

-If you are trying to track orders, sales, or signups, be sure to set up Goal Tracking as part of the installation process so you can see how many “actions” you got.

Go!

OK, SO YOU RAN AN AD, AND YOU HAVE SOME NUMBERS. WHAT DO THEY MEAN?

How should I know?? (Sorry, I’ve just always wanted to say that in a client meeting.) Once you’ve run your test and gathered the data, you should be able to assess your results by considering the following (warning, more jargon below):

1. Your Conversion Rate: This rate tells you what percentage of the people who actually clicked on your ad and did the thing you wanted them to do. It’s one of the most important pieces of data you’ll get.
2. Your ROI (Return on Investment): This is one of the other most important pieces of data you will use to assess your results. It’s calculated by dividing the amount of money you made (if you can’t track the total number, you can estimate it based on your average order value), by the amount of money you spent. If the resulting number is less than one (negative ROI), you lost money. If it’s one (flat ROI), you broke even. If it’s greater than one (positive ROI), you made money.

Some questions to ask yourself when reviewing the results:

Did my ad successfully attract clicks? Look at your CTR, think about what sites you advertised on, when you advertised, and what your ad looked like.
Did the clicks turn into actions? This is your conversion rate. Think about this: does the Destination URL keep the promise that your ad makes? Did your ad even make a promise? If not, what did you expect people to do once they clicked on your site? Did you have a CTA? Remember to give your customers a clear and simple path to get where you want them to go.

A good amount of data to evaluate your campaign is:

At least 100-200 clicks on your ad, depending on how much your action costs the customer (really expensive products may take much more to generate a sale, filling in an email address doesn’t cost much and should take fewer clicks)
At least a few hundred thousand impressions to make sure you have enough data to judge the CTR performance of an ad. One note: Google Analytics won’t tell you how many Impressions your ad got, just how many clicks (and hopefully actions). You’ll have to get the number of Impressions from the publisher you bought the ad from. Anyone who’s willing to take your money for an ad should be able to tell you (or show you) how many Impressions your ad got. Smaller blogs may just need to give you their pageviews for the time period you were advertising. Assuming you’re not paying too much for the ad, that’s usually fine.
One caveat: that these data “sample sizes” are more for small businesses just starting out with their very first ads running on smaller sites. Experienced online advertisers often want a lot more impressions and clicks before drawing any conclusions.

WHAT CAN YOU DO IF YOUR NUMBER AREN’T SO HOT?

Quite a lot, really. You can change where you advertise, what size ads you run, where your ads go on the page, the ad itself, the offer, the destination URL, the content on the page the destination URL leads to, the layout of the page the destination URL leads to, the CTA, and a lot more. Small changes in any one of these factors can make a big difference in your conversion rate, which can dramatically impact your ROI. Experiment with changes in all of the above. You’ll never know what the key factor is until you’ve tried everything.

QUESTIONS NOT TO WORRY ABOUT SO MUCH AT FIRST

How much should I spend? - There are enough sites and options out there that you can basically spend as much as you want. Just start with a figure you’re personally comfortable with the idea of investing. And don’t kid yourself; online advertising is an active investment, and one that involves time and effort as well as money. And whenever you invest in something, there’s always an element of risk involved. Mentally prepare for the possibility that you could lose some money the first few campaigns you run. Remember that along with the risk comes the potential for great success. Commit to reviewing the results, continually making changes and experimenting with new approaches. After awhile, you will begin to figure out works for your business. You should be looking for the right combination of ad design (also called “creative”), sites to advertise on, offers to promote, and the pages to which you direct your ads. The best online marketers view advertising as an ongoing testing and learning process.

How are all of my competitor’s ads doing compared to mine? In the words of the fake Joy Behar from SNL, “So what? Who cares?” Honestly, how will that information help you? It won’t. Like exercise, the concept of “personal best” is highly useful. So use it. Strive to beat YOUR last campaign, not theirs.

How often should I look at my data? Pay attention, but unless you’re a full time marketer, try not to get obsessed. When you’re just starting out, I’d say check your data every week or so, and don’t make changes to your campaign more than once a week.

