HOW DO YOU GET MY VIDEOS TO LINK OUTSIDE OF YOUTUBE?
YouTube doesn’t make it easy to link your videos outside of YouTube because
of the damage that could come from this.
Think about it; anybody can upload to
YouTube, and they can upload anything they want and link it to anything they
want. If they endorse a website that sends people to a malware site or sends
people to spyware, the amount of damage that could be done quickly is
something that YouTube has to be incredibly cautious about.
As a result, YouTube doesn’t make this easy because of the potential damage
that could be caused. If you are playing the YouTube game, you need to
understand this reality.
However, there are ways that anybody can achieve an external link - and it is
well worth the effort.
Here are your options:
Option one: just ask for the link inside of the video; you’d be surprised how easy
this is and how well it works.
Just say in your video, If you also include some text saying or wear a t-shirt or a hat with the URL, that works surprisingly
well too (and translates fabulously across all devices). If you don’t ask, you
don’t receive.
Again, you should realize you might have a video that YouTube allows you to
provide an external link on. But if someone is watching on their phone or their
Xbox, etc.
they can’t click on the link. So sometimes, it’s about integrating the
link into the video and asking people to visit the link within your content.
A second option is to include the exact link within your description.
When youput the link inside of the description for your YouTube video, and you write it as
YouTube will hyperlink that for you (for any device that
supports it).
In fact, there have been incredible results that have come from that.
Again, be aware that people viewing from mobile devices or televisions might
not have that opportunity; so don’t make that the only place that you include the
external link.
Option number three is to place ads on your video through
http://Ads.YouTube.com ; but again, those only work with a system that
supports that, so don’t rely on that method entirely either.
Option number four is linking with an annotation link. Inside of an annotation
link (remember again that this doesn’t work on all platforms) you can link to
other videos outside of YouTube, you can link to playlists inside of YouTube, to
channels inside of YouTube, subscription options, or to a Google+ profile page.
This works quite nicely to get people to playlists, channels and to Google+
profile pages.
At the time of writing YouTube also supports linking within annotations to
"YouTube project", “Associated Websites” and “Merch”.
These options are
very exciting and should be considered. If links to “Associated Websites” are
open to you, and you associate your website with your channel (currently
available through the “Features” option under your “Channel Settings” menu),
you have the ability to link directly to any page within the site associated with your YouTube Channel.
The implications of this should be obvious.
Here there are same options:
Number one: do as many of these options as is possible. YouTube is nice, but,
obviously, your site is nicer Definitely make it part of the video aqnd definitely
make it part of the description. Make it part of the annotation if that makes sense
but in addition to that, make it clear why you want them to leave. To just say
“Visit my website for onlinedigitalblog.blogspot.com in reality won’t work. Why? Because I’m on
YouTube, I’m on my phone, on my y-box, on my Apple TV; whatever it is that
I’m doing, I’m not going to leave to visit your website.
You have to make it very clear why you want them to leave. “Come here and
I’m going to give you this” or “Come here and you’re going to get that.”
Make it
very clear why they need to do it now, as opposed to in the future. Give them a
reason and you’ll have a lot more chances for them to actually link to something
outside of YouTube.
Finally, just address the possibility that not all devices will be equipped to show all of your content. You have annotations, you have ads, you have a bunch of things.
You should say in the video, “Look, if you’re watching this on your
computer, there are 47 ways to visit my website or find out other things that I’m doing. But of course, if you’re watching this on your phone, you don’t have
those options, so you might as well y. That makes complete sense; people
enjoy it and people appreciate it. And that’s how you get your videos to link
outside of YouTube.
Look into the Associated Website option in your annotation link options. If you
have access to that, certainly leverage it; but still apply all the rules mentioned
above.
Finally, read the post blog on YouTube Cards as they give you some additional
options for linking from your site that you might want to consider.
Functionally,
they are the same as annotations, but they work on mobile devices better and are,
in my opinion, a considerably more attractive interface to work with.
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