Video is a wonderful way to get traffic. Some marketers prefer using video and find themselves naturally drawn to it. Other marketers are very wary-- probably because they think it will be too difficult to get started with. The great news is that you don't have to be all that tech savvy to really do well with video. If you haven't started using video yet, you're really missing out.

Think of the companies out there that do a great job with video. There are so many wonderful video ads, viral videos, vlogs, Hangouts, and more. The fact is that some people in your audience will respond best to video. You'll do well to cater to them, using the awesome (mainly free) tools that are out there.

The Power of YouTube

YouTube is a very powerful website. It's even one of the most used search engines on the web. Many people go straight to YouTube to find a video that will help them do something, teach them something, or entertain them. If you're only focusing on Google as a search engine, you're really missing out. Having a YouTube channel can net you a ton of followers and traffic.

There's no limit to the type of videos you can post on YouTube either. You can post talking head videos, where you're in front of the camera teaching, talking, or entertaining. This is what many people think of when they think of vlogging. You can post screencapture videos, where you record what's on your computer screen. You can create presentations via PowerPoint or Keynote, that you then turn into a video with your voiceover. You can also run Google Hangouts, which turn into YouTube videos when the Hangout is over (if you choose to make them available). There's really something for everyone when it comes to making use of YouTube.

YouTube is very powerful in the search engines, especially Google. Google owns YouTube, so you can bet it gets special note. Not to mention its integration with Google+. If you optimize your video upload, you can easily rank your video in the search engines. You can get a lot of traffic right from YouTube and from Google-- it's a double whammy. In some cases, you can rank pretty much right away for videos you post. That's powerful, and it's way underutilized.

Write Mini Blog Posts As YouTube Descriptions

It's so important to optimize your YouTube uploads. You should include the keyword you're trying to rank for in your video, at minimum. But, you should also make use of the video description area. Way too many people just ignore this space, putting in a short sentence or something just to get it over with.

What people forget is that Google and other search engines can't watch videos. They can, however, read text. If you want your video to rank well and be easily found by your target audience, you'd do well to treat the YouTube video description area as a mini blog post section.

This "blog post" doesn't have to be long. You are still, in essence, describing the video. Don't keyword stuff, either. Include your keyword as well as related terms. Make this an interesting little blurb that clearly spells out what your video is and who it will appeal to. This will help you rank for your ideal keyword as well as related keywords, netting you much more traffic than you would have had otherwise.

Finding Keywords That Rank Video

With all that talk about optimizing your video in the description area, you might be wondering how, exactly, you should choose which keywords to rank for. You aren't going to be able to choose very competitive keywords and rank highly right away for them. However, I think you'll be happily surprised to discover just how easy it is when it comes to some keywords.

There are certain keywords out there that you'll be able to dominate with video, pretty much instantaneously. How do you find these magical keywords, you ask?