What should my Conversion Rate be? As frustrating as it is to hear, there’s really no right answer other that, whatever it needs to be in order for your campaign to have a positive ROI. Again, think personal best, and keep plugging away. At first, the number you should be most concerned about is your overall ROI. If you’ve run several ad campaigns, carefully reviewed the data and considered all the factors listed above, and you’re still just breaking even or losing money after a few campaigns – it might be time to consider the possibility that there’s a larger issue with your website. Could it also be your products or your prices? Of course, but from what I’ve seen, the website your customer ends up on is one of the key factors in any successful online advertising campaign. [On that note, on behalf of all marketers, I’d like to publicly request that Grace have someone write a Biz Lady column on website design and user experience for small businesses. You’re welcome, Grace! AC]

I wish I could say that was all you needed to know about online advertising, but as the title of this post says, these are just the basics. There are many, many more things to learn about and consider, but even having the basics down will but you WAY AHEAD of most of the competition.

The Simple Truth About Success

2009-07-28T12:42:00.000-07:00

Success.

That elusive, intangible thing that we’re all searching for day after day, month after month, year after year.

What is success? How does one achieve success? How long does it take? Is it even possible?

What Is Success, Really?

The basic definition of success is incredibly simple:

Success is the realization or accomplishment of goals, desires, or purpose.

The problem is, as you can see from the definition, that success is a different thing for each and every person.

Society has its generic version of success — the high-rolling, powerful, attractive person who vacations on a yacht and commands legions of personnel — but not everybody wants that. In fact, there are millions of people who think they want that version of success but actually don’t.

Let’s take a look some different ideas of success. Here are a few common versions:

Having lots of money and/or power
Having lots of free time
Being good at a sport or hobby
Being popular and well-liked

What’s really funny, though, is that if you look at people much later in life, success becomes an entirely different thing:

Finding love or friendship
Raising a good family
Spending time with loved ones
Staying healthy

But success doesn’t just vary with age, either. Think about what it means to be successful in a third-world country:

Finding enough food to eat
Staying warm and dry
Protecting your family and friends

After all of these definitions, what is success really? If it varies so much from person to person, how can it even be called the same thing? Here’s the truth of the matter:

Success is knowing and accomplishing things that are important to you.

How To Be Successful

You’ll notice that the above definition of success has two very different parts. Knowing what is important to you, and Accomplishing the things that are important to you. For most of us, the first part—knowing—is actually the most important.

Understanding what is important to you, what makes you happy, what makes you feel good about yourself, etc… is very difficult, but it is critical because we often get the answers wrong. Many people spend their lives struggling to become wealthy, only to find that once they have wealth it isn’t nearly as important to them as other things like, say, love.

Ask yourself a few questions, and think about what would make you feel successful:

If you had Goal XYZ — would you really be happy?
Why is Goal XYZ important to you, how will it make your life better?
Pretend you’re stranded on a desert island, what would you want most?

Based on what’s really important, you probably already have some areas where you’re very successful. It’s easy to overlook that fact sometimes, but it’s important to remember.

Most people also have aspects of success that they haven’t yet achieved. For many middle-class Americans, Europeans, Canadians, and other first-world country dwellers this elusive element is money.

Accomplishing the elements of success that you don’t yet have requires hard work and perseverance, there’s no other way to put it. If something is that important to you, though, it will be worth working for. To put everything together:

Knowing what’s important to you is key, and recognizing achievements you’ve already made will make you happier. Goals and accomplishments that you don’t yet have will take hard work to accomplish, but it’s worth it if they’re really important.

Success is a Journey… A Long Journey

Imagine for a moment that you’ve achieved your current biggest goal. Whatever it is, imagine that you now have it. In fact, imagine that you accomplished it 6 months to a year ago, and the initial glow has worn off.

Are you just going to stop now? Are you going to be satisfied that you have the big goal, and just relax for the rest of your life?

Probably not.

You’re probably going to act like the rest of us humans and find some other goal to work on. If you wanted money, and you now have it, you might find that you want to do more fulfilling work. If you wanted to do something you love, and you’ve found that, you may decide that you want more money.

The truth is that success is a really long journey.

In order to be be truly successful throughout your life you need to be happy during the entire journey, and not just at the big landmarks. Most worthwhile accomplishments take so much work that it’s not possible to reach them without maintaining happiness and solid morale throughout the process.

The other problem is that some things are just not within your power to control. I’m a firm believer that all goals are reachable with enough effort, but realistically there are things that you might never accomplish.

That doesn’t mean you should give up and settle for what you have. It means you need to be happy the whole time you’re struggling and fighting for your dreams. In fact, the very act of struggling and fighting for your dreams should make you happy.

Final Thoughts…

Let’s look back at some of the main points about success:

Success is whatever you want it to be — whatever is important to you
Knowing what is important is the real key for most of us
Enjoy the success you have, and enjoy working for the things you don’t

What do you think?

About the author: Mason Hipp is an entrepreneur, marketing guru, and writer. He blogs about life and business at FreelanceFolder.com and is co-author of the Book The Unlimited Freelancer.

