Generating traffic from YouTube
Youtube now serves over 100 million video views every single day. How is that for a number? Obviously it has become quite a target for black hat webmasters and marketers trying to use some of Youtube’s traffic. One of the most popular ways of generating cash from Youtube at the moment involves creating a clever advertising video and generating tons of fake hits in order to boost that video to the top of the most viewed list. You will then make around $1000 from each video after stuffing it with referral links. If you are reading this now, thinking:”Woooow! I will go and give it a try now!” best of luck to you! You will find it quite difficult generating enough fake hits in order to end up on the first page.
I have however managed to find another interesting way of generating some traffic from Youtube…
I have been using Youtube for a few years now. Not just watching videos but actually recording an odd video blog now and then as well as uploading a few university video projects. One thing I’ve noticed is that even the worst videos would get a few views every single day.
I love experimenting with various methods so I took a day to create 400 or so short (10 to 30 sec) videos. Each video would have an arrow ===)> pointing to the link I put in video description. Some of these links were referral links related to the video, for example a video about PSP would point to the link about PSP games. Other arrows were pointing to a bit of php script, allowing me to point the traffic where I need it.
After uploading the videos and waiting for a few days I realised that I was right about the traffic. Even the worst videos were still being viewed and each video would generate on average 1 or 2 clicks/day. Does not seem like much, does it? If I was to make and upload 500 video every day for 10 days my traffic stats would be as follows:
Day 1: 500 videos x 2 clicks each = 1000 visitors
Day 2: Another 500 videos added = 1000 videos x 2 clicks each = 2000 visitors
Day 3: Another 500 videos added = 1500 videos x 2 clicks each = 3000 visitors
–etc-
Day 10: 10.000 daily visitors. That’s a stable stream of visitors. I have been testing this theory for almost 3 weeks now and it looks like the stream of traffic is indeed very stable. The best thing is that I can very easily redirect these visitors to any url. Whether its my own domain or my referral link. The only problem is that it is VERY boring and tedious spending your whole day making and uploading these videos. I gave up myself and ended up hiring someone to do this for me.
PS: I’m having second thoughts about pushing the “publish” button now. If I had more time I could have done a bit more research and with a few solid instructions as well as earning screenshots, I could have turned this into an ebook and sold 200 or so copies. 
April 14th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
The traffic is terribly untargetted though. Only problem. That and the time it takes.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Very smart, was referred from DP.
Idea is unique but too time consuming for me.
April 14th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Give me a month and I will post a little screenshot of my earnings
I think it is worth the time. Oh and there are tricks to make the traffic convert better. I may well post an update some time soon.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:27 am
It doesn’t have to be untargeted traffic though…because if you create and tag a video that either has, or links to content relevant to what the viewer searched for, then you’ll get conversions. If your site is about Pitbull Dogs, and you did a short video that had some images of pitbulls and then the big arrow to the URL in the description that takes you to a site about pitbulls, you’re getting some targeted traffic. Not a bad idea. Time consuming, but effective.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:08 am
WOW! Great idea, and thanks for the further insight iPod Nano…Haven’t dabbled with video and YouTube yet, but the numbers sure do add up. Pray tell how you went about creating 400 videos in one day?
April 15th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
excellent
will be using this for my blog which is about discovering females….
I am sure I can get some good videos related to these…
April 15th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
It is funny though, videos made by kids get thousands of hits and they do not know what they are doing with keywords. So if the blogsphere got on it ( which I have ) and used keywords properly you could stand to make a ton of money and get a ton of traffic from them.
April 16th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Great post! I’ve been considering using YouTube to pull in some traffic to my sites and when I think about it now … it seems pretty easy. What you say about how even the crappiest videos get a steady stream of hits is very encouraging. I know I can make videos that may be kind of low-fi but entertaining enough and targeted to my audience. I’m sure I can use this to increase traffic. The hard part is just finding the time to use all the great traffic building techniques I learn here. I’m still working for the man….for now. But I’ve launched a few sites in the time I’ve been a regular reader here and I’ve learned a lot and am very optimistic about what will happen. So thanks again for another simple and practical tip!
April 17th, 2008 at 1:00 am
who the heck is going to make 500 video’s a day? generating crap traffic with youtube is a waste of time. if you going to make videos make videos that will build a following of users.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:53 am
My conversion rate at the moment is around 16%. How is that for crappy traffic? You make specific videos for your niche. Who on earth would want to watch a video called “Applying anti aging cream” if they are not using anti aging cream? When it comes to making 500 videos a day. Its not some kind of magic number. Do as many as you want.
April 17th, 2008 at 2:40 am
darn.. i dont think i have time for that kind of promotion.. but solid idea you got right there! thanks!
April 17th, 2008 at 4:19 am
These 500 videos you created were 10 to 30 seconds.. did each video fit a specific niche or did you make a solid recording and splice it into sections?
April 17th, 2008 at 6:05 am
very time consuming but then again, what isn’t? we all have to try something, don’t we? if we always looked at the negatives we’d probably never get anywhere.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Great way to get visitors and I know everything you do online is a numbers game but can you share some tools and tips how you manage to create that massive amount of video’s?
April 17th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I read this article and it left me thinking that there must be a faster way of uploading the videos. Instead of uploading the videos to youtube only you could try upload to tubemogul which uploads to other popular videos site as well, automatically. Feel free to add this to your article….
April 17th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I read this article and it left me thinking that there must be a faster way of uploading the videos. Instead of uploading the videos to youtube only you could try uploading to tubemogul which uploads to other popular videos site as well, automatically. Feel free to add this to your article….
