How YouTube is Changing the Face of Retail

YouTube is often thought of as the place to find funny viral clips or other distracting videos. However, YouTube also has benefits for businesses looking to market their products and services, and up their Google rankings. With over 2 billion hits a day, YouTube is the second most trafficked search engine on the web (runner up to search giant Google, of course). So if you aren’t using this service, you're missing out on reaching tons of potential customers.

Not only is YouTube heavily populated, there's also less competition. Unlike Google, which can return up to 65 million results in a typical search, YouTube generally pops up with only 10,000 to 15,000 results, which means consumers won't be combing through piles of your competitors in order to find your business.

Furthermore, since Google owns YouTube, videos often come up first when a person is engaged in a Google search. This means that you can reach prospects on both of these heavily trafficked sites, all thanks to a simple video upload! Although you'll have to spend some time managing your account and creating videos, YouTube is completely free — which marks the first time in history that advertising hasn’t come with a huge price tag.

As you consider what videos might be appropriate for your brand's YouTube channel, think short, simple and informative. Long, boring videos won’t get many hits and will get lost in the shuffle of more entertaining videos. Reach consumers by addressing their needs. Create a tutorial for your product or explain a particularly tricky part of your industry to viewers, for example. Not only will this set you apart and establish your brand as an expert in your field, it also provides a service that consumers can find value in and appreciate.

Another benefit of YouTube is that it can help encourage people to spend more time on your website. Your website rank is affected by bounce rate, which is the amount of time people spend on your website before they bounce back to the original search engine that directed them to your site. Consumers will be more likely to spend time on your website — i.e., increasing your bounce rate — if the content is compelling and the site is multifaceted.

Best of all, YouTube is easy to use, even for people who are completely new to the site. By staying on top of new industry trends like this and finding new and creative ways to market your company, you can flourish and reach new customers every day.

Marty Vernon is an account director at Educo Web Design, a website design firm. Marty can be reached at marty@educowebdesign.com.