How To Increase Targeted Online Traffic To Your Web Site Leveraging Free Internet Video Streaming Services

One of the most significant milestones on the web this year has been the popularity of the use of videos on the Internet. There are a number of free services that enable Internet users to easily upload and store videos on the Internet for free. These videos can then be broadcast (streamed) free over the Internet, to be viewed and shared by other users.

We will look at a simple but often overlooked way to help you get potentially loads of traffic to your web site using Internet videos.

But first let's establish the background to the phenomenon and why it is important for you.

The popularity of Internet videos have really sky rocketed in the recent few months.

Consider these figures. In 2005, there were very few free video hosting web sites. Yet, in the month of August 2006 alone, according to a comScore Media Metrix report, there were approximately 6.98 Billion online videos that were streamed by Internet users in the United States alone.

More interestingly, the average US Internet video user consumed 63.3 streams during August 2006 or approximately 2 streams every day.

For marketers, businesses or even the Government or non-profit organizations, this opens up a whole new possibility of getting in touch with their desired audience, in a content rich, interactive way that has never been possible before.

The huge number of online videos streamed every month should not come as a surprise, given the popularity of Google, MSN, Yahoo, You Tube and My Space web sites. These are some of the most popular sites in the world and each of them have incorporated a video service in their offerings in the recent months.

Traffic or Internet users are the fuel that helps generate revenue for most of these businesses. The revenue is earned by monetizing the traffic with targeted advertising.

You Tube the video hosting service was founded in February 2005, but famously bought by Google for $1.65 Billion dollars in October 2006. Although it seems like a large amount to pay, it was in fact a very strategic move by Google.

Based on the comScore report, for the month of August 2006, Fox Interactive (owned by News Corporation, which bought My Space) had 20.1% share of the total US video streams, followed by Yahoo with 11.8% share and then You Tube with 9.9% share of the streams. Google video was in fact in a distant 7th position with only 1.5% share.

Purchasing You Tube has enabled them to be a real challenger to Yahoo & Fox Interactive in the US market for Internet Video.

If we look at the numbers beyond the US, that is on a global basis, over 100 million videos were streamed on a daily basis by You Tube. This is a mind boggling number.

We are going to see more innovations in this area in the very near future from all the major players. All indications are that the popularity of Internet videos are likely to rise further.

So what might this mean for you, if you are a business, person or organization that would like to tap into and take advantage of this huge trend? Because this is so new, not many large corporations have figured out how to take advantage of the medium.

Most of the free video hosting and streaming services require you to register online and open an account (for free). You can then upload your video to the web site. You will be asked to provide a name for the video and then key words that describe the video. This is so that the videos can be categorized and also found by other users (your target audience). If you have your own web site, make sure this is mentioned in the video.

You can upload the video to a number of different free services. Why would you do this? To reach the widest possible audience for your marketing message, of course.

An interesting outcome of this is that in some cases this may drive huge amounts of traffic to your web. This is because, if your video becomes popular and there are other sites linking to it or it is being virally forwarded by the users, the search engines begin to take notice of your web site.

A case study in which a top 10 position in the search engines was achieved in under 24 hours using Internet videos to boost rankings is provided in a video at trafficgeysermethod.com. There is also a service here that takes one through the process of creating Internet videos, even if all you have is audio. You can create a simple slide show with a voice-over to create very effective, compelling videos.

If you wish to create full motion Internet videos, the process can quite straight forward and inexpensive.

Remember that the Internet videos do not need to be flashy, nor long or elaborate. The objective is to keep them clear, simple and easy to understand. Communication of the features and benefits that your product or service provides, differentiation or how it is different from other products or services that your competitors provide is important.

Finally, remember to include the unique value proposition that you have for your customers (ie. The reasons why your prospects should buy from you, rather than anyone else).

If you already have a digital video camera then you can start creating your video straight away. Your video camera will need some kind of direct connection to your computer. This can be by connecting either to the USB or FireWire ports. Some of the new Video Camera have the ability to record on a DVD straight away. In this case you can simply copy the contents of your DVD to your computer.

If you have an analog video camera, you can still create the required digital videos by using a converter.

Once you have video in digital form in your computer, simply log in to the account of the free video streaming service and upload your video. Ideally you can get wider distribution by uploading them to a number of different services in relevant category.

However uploading each video one by one to each service can be quite time consuming. The service trafficgeysermethod.com mentioned earlier in the article can help you with this, with a single upload and multiple distributions.

Your video is now ready for viewing and sharing. Sit back and enjoy the traffic.