One of the most successful ventures of the Web 2.0 revolution is YouTube. It's an amazing "rags to riches" story that you can capitalize on with little investment. In fact, making a video can be done for next to nothing. Both Mac OSX and Windows ship with video editing software. Throw in a digital camera and you are ready to make your own videos.



If you don't have a video camera, you can also you desktop software to record images on screen. Instead of letting others see you talk about your product or service, you can simply show them on your desktop.

What kind of video material you choose to produce is entirely up to you, but ideally it should be relevant to your product. If it genuinely has something to offer viewers and can generate interest it could significantly increase traffic to your website.

Of course, the point of making a video is to drive more traffic to your website. You need to brand your video with your URL, both at the beginning and at the very end. Your video will also be available to other website owners, and if they decide to use your video on their websites, it will further boost your traffic and give you coveted search engine backlinks.

While you're having a good time recording, editing, and uploading your videos, don't forget that your video should be search engine optimized. How do you search engine optimize a video? Most video upload sites have a tagging feature. The keywords you use as the tags will be the keywords your audience might find your video under. This shouldn't be an afterthought. Think about which keywords will benefit you the most and hit those the hardest.

One of the best things about posting a video on YouTube, besides being free, is that your videos will continue to benefit your business long after you've recorded and uploaded them.

YouTube is one of the five most visited websites in the world today so the marketing potential is enormous. While it is now becoming a popular marketing tool for many companies, big and small, it is still possible to get your video noticed.

Video content will also add significantly to the quality of your own website. Research shows that audio or visual content on websites creates as much as a 1,200 per cent click through rate.

While YouTube is by far the largest video website, you should be able to increase your exposure by posting videos on yahoo Video, Google Video, MySpace, FaceBook and on your own blog.

There is no way to guarantee that your videos will be a success on YouTube. However, it does offer a free opportunity to try out a new and innovative form of marketing on the internet.