There are lots of ways to get more traffic to your YouTube videos. One of the key ways to do it is to create an outro (also called an endscreen, end slate, tail slate or interactive end screen) for each video.
An outro is a a few seconds of content tacked onto the end of your video that provides the viewer additional options to connect with you, like showing additional videos, a link to subscribe to your channel, links to buy something from you, an optin link, etc.
Here are a few examples. I’ve included a screenshot from each one, plus a link to the spot where it appears in the video (which I recommend watching because you’ll get the motion and see the linking options. You may have to watch an ad first or click the x in the corner of an overlay ad, but just skip the ad as soon as you can.)
Lindsay Stirling Screenshot:
[blank_space height=’3em’]
The Piano Guys Screenshot:
GoPro Screenshot: (Twiggy The Waterskiing Squirrel – I’ve met Twiggy, fascinating personality, for a squirrel!)
GoPro Video:
Key Elements For Optin Screen Success:
Adding a video outro is an important element of you YouTube video strategy. Here are several keys to success:
- Make sure that you use link annotations to make all of your links clickable (here’s a video that shows you how to create link annotations, but remember, they can only go to YouTube or your own registered site, not to other URLs)
- Play music on your outro screen, make sure it’s royalty free and you own the rights to use it
- Have your outro screen up for 5-10 seconds – you want to make sure people have a chance to click before the countdown screen leading to the next video replaces it
- Ideally, you would have a different outro screen for every video, so that people who watch more than one video will see different messages, but it’s not absolutely necessary.
How To Get Outro Screens For Your Videos
There are several options to get an outro screen for your YouTube videos
If you’ve got the tools and skills and want to spend the time, you can create them on your own.
Pros would use Adobe AfterEffects, available as part of the Adobe CS family for $50/month
You could also do it with Camtasia Studio, here’s a video where a kid shows you how to do it (don’t you just love how kids can figure these things out and we can’t!)
You could outsource it, http://fiverr.com has some options
Truly custom work appears to be going for $500 – $3,000
But the fastest, easiest method I’ve found is to use a tool specifically designed for creating outros like this one that does everything in about 30 seconds. I like this one – YouTube Outro Funnel Creator (Disclaimer: affiliate link)
Whatever you do, I strongly recommend you start creating outros for your videos. The benefits quickly outweigh the additional costs and efforts, especially if you’re using an inexpensive tool that takes you less than a minute per video.
By the way, did you know there’s a way to add outros to the YouTube Videos you’ve already published, without resetting your view count? I’ll show you that in a future blog post.
What’s your plan to get outros going for all of your videos? Let me know your goals by leaving a comment below. And don’t forget to like, tweet, +1 and pin this post!