What is YouTube SEO? How YouTube SEO affects the ranking of
YouTube videos:
written by M. Arshad Sohail
Content:
A. What is YouTube SEO?
B. How does YouTube SEO work?
C. Keywords and SEO Tools
D. 22 Best YouTube SEO Tips
E. Conclusion
A- What is YouTube SEO?
It includes programming, design, content production, and
relationships with other sites so that search engines see this page as the best
result for what the user is looking for.
Before learning what YouTube SEO is, it's important to take
a few steps back and understand what SEO is. Search engine optimization is a
set of strategies for optimizing the user experience, the goal of which is to
improve the position of a page in search engines.
Of course, when it comes to SEO, you want to rank high in
Google Search. After all, this Internet giant dominates over 90% of searches
worldwide.
B- How does YouTube SEO work?
Youtube bought by Google. Therefore, it uses the same search
intelligence as a search engine and has the same purpose: to offer the user the
best search experience.
In this video, YouTube itself briefly explains how its
search algorithm works:
When a user enters a search term on YouTube, the platform's
bots search all channels and videos to provide the user with the best results
in order of relevance.
For example: a video that correctly fills out the title,
tags, and description fields will rank better than a video that doesn't.
Therefore, the SEO optimizations you make for YouTube are
not just for searches within the platform, but also to compete for that space
in Google search.
YouTube SEO is not a cakewalk. Even if you follow all the
instructions, the decision about what results are displayed to the user depends
on the platform's algorithm, which is quite complex.
C- Keywords and SEO Tools
You can use keyword research tools including:
• POSSIBLE
• Ahrefs
• Semrush
• Google
• Keyword Explorer
• Tube Buddies
• YouTube Analytics
• vidIQ
• Autosuggest YouTube
• Google Keyword Planner
• Keyword Tool (Keywordtool.io)
• Rank Tracker
• Kparser
• YTRank
D- 22 Best YouTube SEO Tips for Video Ranking:
With the ever-increasing demand for YouTube to rank high in
the platform's search results? So let's take a look at some tips to help
YouTube prioritize your channel and your videos in user search results.
1- Learn from competitors
Competition makes life harder, but your competitors can also
be a source of topic ideas.
To find the most visited pages of your competitors, you can
use the Top Pages report in Ahrefs Web Explorer.
For example, if we plug our competitor into this tool, we'll
see that their Magento SEO guide gets decent search traffic.
2- Aligning YouTube metrics with purpose
Not all YouTube metrics are relevant to your goals and
target audience, so you need to figure out which ones to focus on. Each of
these statistics provides you with a wide range of useful information about the
performance of your video. So it's crucial to familiarize yourself with each
YouTube Analytics metric to truly understand what it's measuring and what it
means to you.
For example, focusing on engagement will help you measure
the quality of your video, but the number of videos measures its reach. For the
types of traffic sources, they will give you valuable information to improve
the visibility of your videos and tell you whether people are finding them through
the browsing features, the search box, your YouTube channel page or some other
way.
3- Define your goals and target audience
It's important to remember that defining your goals should
always be step zero in any marketing strategy, videos or no videos. You need to
set specific goals and direct them to a defined audience.
Get a clear idea of what you want to use your video for.
Doing so can serve as a blueprint that will get you safely to your destination
from a marketing perspective. Additionally, defining your goals will help you
decide what types of videos best suit your purposes, outline what it's all for,
and measure the success of your marketing strategy.
4- Updating old content:
Old content needs to be updated regularly because rankings
don't last forever, especially if you're targeting time-sensitive topics.
For example, here's the estimated organic traffic to our top
Google searches list over time:
Each slump occurred when the content lost its freshness.
Searchers wanted an up-to-date list of top Google searches, but ours was out of
date. This is why the charts tanked.
Each increase occurred when we updated the content.
You can find pages on your site that may need to be updated
in Site Explorer. Simply connect your site, go to the Top Pages report, set the
comparison mode to "Previous Year", sort the report by traffic change
from low to high and search
5- Ask people to comment, share and like your videos
Encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel and leave
comments.
Video comments, shares, likes and subscriptions show YouTube
that people like your videos. If your viewers share your videos with others, it
shows Google that you have content that people like. All of these factors will
get you higher search rankings on YouTube.
