I read a report recently from Forrester Research (one of the largest business analyst firms in the world) that a video on YouTube is 50x more likely to be ranked on the first page of Google than any other site.

Not only that, but when you consider that YouTube is the default site for watching online videos, the default site for large media corporations to post their videos to and the default site most people upload their videos to (can you even name any other video sites?), you get an idea of how powerful YouTube can be to send traffic to your site.

The great thing about YouTube is that you don't need an Avatar style budget to get people watching your videos. All you need is a web cam and something to say. It does help that what you've got to say is related to the niche you are trying to target though!

One successful approach I've seen is an SEO company created weekly videos where they presented a case study on a client and discussed what they had to do to rank the site. The videos are so informative that people feel compelled to share them on their blogs and on forums, directing other people interested in SEO to view the videos.

The result is that these 5 minute videos of just one guy speaking to the camera are an incredible hit and the SEO firm is taking in loads of new orders because on every video there is a watermark with their website address (cemper.com if you are curious). You could even go one step further and have a whole scene with your website URL at the start and the end of the video. If you put it at the end along with a way to contact you then a lot of people will type your address in to their browser bar. Alternatively you could say "Google: [keyword] for more information" – assuming your website is number one of course and there are no bad reviews in the top 10!

You could very well do the exact same thing, take a problem you've seen people talk about in your niche, research it to find the answers and then create a video which talks about how people can find a solution to this particular problem. The result will be other websites in your niche will post the videos to their site, and with your domain shown in the watermark, hundreds, if not thousands of people will type it in to their browser and come to your site.

Another great benefit of uploading videos to YouTube is that on your profile page you can enter your website, so if you are getting loads of views, people will click on your profile to find out more about you and click the link to your site.

If you are not excited by the prospect of video and how it can drive free traffic to your site, I'm not sure what else I can do or say to convince you!