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We're on Twitter for Good

2009-07-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

Come and follow us on Twitter where we will feed you the latest marketing trends and statistics

Romance "Killer in the World" Music Video

2009-02-09T20:22:00.001-08:00

Click to Play

Seattle-based band Romance's music video for "Killer in the World" off their debut full-length album "The Divide"

Online Video Newsletter for November

2008-11-03T22:25:00.000-08:00

Nearly 139 million U.S. Internet users watched online video in March 2008

comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today, released March 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, indicating that U.S. Internet users viewed 11.5 billion online videos during the month, representing a 13-percent gain versus February and a 64-percent gain versus March 2007.Nearly 139 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 83 videos per viewer in March. Google Sites also attracted the most viewers (85.7 million), where they watched an average of 51 videos per person. Fox Interactive attracted the second most viewers (54.3 million), followed by Yahoo! Sites (37.5 million) and Viacom Digital (26.6 million).

Other notable findings from March 2008 include:

• 73.7 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.

• 84.8 million viewers watched 4.3 billion videos on YouTube.com (50.4 videos per viewer).

• 47.7 million viewers watched 400 million videos on MySpace.com (8.4 videos per viewer).

• The average online video duration was 2.8 minutes.

• The average online video viewer watched 235 minutes of video.

back to top

Five Ways to Get Your YouTube Video Noticed

1. Tag and Categorize

Once you have created your video - or imported it from elsewhere - one important step to consider is choosing the right category and tags for your video. This is the stage that is most often rushed or overlooked, but if you take the time to check out the other popular videos in your niche, and see how they have been tagged and placed within the YouTube categories, it will finally pay off.

Categories aren't always as straightforward as they seem, and it could be that your content doesn't fit snugly into any one of the options available. The key here is to run a search on similar content by keyword, and then make a note of how that content has been tagged and categorized.

It is also worth paying attention to less popular categories if they fit your content, as you may be able to reduce your competition, and thus propel your video to the most popular or most viewed within your specific category.

When it comes to tagging, don't be shy about adding as many keywords as you can, and again, see if you can match them to other existing content. You may well then find your video being recommended in the 'related' videos sidebar next to other users videos, thus driving traffic to your own content and profile.

2.Create Niche-Targeted Playlists

Making playlists

Whether you create your own video or plan to bring together other users videos, putting playlists together is a very simple prospect. If you are using your own videos, you can do so by selecting clips from the My Videos section of your account and adding them to a new playlist.

If you want to do the same with other users' content, all you have to do is add the individual videos to your list of favorites, and then add them to playlists in the same way that you would your own videos.

You can do this by visiting the video you are interested in and choosing the 'save to favorites' option directly under the video player. You are even given the option of saving the video directly to any playlists you have already created.

Why make playlists?

The advantages of creating playlists are two-fold.

First of all, you can gather individual clips into a niche-targeted context so that viewers can find related content quickly and easily without having to search for the individual items themselves. By putting in the time and research you can provide this service and boost your web traffic without ever recording a single video of your own.

Secondly, you can gather your own videos either by thematic relevance, or as part of a series. If you have a longer video, it makes sense to break it down into several clips, each with a clear title, so that viewers can opt to skip to particularly interesting parts of your movie.

Either way, you have cut out some of the search and navigation work required of your potential audience, and won them over in the process. The ability to select and bring to other people's attention little-seen videos is a skill in and of itself, and people will thank you for taking the time.

The key is to look for videos with a small amount of views where possible, as you will then be promoting content that has not already done the rounds a thousand times before.

3.Promote Your Video with YouTube Email and Bulletins

If you want to get your video seen, your profile visited and your web traffic subsequently increased, it isn't enough to sit back and passively wait for viewers to come to you. YouTube provides you with a number of self-promotion opportunities, and among them is the ability to send emails to other users, and create bulletins from your profile or other users' channel pages.

YouTube Emails

People often forget that YouTube is a social community as much as it is a video-sharing site. As such, there is nothing terrible about reaching out to other users and letting them know about your content, your thoughts, or your admiration of their work.

The Robin Good YouTube Channel gets a lot of incoming emails pointing out new videos or recommendations of great content to be found in the depths of the YouTube vaults. This has led to whole articles being written on the content of the videos suggested before now, and is a great way of spreading the word in an informal way.

Obviously you don't want to spam people with totally irrelevant links, but if you have put in a little research and found other users with similar tastes and interests, it is certainly worth letting them know about your videos and playlists.

