YouTube Guidelines – For Getting Reviews

It’s perfectly OK  and Google encourages us to ask For Reviews on our YouTube videos

From Google: “Businesses can strengthen their relationship with customers by directly engaging with reviewers on Google. To encourage reviews for your business simply remind your customers to leave feedback on Google. Reminding customers that it’s quick and easy to leave feedback on Google on mobile or desktop can help your business stand out from sites with fewer reviews.”

Conflict of interest: Reviews are most valuable when they are honest and unbiased. Google does not want you to review your own business, or if you’re an employee don’t review your employer. Don’t offer or accept money, products, or services to write reviews for a business and don’t write negative reviews about a competitor. Don’t set up review stations or kiosks at your place of business just to ask for reviews written at your place of business.

See the review guidelines

See YouTube’s Overall Guidelines

How To Use Proper Lighting for YouTube Videos

As with still photography, lighting is going to be your biggest challenge. Poor lighting can make an expensive video camera look bad, and great lighting can make a cheap video camera look fantastic. It’s all about the lighting and you have to think ahead and plan for it: the time of day, the weather, etc.

Learn More with this YouTube Lighting Lesson

Learn more tips about lighting From YouTube

The goal of lighting is to create flat, diffused light and eliminate shadows. We’re trying to mimic an overcast day, which are the best circumstances to shoot video or still photography. To do this indoors, use two lights, pointing towards the subject from a height just above the person’s eye line. A good rule of thumb is to place the lights about three feet away from the subject. The lights should be located on either side of the camera, right in front of the lens.

Soften the light with diffusion material in front of the light source, or bouncing the light off another surface suitable for diffusing and reflecting it back on the subject.

Tip: A technique photographers use is to bounce the light off a wall or ceiling. Conditions have to be right, but this works more often than not.

Keep the subject off the background (wall) at least four feet to create separation between the subject and the background and eliminate shadows. A good trick is to bring in a third light and place it right behind the subject, low and pointing up to the back wall.

Introduction to YouTube live streaming

Let’s keep an eye on YouTube’s Live Streaming and other live video streaming platforms that companies are just launching. Live Video Streaming apps – YouNow – GoPro (Meerkat) – Twitter (Periscope)

For YouTube Live Streaming, you need to enable Live for your channel.

Confirm that your channel is verified and in good standing.

Then, enable live streaming from Creator Studio tools –> Live Streaming.

Once enabled, you have two options to start live streaming on YouTube:

1. YouTube an easy, instant way to start streaming now. Start sending content – They’ll automatically start and stop the stream for you.
2. You can also schedule a live event. Preview before going live, change privacy settings, setup a backup for redundancy and manually start & stop.

Learn how here

Uploading Your Video File to YouTube

YouTube supports just about any popular video recording file format and uploading is simple. First you have to save your video file into a folder on your computer. We find the process of uploading much easier on a PC or Mac, but it’s also becoming easier and more intuitive with new mobile devices every day.

Log into your Google account, preferably on Google Chrome (if you are not already logged on). Click the YouTube icon near the top right part of the webpage, under “Apps”. Once YouTube.com is loaded, you will see a big icon button at the top right that says “Upload”.

You can upload videos to YouTube in a few easy steps. Click here to find the easy instructions to upload your videos from a computer or from a mobile device.

Learn More: For the latest tips on uploading from various devices

• Upload videos
• Upload videos longer than 15 minutes
• Set default upload settings
• Upload audio or image files
• Use webcam to record video
• Formatting tags
• Upload a video on Xbox One
• Import videos from Google Photos
• Upload 360 degree videos
• Supported YouTube file formats
• Virtual reality videos
• Fix upload problems
• Supported YouTube file formats
• Common uploading errors
• Troubleshoot audio or video issues
• Rejected (duplicate upload) message
• Video stuck in processing
• Video stuck on “Sending to subscribers’ feeds”
• Video stuck during upload
• Rejected (TOS violation) message
• YouTube Capture
• Get started with YouTube Capture
• Record videos with YouTube Capture
• Settings on YouTube Capture
• Can’t sign in to channel in YouTube Capture
• Edit videos and add soundtracks
• Upload and share videos on Capture
• Manage and delete videos with Capture
• Troubleshoot Capture issues

YouTube Quality Guidelines

YouTube uses ranking factors to determine which videos get shown at the top of each search results page (SERP). Google is looking at signals from things like your video’s click through rate, number of views, the amount of time viewers spend watching it, the ratings, comments, sharing, and last but not least, the backlinks directly to the YouTube video URL. They’re looking at the interactions of real people sharing and discussing your content.

YouTube is also going to look at the total number of channel subscribers, how many times your video appears in a user’s playlist, how often a viewer favorites it, and how many times it’s been embedded on a website; see “embed code” a few chapters down.

Black Hat Warning: Please don’t try and game the system; YouTube will catch you. Google says, “Please do not use these features to game or trick our search algorithms. All metadata should be representative of the content contained in your video. Among other things, metadata added in an attempt to game search algorithms will lead to the removal of your video and a strike against your account.”

Click Here for YouTube’s Quality Guidelines

YouTube Embed Code – Copy & Paste to Play the Video on Your Website

Embedding your YouTube video into you website is the final step completes the circle and is super important. The next time the Google spiders scan your website, they will pick up this code indicating to them that you have embedded a video that has a title and description with your keywords. Conversely, when they scan YouTube itself, they will see in the description of the video that it is linked back to your website. Simply copy and paste the embed code into your website to play the video on your website.

Note, this must be done in your website editing software and it’s very similar to inserting an image onto your web page.

Real World Example: See how Greg got to number one for one of his clients in less than 7 hours for the highly competitive category “Used Cars Austin” www.PlayGooglesGame.com/youtube-ranking.

As seen in the previous image, simply select the size of the video frame you want to appear on your website from the little drop down menu, then copy the code that appears in the box above.

Setting Up Your Google Account

If you’ve signed into any of these products before, you already have a Google Account. To sign in, enter the email address you entered on those products (if you use Gmail, it’s your Gmail username). If you don’t have a Google Account, you can create one on YouTube.

Note: Link to create a Google account

A Google Account gives you access to Google products like Gmail, Google+, YouTube, and more with a single username and password. A Google Account comes with a Gmail address and a Google+ Profile. Once you create a Google Account, you can use that same username and password to sign in to any Google product.

Here are a few important things to remember about Google Accounts and YouTube:

1. You sign into YouTube with your Google Account. To sign in to YouTube, enter your Google Account email and password. After signing up for YouTube, if you sign in to your Google Account on another Google service, you’ll be automatically signed in when you visit YouTube.
2. Deleting your Google Account will delete your YouTube data, including all videos, comments, and subscriptions. Before you can delete your Google Account, you will have to confirm that you understand that you’re permanently deleting your data on all Google services, including YouTube.

With a Google Account, you can access many YouTube features, including Like, Subscribe, Watch Later, and Watch History. YouTube can also recommend videos based on what you’ve watched, liked, and subscribed to.

https://accounts.google.com/signup