Are you frustrated that your YouTube channel isn’t getting the exposure it deserves? Looking for tips to improve the ranking of your videos on YouTube? People always ask me about my YouTube strategy, so I decided to write this post for anyone who’s interested in how to improve upon your YouTube SEO.
YouTube is one of the most popular search engines in the world with over 2 billion searches per day worldwide. The average user spends an hour and forty-five minutes on youtube every day! Crazy right? With so many people using YouTube every day, there are some really amazing ways that you can optimize your videos for better rankings.
1. Know what users are searching for?
The entire concept of SEO begins with selecting the right keywords, once done correctly these keywords would help your video appear in the search results of YouTube, Google, or even Bing.
Keywords often appear in Video titles and metadata and it can also land on captions and transcripts which is kind of a double bonus.
Keyword research is a vital component of any successful SEO activity.
Developing an effective keyword strategy starts with understanding what users are searching for, which is why we recommend conducting thorough keyword research before starting your video SEO journey.
You can explore the tools like –
With these tools try to find out the keywords which have a healthy search volume as that would give you an idea of how many people are searching for that keyword on a monthly basis and then choose accordingly what fits best in your plan.
PRO Tip –
Focussing on long-tail keywords can help your video rank higher faster as they are more focussed and targeted rather than generic keywords which are short tail and generalized like a keyword “How to create a lookalike audience using customer phone numbers” would be far better as compared to “What is lookalike audience”.
2. Include closed caption
In 2006 Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion dollars and it now serves billions of hours worth of video content each day, which amounts to about 6 billion hours per month or about 1 trillion hours per year! With so many users uploading videos every day how do you make sure your video will rank well in search engines?
I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but YouTube is about to start including closed captions in their SEO. I know what you’re thinking: It’s just a small change! But as someone who has been working with SEO for years now, I can tell you that this could be HUGE!
For one thing, it means that your video will rank better on Google and Bing search engines. It also means that people who are deaf or hard of hearing will be able to enjoy your videos more than ever before. And don’t forget the fact that it’ll make your videos easier to find by voice-enabled devices like Google Home!
Google always rewards helpful searches and penalizes painful or misleading content, also Google automatically transcribes your content, however they are not very accurate and they only provide partial readability to the end-user, this greatly increases the risk of users giving a negative review or clicking on that thumbs down button which is again a negative signal and may downgrade your video.
Uploading a closed caption through an SRT file will help your readers understand what your video is all about and would also give a great signal to YouTube and Google which would then push up your video in search results.
3. Add a transcript to your video
A transcript is an important part of any video as it can help people who are hearing impaired or for those who prefer reading to watching videos. It also allows search engines to index your content and rank it higher on their search engine results pages (SERPs).
There are many benefits to adding a transcript to your video including:
It can increase the number of visitors that watch your video by up to 300%.
The transcripts allow you to have more keywords in each paragraph without having them sound spammy. This makes it easier for Google’s algorithm crawlers and spiders to index your content and rank it higher on SERPs. Adding a transcript will make sure that all relevant information is included in the text so no one misses anything important when they’re consuming what you’ve created.
4. Offer subtitles in multiple languages
YouTube’s global reach is massive, adding subtitles in multiple languages will open up gates so that your video can reach out to potential audiences in multiple countries, over 2 billion users log in to YouTube every day.
YouTube allows users to upload videos of any length. YouTube also offers subtitles for videos uploaded by the user, which can be translated into many different languages.
In order for an English-speaking viewer to fully understand a video with Spanish subtitles, they would have to read the Spanish text as well as listen to it spoken aloud.
If this person only speaks English, then they could not enjoy the content of the video at all because they cannot read or hear what is being said.
Subtitles allow people who do not speak another language fluently enough to watch videos without having any knowledge of that language beforehand; though there may be some difficulty understanding dialogue if their first language is not one of those offered in subtitles on YouTube
5. Ensure the keywords you want to optimize are present in your title, description & hashtags of the video
To get started with an effective keyword optimization strategy for YouTube videos, there are some basic steps that can be taken:
1) Add keywords to the title –
Your video’s title should include one or two relevant keywords at most. This way, when users search Youtube using these terms they’ll be able to find your video easily. Your title of the video should be catchy and should be easily understandable by the end-user. Use encouraging language like “How to” “Top Tips” “Numbered lists” like “Top 7 tricks to master Email Marketing”
The total number of characters that a YouTube title can support is around 100, but I would recommend that you keep it at 70 so that your important information is focused on the initial characters.
2) Include important keywords in the description –
Your video description can fit in about 5000 characters but some of the devices show up only 120 characters, hence it’s important to optimize your video description, ensure that you have a keyword-rich description.
Adding social media links to your video description can also gather a few additional clicks and followers going on to your social channels if they like your content.
6. Focus on saying the keyword in your video
It takes a lot of time and effort to create a great YouTube video. You have to put in hours of work, but it’s worth it when you see your video ranking on the initial page of YouTube.
Speaking the focus keyword while creating the video can be a great idea to ensure search engines catch what your video is all about.
Also, ensure that you don’t overdo it, nobody would like to view a video that is overstuffed with few keywords, keep it simple and user-friendly as the overall user experience is of paramount importance.
7. Use a Compelling thumbnail
The ultimate purpose of SEO is not only to rank your channel or video on top searches but also to make it attractive or eye-catching for your viewers that they end up clicking on your video.
And that you’ll be able to do with the help of a thumbnail. Yes, setting up an appropriate thumbnail is as important as delivering the right content, along with the correct title and description.
To give you an example: If you have searched for your favorite dish recipe, Panipuri maybe,
You’ll likely click on the video where you find the thumbnail attractive with a mouthwatering image of your favorite Panipuri with some title upon it like “Make street like Panipuri at home just in 10 minutes” than the other videos which couldn’t catch your attention.
8. Track your Analytics
90% of the process is done, right from creating the video to bringing it on to the top search, but that’s not it, another important task is to maintain or to increase the rank or the viewership. Here’s when Analytics comes into the picture, to help you know every single thing related to your progress.
Overview, Reach, Audience, engagement, Revenue, All these are part of YouTube Analytics, a whole new blog can be written on this topic.
However, to give you the highlight, I’ve mentioned a small practice which you can try your hands at to know more about Analytics.
The first step is to log into your Analytics account and click on Acquisition in the left-hand menu. From there, scroll down until you see a section labeled All Traffic Sources. Click on that heading, then select YouTube. You’ll be able to see data for both the number of views and the number of unique visitors from YouTube.
You can also use this tool to identify trends in viewership over time. For example, if you notice an increase or decrease in viewers during certain times of day (or days) it may indicate that something has changed with your content or with Google’s algorithm.
Yet to learn more about the technical term of YouTube Analytics you can refer to Videos as well on YouTube.
Conclusion
It’s very important to optimize your YouTube videos for search engines, in order to maximize views. The better the descriptions and tags of your videos are, the more likely it is that someone will find you through a search engine. With Google owning YouTube, It’s only natural that they’re working hard to help you succeed in SEO techniques for your channel.
I hope you enjoyed reading it and learned a few new things that will help you with your own YouTube video optimization.
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