You've heard of SEO, but what about YTO?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is everywhere on the internet. Any agent looking at web design or a new website will have heard of SEO, but have you heard of YTO?

YTO does not stand for 'Your Total Overlord' or even 'You're Too Old', but YTO stands for 'YouTube Optimisation'.

'Why do estate agents need to optimise their YouTube Videos?' It boils down to the same reasons as to why websites are optimised; being found in search engines and within YouTube.

YouTube was established in February 2005 and by April of this year 5 Billion videos had been viewed in the UK alone. Worldwide, YouTube now streams a staggering 1 billion videos every day and an overwhelming 20 hours of video are uploaded every minute.

In recent news, YouTube has upgraded into HD whilst Google will also be adding speech recognition technology to every English speaking video by the end of the week, which is great news for people with hearing disabilities.

By next week every English YouTube video will have subtitles which will be used when indexing content.

Troy Stanley, CTO of Resource Techniques comments, 'This could mean that a new wave of YTO will be ushered in. Estate agents must plan a deliberate script with intentional keywords so that it shown at the top of Search Engines and by YouTube's own search function.'

This script isn't the only way estate agents can optimise their YouTube videos.

Below Resource Techniques will take estate agents through the process of YTO.

Firstly estate agent agents need to organise the video files that they take. Excellent for personal organisation but also YouTube will automatically add the file name into the video title.

Changing the file as soon as estate agents load it onto their computer means that they will be able to keep track of the videos that they upload and they can evaluate their chosen video title when they upload it to YouTube. Putting themselves in the shoes of a property searcher, estate agents will be able to contemplate keywords such as the address, type of house as well as the word 'video'.

For example, estate agents can use '52 Web-Design Street, London NW4 4DD [Company name] estate agents viewing video'. Although this is full of keywords, it is not very user friendly. Why not try, 'House for sale 24 Design Street, London, Video by [Company name] estate agents/estates.' Estate agents must design the title for both the end user and search engines.

Next, fill in the description section with lots of keywords describing what the video is about such as; estate agent, property, viewing, one/two/three bedrooms, garden and the estate agent name. Widespread advice suggests that a link should be inserted at the start of the description linking to the property. This gives users a chance to view in-depth property details on your website.

Last thing on this page is to fill the tags section. Here estate agents need to insert individual keywords that have been used in the description of the video.

Once finished, estate agents should click on the link 'My Videos'. Estate agents will be able to overview, edit, delete and add captions to their video.

Once there, click on 'edit'. From here estate agents can edit broadcasting options. Ideally estate agents will want to edit the security settings so the video can be commented on, rated, have video responses and embedded as possible. This means that your video will be able to be shared, talked about, reviewed and embedded as much as possible.

The last thing for estate agents to consider is captions and annotations as they can also be used towards their YTO. Agents need to be aware that although they can provide useful links and extra information, many YouTube users find them annoying and in the way of the video. Overusing them will cause users to click away from your video.

Troy Stanley gives a final comment on how estate agents can improve their YTO even further, 'Any estate agent that is serious about uploading property videos to YouTube needs to use YouTube Insights which is available in 'My Videos.'

'This is an analytics feature that gives information that will help estate agents to optimise their videos. Areas such as location, discovery and daily views will help estate agents to become the leading YouTube estate agent in their area.' - Troy Stanley.

Do you use YouTube to market your properties online? Are you considering starting to market your properties through YouTube? Let us know via our Twitter or Facebook page.