YouTube.com is a fascinating video sharing website. It’s interactive, enjoyable, and people make real money on the site. They either make money due to the number of views on their funny viral videos, or they bring people to their business where they can make a purchase.

YouTube is used by all kinds of businesses to market their products and services and you can too. You simply need to get started.

* Customize Your Channel – Before you even get started with the first video, it’s important to customize your channel by creating a profile. Make it look great, include some information about you and your business and link back to your website.

* Nix Perfection – Before you make your first video, throw the concept of perfection and professional video out the window. You do not need to have perfect videos to drive traffic to your business using YouTube. However, do ensure that the lighting is good enough to see what’s happening and the sound is good enough to hear.

* Maximize Your Description – You can include a description of each video; use this area to include as many keywords as you can. The title should be a keyword or keyword phrase, the description should include a link to your website or blog, and the tags should include relevant keywords and keyword phrases. Don’t forget your local keywords.

* Choose a Great Thumbnail Image – After you’ve created your video you get a chance to choose your thumbnail image. Sometimes choosing the strangest one will get better results than choosing one that looks beautiful. You can try different thumbnails to see what gets the most results.

* Have a Call to Action – Every video that you upload always needs to include a call to action. There are many ways to accomplish this, from including clickable callout text to actually mentioning the call to action on the recording. You want to use as many calls to action as you can, such as rate this video, follow me, like me, subscribe, visit my blog, post your comments, share with friends, and so forth.

* Selling Softly – Remember that YouTube, like most social media, requires that you focus on the soft sell and not the hard sell. This means that you don’t ask viewers to buy directly. Instead you want to use the social media as the pull to your other online marketing channels such as your website, your blog, your newsletter, and so forth.

* Post Regularly – Like with all other social media, the more regularly you post videos, the more traffic your channel will get. At first it’s likely only your friends and family are watching (if you tell them to), so give it time and keep posting on a regular basis.

* Promote – Don’t forget one of the most important steps with posting a YouTube video. You need to also promote it. Share it on your blog; share it on all your other social media accounts. Ask people to watch and share.

Using YouTube.com to promote your local business is an excellent way to get more traffic to your website as well as more feet in the door of your local business.