Marc

Youtube gives its users the option to upload up to 10 minutes in length with a file size no larger than 100 MB. But is it a good idea to use all 10 of those minutes on a video used to drive traffic to your site?

Well, the answer is no. But doesn't this sound contradictory to the mantra many Internet Marketers say: "Content is king, if you give a lot of quality information, you will get subscribers which in turn can lead to sales"? You would think that if by following that logic, you would want every information packed video of yours to overflow the brains of everybody who watches it; thereby the longer the better. Video is a different beast. You still have to provide content, just not as much of it. What you really want to do is entice the viewer to click out to your site. One of the easiest ways to help make this happen is to make your videos a certain length. Videos that ranked well are typically less than 2 and a half minutes.

Here's how length of your video is important:

1. Shorter videos generate more views.

2. More views means more popular.

3. The more popular, the more comments and bookmarks are created.

4. Incoming links come from the comments and bookmarks.

5. Incoming links lead to Google PageRank

6. PageRank means higher ranking video in organic results.

Now don't go making 10 second videos thinking you will get a lot of views. Remember, you still need content. And if you do end up with a video that's way too long, break it into Parts I, II, etc.

Length of your video is one easy thing to remember when optimizing for Youtube.