Next stop: YouTube
Tourism brands pride themselves on offering travellers the optimal experience, but too few think about providing that experience on their YouTube channels.
The purpose of your tourism brand having a YouTube channel in the first place is to entice people into visiting your destinations, right? But if you want people to discover your destinations in real life, you have to ensure they can find you online first.
In 2024, YouTube is one of the most used resources when planning a holiday. Travel blogs, influencers, accommodation reviews—you name it, it’s on YouTube. It should be on your tourism brand’s channel, too. And your channel needs to be optimised.
Here are five quick tips to help your tourism brand optimise your YouTube channel.
1. Shorts are important
This first tip is less about optimisation and more about ensuring you’re investing time into the right features. YouTube is a competitive space, so you should listen to what the platform wants.
Short-form content is huge now, and Shorts offers smaller channels and brands an opportunity to reach an audience that used to be pretty inaccessible.
2. Get your videos right from the start
Google owns YouTube, so it’s essential to think about YouTube as a search engine, and that’s because it is one. Like all things related to search engines, if you want people searching for your content, you must ensure it’s optimised.
Concerning YouTube video optimisation, this goes deeper than simply embedding your videos on your website.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when optimising your videos for both YouTube and Google’s search engines:
- Ensure your video’s original file name is relevant to your video. Let’s say your video is about how to take the perfect holiday selfie. Avoid a file name like Clip_0001.mp4. Instead, aim for something like Taking the ideal holiday selfie.mp4.
- Your video must be public. (Unless it’s for in-house eyes only).
- Your video titles should be relevant to their content and likely search phrases.
- Write detailed,keyword-rich video descriptions.
- If you’re including links in your description, they must include the https:// prefix.
- Relevant keywords are great, but too many look like spam.
- Pay attention to your thumbnail. YouTube is a visual platform, so make your thumbnails relevant, engaging, and enticing.
3. Playlists are underrated
Your next step is to organise your videos into playlists. Why? Well, because playlists make your videos easy to find and make your channel much easier to navigate. Plus, neatly organised playlists will make your channel look much more professional.
As a tourism brand, you may organise your videos into playlists based on destinations, activities, accommodations, travel tips, and more. The choice is yours here, but make sure your videos all go into playlists that make logical sense. You’re trying to make your viewers’ lives easier, not harder.
4. Don’t ignore your channel’s homepage
Your channel’s homepage is a crucial step in optimising your YouTube channel. While many people may discover your videos randomly, they’ll likely head straight to your channel when they decide to learn more about you. It’s crucial to make a great first impression here. Think of your homepage as the digital lobby to your video content – keep it clean and organised, and make it reflect your brand’s personality.
Here are a few homepage tips:
- Make your channel icon consistent with all your other social media platforms.
- Add a channel trailer.
- Update your about section.
- Make sure all your links are up to date.
- Pay attention to your liked videos. These will appear in an automatically-generated playlist on your channel, so you should be aware of the content you like.
Gaining traction on YouTube comes down to several factors, some of which are well and truly outside your control. And that’s why it’s crucial to put some time and effort into the things you can control on the platform.
5. Pick your keywords wisely
YouTube is a search engine. Whether it’s in your video’s title or description, the keywords you include matter. Spend some time doing keyword research, and your videos will love you for it.
Final thoughts
Optimising your YouTube channel requires a holistic approach and some time and effort. While finding an audience on YouTube can often feel like an uphill battle, if you stick with it and follow best practices, you’ll start seeing results.
Start with these five tips, and your tourism brand will find itself in a much better place than you were before.
