This is how you dominate your niche on YouTube (and Google)

YOUTUBE PLAYS A KEY ROLE IN THE ONLINE PURCHASING PROCESS

YouTube claims a crucial key role in consumers’ online orientation phase. Research shows that 55% of people search on Google before buying a product and then use YouTube to learn more about it (Search Engine Journal, 2019). People are using the popular video platform en masse to find out more about their future mortgage, a new recipe or a next gardening project, all through video content. It’s time for you as a brand to be where your consumer needs you to be. But how do you make sure you do this the best way possible? Learn more about how to claim your relevant domain on YouTube, and why you should!

WHAT IS A DOMAIN ON YOUTUBE?

A domain is a logically defined set of related topics. Think of ‘bicycle repairs’ or ‘baking tools’. Within these domains you can point out topics that belong to that domain. Examples are: ‘fixing tyres’, ‘fitting brakes’ or ‘replacing chains’, and so on. For example, GAMMA, the largest ? store in the Netherlands, created videos on topics such as instaling draught excluders, installing radiator fans and insulating the crawl space.

And what does claiming a domain mean? When an optimistic do-it-yourselfer searches for crawl space insulation content on YouTube or Google and your insulation videos have the highest Share of Views (read: market share) within the specific domain of ‘insulation’, then you have successfully claimed that domain!

WHY DO YOU, AS A BRAND, WANT TO CLAIM A DOMAIN?

Achieving visibility among your target audience is an increasingly difficult issue in today’s media landscape. YouTube can definitely help you with this. The share of videos in search results continues to increase. As a result, YouTube has been the most visible domain within Google Search since 2019 (it had been Wikipedia for years) (Search Engine Journal, 2020). This makes Google Search and increasingly important traffic source for YouTube videos. And the percentage of videos in search results keeps increasing. Why does Google encourage this? Well, because they want to give users the best possible answer. In more and more cases, that answer is in the form of a video. And what kind of video? Help content! With help content you give an answer to the question of the consumer and thus you aim for their intrinsic motivation as a brand. At the right moment: when the consumer is searching. And that is valuable! In this way, you build a lasting consumer relationship through your video content and you create a positive brand experience. Yes, you’ve read that correctly. Youtube’s impact goes far beyond views, watch time and subscribers. Read more about this in the large-scale research into the impact of YouTube on your brand, performed by the Managing Director of Team5pm Labs: Yannick Abrahams.

You start by clearly defining the frameworks of your domain. Only one essential rule applies here: the more specific, the better. The pitfall here is to claim a domain that is too general, where you put lots of subjects into one domain. A domain that is too large, simply contains too many possible search questions, causing you to compete with a too wide range of video content. Determining a good and specific domain is therefore crucial if your goal is to dominate YouTube with your content.

In order to gain insights into what the consumer is exactly oriented towards within the domain, data research is needed. In addition to these data-driven insights, you also need to map out which content structure is most suitable for your specific domain. This way you create videos which are attractive to your consumers and which rank high both on YouTube and Google.

Looking for an example of a brand doing this successfully? Let’s take the earlier mentioned example of GAMMA. Their goal was to dominate relevant domains within the DIY market on YouTube, such as insulation and gardening. Within these domains, GAMMA could cover hundreds of different topics, but data research provided them with clear insights into which topics offered the greatest chance of success.

Therefore, a data-driven video topic research was performed to identify the topics with most potential. The competing channels and videos were analysed as well. This way, we knew exactly what our target audience really wanted to see. To determine the right content structure for GAMMA’s goal, a blueprint for the perfect how-to video was developed. Because of this, the videos held the viewers’ full attention and maximized the watch time. The final result? GAMMA dominates both YouTube and Google, as you can see in the case video below.

YOUTUBE CASE: CANON

Another great example is Canon’s YouTube strategy. As a sponsor of the TV programme ‘Het Perfecte Plaatje’, they wanted to remain relevant. Even after their TV sponsorship had ended. The results of the data-driven video topic research and the competitive analysis were translated into an always-on YouTube strategy, consisting of photography-related how-to’s that support the TV programme throughout the year. Canon claims the domain ‘Photography for Beginners’ on YouTube. All with number one rankings on Google and YouTube search, 50.000 views and a CTR of 5.1% as the irrefutable proof.

Born and raised on YouTube, we’ve developed a unique, data-driven approach to create effective videos. As the second-largest global search engine, tapping into YouTube’s full potential requires more than just uploading videos. A specialized YouTube agency can efficiently navigate this complex platform, ensuring your marketing investment translates into measurable results. Click here to learn more about a YouTube marketing agency.