Many real estate agents are seeing tremendous value gained by implementing video in their business. Much of that “video following” revolves around having an active YouTube channel, which makes sense as this medium of communication reaches more Americans (on mobile devices alone) than any TV network.
Increasing interest in YouTube for real estate has prompted many agents to ask questions like:
- How do I grow a YouTube channel?
- How can I get video views and gain subscribers?
- What is the best way to rank videos in a YouTube search?
The answers to these questions are addressed within the following five easy steps real estate agents can take to maximize their YouTube channel for business growth.
1. Upload videos consistently
Sounds elementary, but your YouTube channel won’t get off the ground or gain audience traction if you’re only uploading content sporadically.
Imagine subscribing to a local paper that only arrived every once in a while; your interest in that publication would soon dwindle.
Here’s what you should do:
- Set a goal of shooting one or two videos a week.
- Pick topics that your ideal customers would find interesting, and answer their questions.
- Shoot market update videos for your market area or a video describing your current listings.
- Create “playlists” (topics) on YouTube, and categorize your videos accordingly. Having your videos categorized makes it easy for people search for and watch videos on topics that interest them.
2. Link your YouTube channel and website
A great way to get more eyes on your videos is to link your channel to your real estate website and vice versa.
After uploading a video to your channel, begin the “video description” below with the URL to your website or specific web page you want people to visit.
Another route is to use the “Cards” feature on YouTube and to link to an associated website or landing page. It’s a savvy way to gain cross traffic, and you can learn how to implement this strategy below:
When posting blog content on your real estate website, insert your YouTube videos. Not everyone will want to read your entire blog, but they might push play and watch your video.
This cross promotes platforms and lets each audience know you have a website and YouTube channel. Getting website visitors to click over to YouTube will increase your video views and, eventually, channel subscribers.
Getting cross-platform traffic, page clicks, video views and time spent on each site will also help with content search rankings.
3. Use effective channel keywords
Creating the correct keywords for your video titles is crucial. Keywords are important words or phrases that describe the main topic of your content.
Your keywords should also relate to search terms your ideal client would type to find your video channel and content. Every word typed into a search field is a keyword. Those words and phrases help dictate what content comes up when people search online.
When creating your videos, think about who your target audience is. Where do they live? What would they look for online in relation to real estate or related topics?
Try to establish these effective keywords in your video titles. Learn how to add your channel keywords here.
4. Add multiple calls to action
This is the area I see agents struggle with most when shooting videos. They are so excited about completing the video, they forget to tell their audience to subscribe, fill out a form, email, call, comment below, etc.
Calls to action are essential because getting your target audience to take the next step is what this journey is all about. That is why we take the time to create this awesome content — to grow a viewership and ultimately get face to face with more clients.
Taking the last 30 seconds of a video to tell your audience to subscribe or email for more information will make them more inclined to do so.
This small step helped grow my channel subscriber list exponentially.
5. Syndicate your video content
Taking the time to create great video content for YouTube is great, but there has to be other ways for your sphere and target audience to get to your channel.
After uploading your video to YouTube and creating a great video description with effective keywords, push your video out on social media and your CRM.
Posting the video to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc., and blasting to your sphere of influence will get your video in front of hundreds or thousands of people.
Any arrow that points your target audience to your channel is important.
This is also a way to gain authority on a video topic as it relates to YouTube searches. The more views your video gets, the more valuable your content become, thus giving it rank in specific searches.
Taking the time to implement these steps can dramatically grow your YouTube channel and get more qualified eyes on your real estate business.
Wade Vander Molen is a business development officer for a national title company in the Northern Virginia/Washington, D.C., area.