Bulletins

Bulletins are an even easier way of creating short messages on your own channel profile, or leaving messages for users on their profile pages. Bulletins are super-short messages about your status, new releases or anything else you might want to broadcast to the world via your YouTube channel.

This is a great way of leaving quick comments on other user's pages, and in doing so you are likely to pique their interest enough for them to come and check out your profile and maybe even subscribe if they like what they see.

Posting bulletins to your own profile is also an effective way to keep your viewers in the loop, and creates a sense of consistency and presence even when you haven't posted any new videos for a while.

4. Leave Video Responses

1. Another effective way of getting yourself seen is to leave a video response to another user's clip. These video responses can be created right from underneath the main video player, and can be chosen from your previously uploaded videos, uploaded there and then, or even captured directly from your webcam.

As such video responses can be relevant content that matches the theme of the original video or direct and personal responses from your webcam. Either way, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when leaving a response:

1. Keep it relevant - nobody will thank you for leaving a totally irrelevant video response, and you are likely to make enemies this way

2. Keep it civil - unless you are really aiming for a shock tactic, you are unlikely to win new supporters by being aggressive or unpleasant

3. Choose your target video well - if your goal is to boost visits to your profile and website, there is little point in leaving a response to a little-seen, less-than-dynamite video. Hone in on who the most popular video-makers are in your niche area, and leave well-timed responses to their videos. You will then be in a good position to siphon off their viewers to your video and profile.

4. Strike at the right time - The ideal situation is to get in early and get your response at the top of the pile, so that it gets seen. If you are the thirtieth person to leave a comment, chances are you are a little late

5. Join or Create YouTube Groups

YouTube has a strong community of groups that exist for users to discuss and share videos. You can browse for groups to join by category, or create your own group from the YouTube Groups page. There are advantages to both approaches.

Joining an existing group
If you manage to find a group that fits your content-niche, you can join it in a single click, and then have the ability to post videos or comments to the group discussion area.
Taking part in a group won't necessarily take up a great deal of your time, but it will provide you with a very nicely segmented, targeted audience for your content. You can then add your videos, describe and discuss them and interact with other like-minded users. All the while you will be building your network of YouTube contacts, and potentially winning new subscribers to your channel.

The major advantage of joining a pre-existing group is the fact that it will already have at least a small group of active users from the word go, while creating your own group may involve waiting for new members to join before you have any opportunity to promote your work.

Creating your own group
Nevertheless, with time and a little promotion via other YouTube community features, building a group around your own niche-interest, or even your website or business, is another great way to boost your YouTube presence and potentially win new site visitors.
Once you have clicked on the create a group button you can choose a name, tags, description, URL and categories for it.
You can also choose whether content will be posted directly to the group, or whether it will first require your approval. Obviously, if self promotion is your goal, it makes sense to make your group public rather than invitation only, which is another option available to you.

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Why Put Yourself or Your Product Online?

If your advertising goals include communicating product benefits and features to online shoppers at the exact time and place they're actively considering a purchase, video product tours are not only the most effective, but the most cost-effective media buy a marketer can make.

According to the National Retail Federation, more than 90% of consumers research products online prior to pur?chasing them. The online retail product page is the key point of influence in purchase decisions, and by using video to elevate it beyond a static “picture and a paragraph,” marketers can sway con?sumers when it matters most — in the act of shopping.

Video product tours can be syndicated to every online merchant carrying a product; marketers can buy placement with a video product syndication service much like it would on an ad network. For about the same price as a banner ad, marketers can secure video product placement on highly trafficked sites such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

Unlike other online advertising platforms such as pre-roll and post-roll, video product tours are effective because they're opt-in, relevant to the viewers, and usually positioned beside the “buy” button. The resulting uplift in sales con?versions is impressive. Studies show a 12% to 30% increase in online purchase conversion rates among shoppers who view a video product tour compared with those who don't.

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Welcome to Our Blog

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Well, here we are. Petit Robot is a media, marketing and design firm based in Seattle, with a few tricks up our sleeves. The funny thing is, we don't believe in keeping secrets to ourselves. Full transparency and an open exchange of ideas keeps us happy and keeps you involved. We don't believe in making what we do look extra complicated or like we are speaking a foreign language. Got questions? Ask them. Want to know some easy ways to integrate some of the things we talk about in this blog into your marketing plan? Ask us!

With that said.. let's begin a fun and hopefully helpful media and marketing blog updating you on current trends and also on what's going on with Petit Robot.

Thanks for visiting!

Sincerely,

Your Marketing Machine hard at work: Petit Robot.

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