It’s not just using youtube traffic, sometimes you get more traffic on other video sites like metacafe.
This can save you time instead of creatin ALOT of these videos just submit them to more site + more traffic/coverage faster…
April 17th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
yeah thats pretty tricky. It’s tempting..but I’m curious are you making these videos yourself or just scrapping bits from another resource? 500 vids a day is a LOT 1440 minutes in a day…means you’d have to make one 10-30 second video every 3 minutes…for all 24 hrs. If you were working a twelve hour day you’d have to make or acquire a 10-30sec clip every 1.44 minutes….????
April 17th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
16% conversion? You’re good. I’d be happy with half that.
SEO Webdesign: thanks for the tip about TubeMogul, that is the first I’ve heard of that site and it seems like a great idea. It’s always good to explore those other traffic streams. I have clients who have so-so rankings on Google bust still make bank from their Yahoo traffic so they’re happy.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
that’s a lot of traffics. I think I shoould try this too. Thanks.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Thanks for this great way of generating traffic.
April 17th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
How do you actually fo about making the videos? Is it all digital or do you record yourself or something?
Thanks,
Linus
April 18th, 2008 at 6:01 am
Youtube traffic can be crazy… but you really have to make a good solid video to get the exact targeted traffic you want… otherwise youll get randoms.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Hi
Very nice strategy.
You still need to do a lot of work to make good income.
That’s the rule))
I don’t think I would try that, but who knows)
April 18th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Hi nice info on the links.Great job on the site I’d like to feature/profile you on this blog.Let me know
I’ll be back thanks.
oh on the video tip I use this lame vblog site to pop on there I can’t stand most of the goofs on there but you can run them like sheep but their annoying I’d make a channel MakeMoneyOnline or whatever and hundreds+++would hit and low bounce,click hard it’s fun Later
April 18th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
“If I was to make and upload” takes too much time. Thanks ! “how to gain traffic tips” are always handy at some point.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Nice! Any tips on where to get ahold of free video content for spinning? You know, like all the plr article sites where you can get loads of content that is good to use as long as you put a creative (spin) re-writing on the content.
April 18th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Wow, that’s a real smart idea. In fact, I like it so much, I’d like to speak with you. Hit me up on AIM, MSN, or Yahoo you can get all the usernames at my blog, http://www.monkeyblogger.com/ under the contact page.
I look forward to speaking with you!
Regards,
- Mark | http://www.monkeyblogger.com
April 19th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
There are various batch converters you can use to speed up the process. Youtube also has its batch upload tool that can be found here: http://youtube.com/multifile_installer
I used Windows movie maker to make the videos one by one. Usually just adding a little bit to make the process quicker. I then hired someone to do this for me because it did not have the time myself.
I am testing another method which will allow you to make higher quality videos that will bring you more views, therefore you will only need fewer uploads a day. If this works, i will be posting a step by step guide some time soon.
April 19th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
John Sullivan
Not sure exactly what you mean but you can find my contact details at the header
Mark Cuda
Will do when I find some time.
April 20th, 2008 at 2:01 am
Cool, the idea is to not concentrate on one BIG hit video, but to work on quantity. It’s trying to be everywhere at the same time.
Thanks for the tip!
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Man, that is one great idea! I’m definitely going to give that a shot; maybe not 500 but a few good ones and upload them all over the place. Thanks for that shot in the arm for my morale…keep em comin’!
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:56 am
This seems like a lot of work but worth it in the end. Theres so many ideas out there, we just have to step out of the boundary lines we’ve made in our own minds.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Even the worst video has 1 or 2 hits per day. I doubt so. I do have a few videos uploaded for some purpose, the worst is less than 10 hits after few months.
Do you have any tricks on video tagging or publishing?
Thanks.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Anyone have favorite affiliates that pay well for clickthroughs?
April 25th, 2008 at 3:54 am
400 - 500 videos p/day…?! Whoa, but seriously, do you ever get to see the light of day doing that?! That would take hours upon hours to do for most people! 6 hrs if you’re a computer, and 12 hrs if you’re the average human being.
It’s better just to focus on a few QUALITY video’s, choosing good titles and keywords. Then, one of my secrets is to get some savvy YouTube marketers to boost view count. This significantly inflates your video view count, propelling your video’s to the “Featured” categories. THIS is where the Huge traffic flocks to your video & website like raining apples!
Thats my 2 cents for ya..
April 25th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
500 videos was just a rounded number from the top of my head to make the maths more visual. I hired someone to do the 400 videos I’ve mentioned for me. Do as many as you want/can. Obviously If you have the skill to create naturally interesting videos that will become popular you are better of doing that.
April 26th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
The 500 videos got me wondering until I read all the comments & replies. Still an impressive number though.
How much did it cost you?
April 30th, 2008 at 7:39 am
This does sound like a ideal solution, I would imagine the link popularity would sky rocket as well no? I did something similar for one of my web design clients and creating a MySpace.com profile that within 2 weeks had 4000+ friends. It’s amazing how things spread like a fire.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:54 am
Its a good trick but instead of making 500 videos, why not make 1 Great video which can get 100+ clicks daily ? Also words like “sexy” and alternatives get searched alot so use these words in your video title name
May 14th, 2008 at 3:50 am
What is your Youtube channel. I’d love to see some of your work. Not only that, I can add to your count.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:31 am
wow! brilliant idea! :).. but a pretty waste of time on my part.. anyway, at least now i have good idea on how to exploit youtube traffic
another concern is, can drop a sample script that can generate fake traffics?
that would surely help for a start..