YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine. Of course, you can increase traffic to your website (and stores) if you use it. The question is – HOW.

Here’re five ways that you can leverage YouTube and drive website traffic:

1 – Show me how to do something

The number one reason people go to YouTube is “How to…”. So if you want to increase traffic to your website – show me how to do something.

How-to videos attract viewers who are ready to buy. Just like people who search for topics in Google, they have an issue they need to be solved and it’s up to you to teach them. In fact, statistics reveals that almost 1 out of 3 people say they bought a product or service as a direct result of seeing a how-to video on the subject.

Videos appear in more than half of all keyword searches in Google and over 80 percent of those come from YouTube, which is why it’s crucial to optimize your SEO keywords in your video. Create detailed meta descriptions of your video. If you like, you can also add transcripts as well. Create engaging videos that will inspire your audience to take action.

For a sense of how to do these videos, I recommend checking out these channels on YouTube:

eHow

eHow doesn’t sell anything (which I think is insane) and has roughly 25 thousand videos with millions of views each. If eHow doesn’t show you how, it probably doesn’t exist (or it’s impossible).

Howcast

Like eHow, they’ve had videos basically about EVERYTHING on the planet. I’m still stunned that six million people have watched how to tie a Windsor knot. I guess the old things are the hardest things.

And you’d be surprised what people are interested in. I mean 1.4 million people wanting to learn about kissing (during sex I might add – one would think at that point you’ve pretty much nailed the prize).

Now notice that the videos on these sites aren’t necessarily CLIO/Cannes Lion winning material (actually 99% of it is God awful crap from a production standpoint), yet it gives me what I want – information on how to solve my problem – right now (especially I guess if you’re on a date and it’s going really, really, really well…)

2- Help me out with a purchase before I buy it

True story – about a year ago I was going to make smoothies and I wanted to buy a serious blender. Now most people buy a blender, and it costs a hundred bucks.

My blender cost 700 dollars. Yes, you read that right – SEVEN HUNDRED. And three blender brands are in that realm – Vitamix, Blendtec, and Breville.

Now everyone who’s anyone going back to Jack LaLaine knows Vitamix. They’ve been around forever (by the way – in the end I bought one). But the company Blendtec did exceptionally well showing me whether or not they were even serious by having two types of content – one was the “Will it Blend” series (which are exceptionally fun to watch) and the second were the reviews by others.

So if you sell an item that is expensive, what we in the ad world would call a “highly considered purchase,” videos can help drive traffic and conversions. This video is one of the best I’ve seen about blenders.

3 – Help me get more out of what I’ve already purchased

I’m the father of two daughters. As a result, we have more than a few bottles of nail polish around. You know what my kids watch all day long (and I’m not kidding), nail polish design videos. The vast majority of these videos are done by others (which I think is silly – the nail polish companies would behove themselves to make these videos themselves, or sponsor them).

My kids then use the nail polish they’ve already got, and try to do what they see in the videos. It’s like “How to…” with a twist.

By the way – we wind up buying nail polish stuff (as well as painting mask equipment and other makeup stuff) as a result of watching these videos.

4 – Give me knowledge about the other things I want to do (that you sell solutions for in the marketplace)

The best people I’ve seen at this is Home Depot. They have great videos about landscaping and home improvement. This is more like “how to…” with the “I didn’t know I could” twist. Honestly, the show “This Old House” probably paved the way for the Lowes and Home Depots of the world. They started showing people that they could do stuff with their houses without having to hire everyone under the sun.

People will watch these videos and decide “hey, you know what, maybe we should do that – it doesn’t look so hard!”

5 – Tell me about the other things you do (that aren’t related to selling me stuff)

I’ll just show you this – I think you’ll get it by watching it. If you don’t know the Tom’s story – you can read it here.

The idea here is creating video content that makes people go “Wow! That’s awesome! I like those guys for doing that!”

Now, you have actually to be a company that’s likeable. McDonalds did this, and it horrendously backfired.