6 - Do your keyword research first
Keywords are essential in YouTube SEO as they are for
Google. Through them, the platform identifies the subject of the video, indexes
the content and matches it to user searches.
Therefore, you need to know which keywords best identify your
videos and at the same time have the potential to attract more viewers to your
channel.
Now let's look at some tips for doing quality keyword
research with a focus on YouTube SEO. These can be used to fill in the blanks
after you shoot videos, but also to brainstorm potential content for your
channel.
To do this, visit channels that are authorities in your
niche. If they have a good audience and a lot of views, they probably have
adopted good YouTube SEO practices and know how to use keywords.
For example, in the case of the Rock Content channel, one of
the videos that appears at the top of the list is this: "Story is
Strategy: The Strategic Story as Your Company's North Pole."
In addition, you can also analyze your channel statistics.
As part of the analysis of traffic sources, the most used terms to reach your
videos. Here you can find inspiration to upload new content or include keywords
in your uploaded videos.
7- Keywords with good hit potential
With the above tips, you already have a good list of keywords.
So how do you choose the best ones for your videos?
Of course, you have to think: "I will choose the words
that are most used in the search!". Yes: the most popular terms tend to
attract more people. However, they have more competition — and such competitors
can be big brands and influencers who are hard to compete with. What we call
"long tail" keywords are probably better for small and medium
businesses.
They don't have that amazing traffic, but neither do they
have that much competition. So it is easier to get a good position. Plus, they
often represent lower-of-the-funnel searches—closer to conversion.
But how do you know what long-tail keywords are? They are
usually longer – three words or more – and represent a more specific search.
For example, “content marketing” is a top of the line word. It generates a lot
of hits, but the ranking is much more competitive.
However, you can narrow this search by using the term
"Instagram content marketing" which will already filter out
competitors. If you choose the term "content marketing Instagram
Stories", the search will be even more specific and you will increase the
chances of your video getting a good placement.
8- Include your target keywords in your video file names
If your video file names contain your target keywords, your
videos are more likely to rank higher in search results.
You can see the file name when you upload a new video. Be
sure to update the file name before uploading the video.
The platform has been instrumental in transforming video into
one of the major content formats, both for consumption and digital marketing.
And with so many videos on the platform, YouTube was forced
to organize all this content in its search engine.
That said, we will now understand what YouTube SEO is.
Search engines exist in many other places on the Internet.
For example, when you enter a web page, there is usually a search function that
finds internal content. There is also an internal search engine on social
networking sites.
9- Use the best video title - search for it by keyword
After doing good keyword research, you already have a good
selection of terms at hand. So what do you do with them?
Include targeted keywords in your video titles to find out
what your audience is searching for and why. Be creative and interesting with
your titles to encourage users to click. Add numbers to the title to entice
viewers. For example, "6 Tips to Rank Higher on YouTube".
One of the fields where the keyword must appear is the
title. This is one of the most important factors for YouTube to index and rank
content. And in order for the video to appear in a good position, the title
must be as close as possible to the user's search queries.
Research has also shown that longer titles tend to
underperform because the top positions are more objective: the top 20 players
have an average of 47-48 characters in their title - the maximum is 100
characters.
So try to make your titles shorter and with the exact
keyword. These findings are not rules, but are worth considering. Also remember
that the title of the video can be the user's first contact with your content.
So it needs to describe what viewers will be watching, but
also motivate them to click on your video. That's why it's worth a pinch of
creativity that can sharpen curiosity.
10- Add tags to the video
Anyone who works with SEO for Google knows that stuffing a
page's code with keywords in Meta tags no longer makes sense. The search engine
no longer uses this aspect as a ranking factor because it was widely used as
spam.
However, on YouTube, tags are necessary to rate a video.
These are among the factors YouTube considers to identify video topics and
index it properly, but also to recommend related videos. And these suggestions
are also an important source of traffic for your videos.
17- Promote the channel and videos
We've already given you tips on how to increase audience
engagement with your videos. But to get to that point, you need to bring that
audience to your channel first!
By optimizing the title, description and tags of your
videos, you will already increase visibility on YouTube itself.
However, you must have several other marketing channels that
can be used to promote your videos outside of YouTube and increase views.
