Ever wonder why your videos or articles on websites, such as YouTube or GameSkinny, are not receiving the views you expected? This mini-guide is about to help you branch your content out to a wider audience as well as make your content easier for viewers to find!
Let’s start by naming two examples of websites!
Of course there is GameSkinny and the popular video website, YouTube, both of which we are going to use as examples in this guide!
GameSkinny writers need to know how to get more views if they really want to show off the nicely worded and informational articles they write. GameSkinny features a tool for writers to attach their YouTube videos to their articles, hence it is important to understand how to gain viewers on different websites! CROSS PROMOTING!
Thumbnails
The thumbnail is essentially the visual face of your article or video; it is the picture that is shown on search pages and the difference between a semi-cool thumbnail and a really cool thumbnail can lead to a difference of hundreds of views! The key to any good thumbnail is to keep it simple while giving the potential viewer a good taste of the content they are about to check out.
Example of a good thumbnail for a YouTube Video:
And an example of a not-so-good thumbnail:
Although the second thumbnail looks to be very simple, it is not as eye-catching as the first! You don’t need to be a genius at Photoshop either. You learn as you go, and you’ll find yourself looking at old thumbnails questioning yourself as to why it doesn’t look so good.
Any thumbnail is better than nothing, though, which is important to keep in mind! YouTube automatically generates thumbnails from your video – so make sure to press the edit button on YouTube to make sure the most appealing thumbnail is selected.
Titles
You have a name, I have a name, everyone has a name! When titling your content, it is super important to make sure the title includes a good summary of your article or video that is also compelling enough to make a viewer spend their time checking out your content.
The key is looking professional. If you need references to good titles, look at professional postings. If you look at newspapers or online news sources, they fit a perfect summary of the content into a line or two.
It is important to also make sure you capitalize the beginning of each word (with the exception of conjunctions, i.e “it”, “is”, “and”, etc.). Make sure to use exclamation points instead of periods (periods look boring compared to exclamation points).
DON’T BE AFRAID OF REPETITION! It is the title that puts your content in Google’s search engine and the lower the page number your content is placed, the more views you are likely to receive! So make sure to use meaty title words and fill extra room (in the title bar) with different ways people might search your title!
Here are some good examples of good and not-so-good titles:
Good Title: “Xbox One: What to Expect to See From Microsoft at E3 2013 – E3 2013 Microsoft Predictions”
Bad Title: “wat i think is going to happen at e3 at microsoft booth”
Descriptions
Key words are key (repetitive , no?). Key words are phrases that will appear in search results, such as names of video games, production companies, characters, settings, consoles, etc. You can never have to many keywords. Now if your content is about a certain game or topic, don’t go too offtrack with keywords. No one likes random keywords, work the keywords into your actual description and make the words flow.
Use different versions of keywords! So if you have to repeat a game title, let’s use Minecraft for the Xbox as an example:
You can see, we used “Minecraft Xbox 360”, “Minecraft for the Xbox 360”, “Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition”. Now when someone is looking for something to do with either of the three forms of the game title, the content the description was used in will appear faster, maybe not on the first article or video they click on but eventually it will be there for them to click on and view.
Include different forms of social networking. If a viewer likes your content, they are going to want to look to stick with you and look at things as you create them (whether it be an article or a video or a livestream or a tweet). It is an excellent way to start growing an audience. You can see here, in the bottom of the description, there are links for various social media websites for people to follow or subscribe to.
The description provides links to Facebook, Twitter and second YouTube channel.
Tags
This is going to be a long one. Tags are the most important part of an article and YouTube video! On YouTube, tags are what brings videos up in search results and what places your videos in the “related” section of the video page.
It is important to make sure you cover every possible search description that still relates to your content! If someone searches on either GameSkinny or YouTube, they will find content that has tags matching what the person searched.
One or two worded tags have to go! The more specific each individual tag is, the better! If you have tags like these:
…your content will be thrown into the infinite pool of other videos and articles with the words listed above in them (regardless if they are in the description, title or tags). This will result in you not having as many views compared to if your tags look like these
Your content will show up higher in the search results when people search specifically the tags you provide.
Fill up all the space provided for tags! GameSkinny and YouTube provide a certain limit per tag and limit the amount of tags in a specific piece of content.
Social Networking
The power of the internet is one that can be taken advantage of when the user knows what they are doing. Websites, such as Twitter, Facebook and Google + are essential to any content creator! Build a following on any of these social media websites and make sure to share your content as soon as it goes public.
Twitter: Make sure to use hashtags when tweeting a link of yours. Also include different people or companies that might be included in your content! You never know when a retweet is headed your way. Stay active on Twitter as well! The more you reply, the more of a following you will receive.
Facebook: Create a page for your online alias and be active. Facebook and Twitter are very much alike when it comes to online marketing. Get your friends involved too! Have them share your content.
These are a couple of forms of getting your content out to the right audience! I hope this helps and if you have any questions or additions please feel free to contact me on Twitter @ZevHadar.
Thanks for reading!
