Since there are thousands of various video creation products out there, you have no excuse not to have a great YouTube channel with lots of views coming in. By considering you already have a YouTube channel that's doing great when it comes to number of views, the next obvious question would be: How can you use those views and turn them into leads?

Well, it seems that if you perform a quick search in an attempt to answer this question, you'll see that the majority of people will recommend that you put a strong CTA or call to action in your video description that leads to your preferred capture method, back on your website. OK, so what do you afterwards? Well, the bad news is that there's no solid advice out there about what you could do next.

The thing is that YouTube does generate a lot of leads for others by placing ads on your content. Given the fact that this is a third party service, there's not much you can do in order to leverage YouTube so that you can generate a lot of leads from your video views. Or can you?

The truth is that there are quite a few steps you can take in order to increase the chances of getting more leads through your videos and about these steps we're going to talk in the paragraphs below.

Optimizing Your YouTube Channel Is Mandatory

Did you know that there are actually lots of goodies you can take advantage of in order to make your YouTube channel a leads magnet? For instance, you could use the description box in YouTube in order to add links to your website, social media accounts, but also your Google + profile. By choosing to do everything you can in order to optimize your YouTube account, you are going to appear more professional and also boost your online presence. Of course, you'll also be able to increase traffic to your product pages, landing pages and so on.

Don't Forget To Also Optimize It

You may think that it's a lot of work to customize your YouTube channel, but it's less than you may imagine it is. You can easily stand out if you consider using a branded background which immediately helps users distinguish you from all other videos on YouTube. For instance, you may want to use a dark neon orange background as thumbnail along with some text and your picture and when browsing videos, users are immediately going to know, just by looking at your thumbnail, that that video is yours.

Optimize Your Video's Descriptive Text

Are you aware of the fact that you can also place linkable URLs in your YouTube video description box? Also, make sure that you do optimize categories for each of your videos, but also your tags and descriptions. Better yet, to increase your online visibility even more (SEO), you should also use relevant KWs as tags within the description box.

Make Your Videos More Interactive

One thing that's really great about YouTube is the fact that you can use it in order to place different types of annotations in your videos, including titles and notes. Also, if you want to encourage others to become your subscribers, then you can also place links in your videos. These links can point to anything, including other videos you have uploaded on your channel. Therefore, be sure to take full advantage of this feature to drive traffic to your video and also encourage subscriptions. However, even though notes are very useful for these purposes, if you abuse them, then you're going to drive your users away, not to mention the fact that you're also going to get a lot of dislikes.

How to Properly Use Annotations

One of the first things you need to know about annotations is the fact that you need to only display a single annotation at a time. Asking your viewers to do more than one thing at a time is not recommended at all. Many YouTube users use annotations in order to increase traffic to their website or direct viewers to complementary videos. The purpose though is the same: to increase traffic to their channel and/or website.

Follow the 10:10 rule

It's recommended that annotations are displayed strictly in the first ten percent of your video or in the last ten percent of it. For instance, if your video is 30 seconds long, then you should display annotations in the first 3 seconds or in the last 3 seconds. However, as the video shortens or lengthens, the amount of time you should display annotations is directly impacted. Combined, annotations are going to be visible throughout 20 percent of the video, which means that the viewer is still going to enjoy your content.

Give a Powerful CTA

At the end of their video, many YouTubers are going to issue a verbal CTA which encourages their viewers to take certain actions. One thing about verbal call to actions is that they're extremely powerful when it comes to helping your channel grow and they can easily convert views into leads. That's because when you tell your viewers to do something, they will most of the times do just that. Following the same 10% rule, this time you should only tell your users to subscribe or take a specific action in the last 10% of your video. If you want to engage them, then you can also ask a question regarding the direction of the channel or things they'd like you to see you do. Don't forget to tell them to subscribe, like and share your channel.

Remember, when you ask your viewers about the things they liked or disliked about your channel or video, you're going to get an honest opinion, so be ready for it. Also, this is a very powerful and also effective market research method that can help you grow and take your channel in the right direction.

For every video you make, your last call to action needs to focus on encouraging users to click your lead generation annotation. By using a verbal command and a visual annotation that offers users a free gift, you're soon going to see a dramatic increase in CPV.

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