YouTube is the second largest search engine on the planet after Google. The site generates an estimated 92 billion pageviews per month, which also provides enormous traffic to various websites and blogs. It’s a platform where 400 hours of video is uploaded every minute!
YouTube also lets content creators monetize the content of their videos. If your content gets enough views, you can make extremely good money from YouTube videos. However, just uploading a video is not enough to get views on the site unless you’re a big brand, such as a music company. Thankfully, there are techniques that you can follow to optimize your YouTube videos to rank higher in the search results. In this post, I’m going to share several different things you can do to rank your YouTube videos higher!
Before I continue to share these helpful tips, you need to understand that YouTube has its own algorithm which is used to rank a video. Even if you go out and buy organic YouTube traffic, it will not ensure that you will rank higher organically. One of the most well-known factors of high ranking YouTube videos is view time. If a user starts watching your video and quits after the first few seconds, your ranking is likely to go down. So, I assume you are already working hard on creating compelling YouTube videos and using a catchy thumbnail to get more CTR from related and embedded videos. Now, let’s look at some of the most important YouTube SEO tips, which will help you get more organic views to your videos.
1. Title Of The Video – Use Keywords – The video title is how someone will know what your video is all about. A title which perfectly matches your video content will be very friendly to the viewer and also to the YouTube algorithm for SEO. Take full advantage of the Google and YouTube auto-complete feature. The auto-complete feature is done automatically when you begin typing something. You’ll notice Google and YouTube both automatically begin suggesting similar keyphrases to what you’re typing. This will give you an overview of what people are searching for on Google and YouTube and will help you optimize your content accordingly. Similarly, you can use Google’s auto-complete feature to populate more keyword ideas.
2. Description Of The Video – Write a description of your video content. The first couple of lines will play a major role in your video’s ranking in the search engine. You can also use the search engine’s autocomplete keyword phrases as your description. If the searched keyword matches the first two lines of your video description, the video is more likely to get a higher ranking. Using longtail keywords as your video description will also boost the ranking of your videos immensely. Write your video descriptions wisely so that it can match the search keyword.
3. Naming Your Video File – So, you’ve created and edited your video and it’s now ready to be uploaded on YouTube, but you rendered your video file as something random like mov001.avi or random_name.mp4. You will want to make sure and rename your video as your_keyword.mp4. Naming your video file as your focused keyword actually tells the search engine exactly what is in your video. Remember, search engines cannot look directly inside video content. It is the file name that tells the search algorithm what your video is all about. Having the video title as your video file name helps search engine index videos easily, thereby aiding in achieving a higher ranking. So put your targeted keyword into the video file name.
4. Tagging & Keyword Research For YouTube Videos – Tags are another important way to get a better ranking in YouTube search. Here are a few tips to put tags in your videos:
- List specific tags first: Write your main keyword first. Doing this will put weight in algorithms.
- List general tags: Write general and matching keywords. For example, if your main keyword is “domains”, general tags can be “domain tips,” “domain names,” “domaining” etc.
- Also, include the misspelling of your tags: For example, if you have a keyword as “buy domains”, also put “buuy domains”. Go to TouTube analytics and check for traffic resources to see how people are searching for you.
- Include singular and plural of your tags: If your keyword is “Tattoo Art”, then also put “Tattoo Arts”, and separate your keyword into different tags like “Tattoo” & “Art.”
- Include phrases into tags such as your longtail keywords.
You can use the VidIQ Chrome plugin which helps you find the right tags to be used with your video. It also shows your ranking for the particular keyword. This tool is used by many pro YouTubers and is highly recommended for your YouTube channel as well!
