Link your website to the channel as its associated website and verify it in Webmaster Tools, then add a card where the clip is most convincing, pointing to the page that matches it, not the home page.

Where viewers go after a clip

A business posts a clip on YouTube. People watch it, some to the end, and then YouTube offers them more clips, chosen by YouTube, often from other businesses in the same trade.

Nothing in the clip points to the website. The description may hold a link, but few viewers expand it, and on a phone it sits folded away below the clip.

Since last month, YouTube has offered cards: small panels that slide in at a chosen moment during a clip. One kind can link to a page on the business's own website.

It comes with a condition that most business channels have not met.

What cards can do

The fifth is the one that changes things. Annotations, the boxes that carry links over a clip, do not appear for viewers on phones, so links inside clips have reached only part of the audience.

The step most channels skip

A website card can only point to a site that is linked to the channel as its associated website, and that link only works once the site is verified as yours in Webmaster Tools.

Verification proves to Google that you control the site. Whoever looks after the site uploads a small file Google provides, or adds a tag to the home page, and the job takes minutes.

Until that is done, the website option in the cards menu is simply not available, and many owners assume cards cannot link out at all.

Who has to do it

The person adding the associated website needs to manage the channel and to be a verified owner of the site in Webmaster Tools, using the same Google account.

In many businesses the channel was set up by one employee and Webmaster Tools by the web designer, under a different login. Neither can finish the job alone.

Decide which Google account should hold both, preferably one belonging to the business rather than a person, and add the other people as users.

Choosing the moment

A card that appears in the first seconds interrupts before the clip has earned anything. A card at the very end arrives after many viewers have left.

Place it at the point where the clip makes its case: the finished result, the before and after, the answer to the question the clip asked.

After a few seconds the teaser shrinks to a small icon in the corner, and viewers can still open the cards from it later. The timing decides when the prompt appears, not whether the card can be found.

Use one or two cards, not one every few seconds. Each teaser pulls attention away from the clip, and a clip covered in prompts looks like an ad.

Choosing the page

Do not send viewers to the home page. Send them to the page that continues the clip: the service shown, with its price range, the area you cover and a way to book.

Most of these visitors arrive on phones, so the page has to work on one. With Google's mobile ranking change due on April 21, it should pass the Mobile-Friendly Test for other reasons too.

Writing the card

A website card carries a short title, a call to action and a small image. The title should say what the viewer will get: prices and pickup for wool rugs, rather than visit our website.

Use a photograph of the finished work for the image, not the logo. The viewer has just watched the job, and the picture should look like the page they are about to open.

Keep the wording honest. A card that promises a free estimate should lead to a page that offers one on the first screen, not somewhere further down.

A worked example

A rug cleaning plant in an industrial unit washes area rugs brought in by customers or collected by its van: wool, silk, hand-knotted and machine-made, with pet stains a specialty.

The owner started filming the work on a phone last year: a rug dusted, washed flat on the floor, rinsed, wrung and hung to dry. The clips found an audience far beyond the city.

None of them led anywhere. The channel had never been linked to the website, so the only next step on offer was another clip, often somebody else's.

The web designer verified the site in Webmaster Tools under the Google account that owns the channel, and added it as the associated website.

Each clip now has one card, timed for the moment the clean rug is unrolled, pointing to the page for that kind of rug: what cleaning involves, prices by size, the area the van covers and a pickup form.

Viewers in other cities learn quickly that the service is local. Viewers nearby have a next step that is not another video.

Counting what cards send

Visits from cards arrive in Analytics as referrals from YouTube, so you can see which pages they reach and what those visitors do there.

Watch the pages cards point to. If people arrive and leave at once, the page is not continuing what the clip promised, or the card promised something the page does not have.

The counter-case

A channel whose clips are mostly watched on your own website, embedded in its pages, gains little from website cards: the viewer is already there.

A channel with a handful of views a month gains little either, and the effort is better spent on the clips themselves.

Cards are not a reason to start making video. But for any channel whose clips are watched on YouTube itself, link the site, verify it, and give each clip a card to the right page.

Setting up the first card

  1. Find the Google account that owns the channel.
  2. Verify the website in Webmaster Tools under it.
  3. Add the associated website in the channel settings.
  4. Pick the clip that gets the most views.
  5. Choose the page that continues it.
  6. Add one card at the convincing moment.
  7. Check those pages in Analytics next month.

Step two is the gate. Without verification, the website card never appears in the menu, and nothing further down this list can happen.

Embedding those clips properly on your own pages is covered in YouTube has moved on from Flash video.

Frequently asked questions

What are YouTube cards?

Small panels that slide in at a chosen moment during a clip. They can suggest another clip, or link to a page on your own website once it is verified.

Why can I not add a website card?

The site has to be linked to the channel as its associated website and verified in Webmaster Tools under the same Google account. Until then the option does not appear.

Do cards work on phones?

Yes. Unlike the older annotations, which phone viewers never see, cards appear on phones as well as computers, which is where much of the audience watches.

When should a card appear?

At the point where the clip makes its case, such as the finished result. Not in the first seconds, and not at the very end when viewers have left.

Which page should a card link to?

The page that continues the clip: the service shown, with prices, the area you cover and a way to book. Not the home page.

Do I need cards on embedded clips?

Rarely. Someone watching a clip embedded on your website is already there. Cards matter most for clips watched on YouTube itself.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Clips getting views but no visits?

Tell us which channel is yours. We will verify the site, link it, and set up cards that lead to the right pages.

Start a Conversation