There's no point in pushing the bar, is there? This will
only result in frustration for the user who accesses your video and then leaves
because it wasn't what they were looking for. Initially you can post your
videos on FACEBOOK, TWITER, INSGRAM, LINKEDIN PAGES for promotion.
18- Create your own thumbnails for your videos
Have you ever chosen something to watch on YouTube (or any
other video streaming platform) based solely on the appeal of the preview
image?
If so, then you already know how important the right
thumbnail can be.
Your thumbnail is literally the first thing a user sees when
they come across your video, and it can make or break someone's decision to
click on it or not.
Great thumbnails can significantly increase traffic and
watch time, leading to higher rankings not only on YouTube but also in search
engines.
So choose your thumbnails carefully.
Be creative. Choose something that perfectly captures the
theme of your video and will help it stand out from everything else. You will
love what it does for your results.
Here's a great tutorial on how to make a thumbnail in this
video
https://youtu.be/aFmfxxekDt8
19- Take advantage of YouTube end screens and tabs
If you want your audience to do something specific when they
watch your video, it's important not to leave anything to chance.
Tell them directly with a clear call to action (CTA). Not
only does it ensure your viewers complete the correct action instead of
hitting, it also helps alleviate decision fatigue.
Of course, you can (and should) integrate verbal calls to
action into your content, but you should also use the built-in features that
YouTube includes, such as YouTube tabs and end screens.
YouTube tabs are pre-formatted visual notifications set to
appear in the top right corner of your video. Cards are interactive and
encourage users to explore other videos, links, playlists and more.
Using interactive features like these help increase watch
time, improve engagement, grow your subscriber list, and increase your videos'
search rankings, so use them wisely.
20- Focus on creating videos with high retention
As any seasoned marketer will tell you, dwell time is
incredibly important to SEO. The longer a person spends on a particular page or
website, the more valuable they appear to the algorithms and the higher the
ranking in the end.
A version of this rule also applies on YouTube.
Audience retention rate is a metric that tells you how much
of your video a viewer actually watches before moving on to something else, and
is
Instead, focus on creating great videos that are short,
engaging, and bring a lot of value.
Break your videos into small chapters that make it easier
for viewers to digest your content. Be concise and dive straight to the heart
of your topic to grab your audience's attention immediately.
21- Increase your production value as much as possible
Whether you're talking about YouTube SEO or not, good
optimization is largely about quality, so anything you can do to increase the
production value of your content will give you a big boost.
Naturally, great production value will never trump good content,
but it's still worth noting that YouTubers respond to elegant and well-made
videos.
And no, you don't need an expensive video setup to succeed
here—just a smartphone or other video-capable device you probably already have.
Experiment with several different production options until
you decide on a method that works for you. Pay attention to any feedback you
get on your videos and use it as a guide for future improvements.
22- Monitor your analytics closely
The only real way to measure the success of your YouTube SEO
strategy is to monitor your analytics closely. It's the best way to find out
what's working in your videos and where you could improve.
A. Follow-up period
The overall total number of minutes users spend with your
content.
b. CTR impressions
The rate at which people decide to watch your video after
first seeing it on their homepage.
C. Traffic Sources
How and where users got to your content.
d. Unique audiences
Estimated number of users viewing your content over a period
of time.
E. Subscriber Growth
How your subscriber count has changed by location,
individual videos, time periods, and more.
Taken together, keeping a close eye on metrics like these
will give you an excellent idea of what resonates with your audience. If a
particular video is significantly better or worse than average, consider what
makes it different and fine-tune IT accordingly.
E- Conclusion:
Now that you've read the entire article, let's recall
something we talked about at the beginning: user experience.
Remember, this is YouTube and Google's focus, and it should
be yours too.
Therefore, all the tips we have listed in this article have
a greater purpose: to improve the experience of Internet users. For example,
coming up with creative titles and using subtitles aims to make people's lives
easier and add value to watching video on the web.
Make sure that when you focus on user experience, the
algorithm knows how to recognize your optimization efforts.
Now, in order to make better use of the tips we have brought
in this article, it is important to know how to use SEO in each search engine.
Download our complete SEO guide now and become a master of
SEO! FORTHWITHWTH.
