There is no such thing as a free lunch but YouTube is as close as you will get when it comes to Internet Marketing. Most online marketing activities require some sort of skill to achieve an end result. You might need to become good at writing articles. You might need to know how to prepare text correctly for SEO purposes. You might need to be able to construct a website or for the more serious, code or program one. If you do not have the skills then you need to buy them.

YouTube is great because provided you can hold a camera capable of taking video, you can use it to generate traffic to your site.

Opening your account with YouTube is free. YouTube is owned by Google and most things you can do with google are free, at least at first or unless you want premium features.

There are only two things you need

1. A camera capable of taking Video. Most digital cameras do this or you can buy specific digital video cameras which are designed for uploading YouTube “ready” video. Not forgetting of course the vast array of Smartphones which can take video and upload it for you direct to your YouTube account. YouTube will convert what you upload automatically so do not worry about this.
2. A decent internet connection. Using a Panasonic TZ18 camera which records video in HD quality, a 2 minute 20 second video is over 500MB in size. That could take 2 hours or more to upload on a basic broadband/DSL connection. Don’t forget “Upload” speed (what you need) is much less than download speed which is the figure usually quoted by most suppliers.

Opening your YouTube account is very simple. If you already have a google account for example g+ or gmail then it is even easier because you can use the same account credentials and I suggest you do this.

Uploading videos is straight forward and the site has lots of help so that you can do this. But the point here is not just to show the world your interesting subject matter but to use it to generate traffic to your website and link your video to your website. But there are several steps that you must do first.

1. Confirm your email address. YouTube will send you an email. You should receive this within a few seconds especially if you are using a gmail account. Click the link in the email to confirm. Logout and login to YouTube again.
2. Verify your YouTube account. This will allow you to upload videos of any length so it is worth doing as soon as possible. There are various methods available. One of the best is by Text/SMS message. You enter your mobile number, they send you a text with a code and then you enter it. This should only take a few seconds depending on your mobile network.
3. You need to “Associate your website” with your YouTube channel. Once you have verified with YouTube that you are who you say you are then you need to verify that you own or control the website concerned. For this you must verify your website. There are various methods of doing this but the easiest is to use the standard google one. They give you a small file which is unique to your website. You use FTP to upload the file to the base directory/folder of your website. Click the “Verify” button and google checks for the file on your website. Theoretically all done in less than a minute.

Having associated your website you are up and running. Upload your first video. Make sure that when you upload it that you enter a good description and apply at least 10 keywords or phrases so that it can be found.

Repeat the following process with each new video.

1. Select “Video Manager”.
2. Next to your video on the right is a button marked “Edit”. Select the dropdown to the right and then “Annotations”. This is how you add “things” to your video.
3. Wait for the video to start playing and then click the “Add annotation” button, from the dropdown select “Note”. There are others you can try. Once you know how the process works I suggest you experiment later.
4. You will see in the area underneath your video a vertical line and a horizontal “box” has been added from the point when you clicked the “Add annotation” button. This has a light grey background and a red line at either end. To keep things simple use your mouse to drag the left end to the start of your video and the right end to the end of your video.
5. To the right of your video is the “Note” box. Add text here. For example “Click for details of our special offer”. This should obviously relate to the content of the video. If you are promoting a Vacation rental property then maybe “Click for details of special long weekend rates”.
6. You will see an opaque box superimposed on your video. Drag it around and reshape it to suit the message and background of your video. You will find colour, font size and other changes underneath the “Note” box on the right hand size.
7. On the right at the very bottom you will find a “Link” box. Tick this. Select “Associated Website” from the dropdown list and enter the URL. If the Link box is not visible then you have not completed the “Associate Website” process.
8. Click the Save button at the top of the page and then the Publish button.

You now have a video on YouTube which people can watch and if they are interested in the content click on the link to your website. You can also embed the video on other sites for example hubpages and the YouTube linking mechanism works the same. There are of course terms and conditions associated with the above set by YouTube which you should check out. Mostly they are common sense and will not prevent you from using YouTube.

YouTube can attract visitors rapidly and create valuable links to your site. You do not need to be Alfred Hitchcock or James Cameron to create a video but obviously some thought and effort will help. If you are promoting something remember most advertisers do it in 15 - 30 seconds. YouTube can become an inexpensive part of your Internet Marketing strategy provided you have the time to do it and should be worth the effort.