Videos are an excellent way to reach out to your market. It can be used to supplement your content, market a product or for promoting your company’s website or blog.  Videos not only improve the usability of your content but also act as an important marketing tool. When used effectively, it can improve the search engine ranking of your website and help drive targeted traffic.

You Tube is the most popular video portal and an ideal medium if you want to publish a video. Over a 100 million videos are viewed every day on You Tube.

Following are the steps involved in making a YouTube Video:

1. Prepare your content

Take relevant footage using a digital camera or a web cam. It is also possible to make a video without traditional video footage e.g with the help of screen capture software such as SnagIt. Tutorials are a good example of this.

2. Edit your video

Once you have your footage, you will need to edit your movie properly for a professional result. Software such Windows Moviemaker offer powerful editing features with which you can add titles, captions and effects as required. There are many built-in plugins or effects to add a professional touch.

3. Resize to 340 * 240 px

Resize your video for best results on YouTube. The standard resolution is 340px by 240px and you should save your videos to this resolution. Anything higher will increase the file size unnecessarily without offering any benefits in return. Your videos should also be less that 1gb in size and 10 minutes in length to conform to You Tube’s rules.

4. Export to a valid format

Save your videos in the correct format. You Tube .MOV, .AVI and .MPG file format.

5. Upload to You Tube

Upload your videos to your YouTube account. The upload video link is available on the top right of the website. If you use your mobile phone to take your footage, you can set-up a mobile profile on You Tube and upload directly from your phone.

6. Create relevant Title, Meta information

Make sure you add a correct title and a detailed description. Use correct Tags and place it in the correct category to ensure prospective viewers are able to find the video.

This article was written by K.Singh, London based Web Design & Internet Marketing Consultant with over 10 years of experience in E-Commerce, Web development, Joomla and Search engine Optmisation.