There is no doubt that video marketing has become the most effective digital marketing channel of today. YouTube is the most popular video-sharing website in the world and the second most visited website in the world. Therefore following this 7 SEO practices to rank your YouTube video will be a great move for your YouTube channel to do better.
Millions of people come to YouTube every day to be informed, inspired, or just plain delighted (YouTube for Press). Over 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Every second, YouTube receives over 1 billion video views. YouTube has over 2 billion users in general.
As a video marketer, to rank any video on YouTube with its current statistics, you have to ensure that you are following a proper SEO practice.
Below are 7 SEO practices to enable you to rank your videos on YouTube.
- Keyword Research
- Select Keywords with Good Search Potentials
- Chose a good title for your video
- Add tags to the video
- Create longer videos (unique to the YouTube)
- Write Smart Descriptions
- Promote your YouTube channel
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Keyword Research
The power of keyword research lies in better understanding your target market and how they are searching for your content, services, or products. Keyword research is an important part of any SEO campaign.
Proper keyword research provides you with specific search data that can help you answer questions like:
- What are people searching for?
- How many people are searching for it?
- In what format do they want that information?
You can do keyword research with any keyword research tool of your choice that gives what you want. Once you uncover how your target audience is searching for your content, you begin to uncover a whole new world of strategic SEO!
I will be using Google to do my illustration here. Type in the long tail keyword for any keyword you need to research, and click on search or enter on your keyboard. Then take note of the “people also ask” box that shows up.
These are questions that searchers are asking on Google. When you click on any of them, Google will load more. Keep doing this, and you will generate as many long-tail keywords as possible.
As you get ready to write and prepare your outline, have in mind that there are many factors to consider when it comes to SEO. If you want to rank, one thing is certain – your content should align with search intent.
When it comes to understanding search intent, Google is your best friend. Look at the top 10 search results and the presence of SERP features to understand what is called the 3Cs of search intent, namely
- Content-type
- Content format
- Content angle
Create your content the same way.
2. Select Keywords with Good Search Potentials
After your keyword research, the next thing is to select keywords with good search potentials from the list of keywords you already have. This content is focused on how to rank any YouTube video and generate search traffic. We already know that search is becoming more and more important as a source of traffic.
The keyword research process is a bit like dating in the digital age: you can’t just show up and expect to meet a suitable algorithm match. Instead, you need to approach the process in a strategic way and target keywords that are likely to either convert to sales or provide an organic traffic boost to your site.
Firstly you have to think like a customer if you want to select the right keyword. Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and ask yourself, “what would I type into Google if I want to find these products or services.” This will help you make some amendments to your initial list of keywords.
Choose long-tail keywords that help to define your product or service. This is because long-tail keywords are less competitive, attract more relevant traffic, and are easier to rank for. Now use any good keyword research tool of your choice like semrush.com or Ubersuggest to make your final selections of keywords with high volume and trends, less keyword competition, etc.
3. Chose a good title for your video
If you want people to click on your blog post and read it, you should make sure it has a good title that is catchy and gets people to click on it.
The title is one of the most important parts of any content where the keyword needs to appear. This is because it is one of the essential factors for YouTube to index and rank the content.
If you want your video to appear in a good position and for people to click on it, you should make sure that the video title is as close as possible to the users’ search terms.
Short and snappy video titles are more eye-catching and memorable than long ones. So aim at 60 characters at most for your video titles.
Put your most important words up front to catch viewers’ eyes because people are more likely to glance at your title than to read it carefully.
Try to make people feel like they will miss out on something great if they don’t watch your video by making it interesting.
4. Add tags to the video
When you upload a video to YouTube, it automatically adds one tag to the video: “Published by.” Tags are essential for ranking a video on YouTube. Therefore, it would be an excellent practice to consistently add tags to your YouTube videos.
Tags are among the factors that YouTube considers to properly identify a video’s subjects and index them correctly. They also help in recommending related videos which is also an important source of traffic for your videos.
YouTube allows you to use 120 characters in the field tag, so using 6 to 8 words will be a wise decision not to confuse the algorithm with terms detached from its content.
5. Create longer videos (unique to the YouTube)
According to a YouTube SEO ranking factor study by BRIGGSBY, there is a relationship between the lengths of videos and their rankings.
- Videos that are less than 5 minutes long tend to get a lower percentage of positive reviews.
- Videos between 10 and 16 minutes long are more effective at converting views into likes.
- Videos that are longer than 16 minutes tend to see a decline in engagement and conversion.
So it’s worth starting to invest in longer videos, which are between 10 and 16 minutes long. This is probably because they meet the expectations of those looking for more in-depth content. While videos less than 5 minutes long tend to be more superficial.
However, it’s worth mentioning that “relevance is better than length.” Therefore, you must not stick to those numbers, ok! These findings serve only to provide guidelines. So, don’t worry too much about the video length if you invest in quality content.
6. Write Smart Descriptions
When uploading a video, the description is another important field that must be filled in. This text should provide information about what the video is about in the most descriptive way possible.
The description is essential for ranking for the following reasons
- It can serve as an instrument of persuasion for the user to access the video
- Serves the platform’s algorithm to identify the video content.
Try to keep the main information at the beginning of the text. So you can increase your video engagement and earn points with an attractive description. The description must also include keywords that represent the topics covered in the video, thus, increasing your chances of ranking for these terms.
7. Promote your YouTube channel
To promote your YouTube channel online, here is a list of the thing you should do
- Do a giveaway contest and ask your viewers for a subscription and a like on your video in order to participate.
- Add a hashtag to your title and make it topic-specific
- Contract a fellow YouTuber so that both of you can collaborate to create two separate videos together on the same title.
You can also promote your YouTube channel by doing the following
- Share your videos on niche communities;
- Share your videos on social media;
- Use email marketing and signature for advertising your videos;
- Reply to messages and comments from users with videos;
- Create corporate videos and product demonstrations to post on websites;
- Take part in groups, forums, and question and answer sites and respond to users with your videos.
Above all, remember the vital word: relevance. Share videos only in contexts where they are relevant and add value to the user. Remember that the focus of Google and YouTube is “user experience” so, this should be yours too.
The “secret” to ranking videos on the internet is to understand that SEO is not just about keywords but also about other factors that can improve your search engine rankings. These include the relevancy, quality, and popularity of your content.
In conclusion, it is worth noting that SEO can be a very long-term strategy, as it is a slow process that takes time to build up a strong presence. However, it is worth the effort as it can result in a high traffic volume and strong branding for your channel.
