Youtube Video SEO: A Definitive Guide To Ranking Your Videos

YouTube is by far the largest video website out there, and one of the most popular video sharing websites in general. If one of your goals is to drive more traffic to your business or your blog through video, YouTube is the perfect platform. However, a lot of content marketers and online business owners still aren’t making use of its full potential.

Why? They are making a mistake by treating their video as if it was it was their written content and optimizing it in pretty much the same way. As a result, their video content, regardless of the quality, isn’t finding its way to the target audience.

The crucial thing that you need to remember is that YouTube’s search engine is different from that of Google, even though YouTube is owned by Google.

For example, whereas organic traffic accounts for the biggest part of traffic volume in the case of written content, the majority of video traffic comes from YouTube suggestions.

According to Matthew Steiner, who is the head of marketing for Ukbestessays, YouTube SEO is unique in a few aspects. You cannot just copy what you have done for your regular SEO. But, you can boost your YouTube video SEO by following these 5 tips:

Youtube Video SEO: Optimize for SEO Traffic and Results –

Write In-Depth Video Descriptions

One of the things video marketers aren’t making use of is video descriptions. Video descriptions present you with a perfect opportunity to boost your YouTube video SEO and have people stick around for the entire duration of the video.

By making your descriptions longer, which means over 200 words, you have the opportunity to insert your target keywords, as well as some long-tail keywords, for which there is less competition.

Also, if you are creating longer videos, timestamps are essential, because most content consumers nowadays don’t have the time/patience to sit through the entire video in order to obtain the information they need.

By including timestamps, you allow them to skip to the part that they are interested in, which is still better than them leaving right away. It’s kind of like breaking up those long pillar posts into smaller paragraphs, which makes the article easier to scan and read.

Focus on Video Keywords

While it’s necessary to have your target keywords, you can try and approach the problem from the opposite end of the spectrum, and see which keywords are working for others.

Even though Google will prioritize YouTube when it comes to search results for videos, it doesn’t do that for every keyword, only for “video keywords”. You can try typing in “YouTube SEO” and see what shows up.

The video keyword will appear inside every single search result on the first page, as well as all the hits inside the Video section of the search.

In order to find those video keywords, just attach phrases like “how to”, “tutorial”, “review”, “guide”, and so on, to your keyword and see which suggestion autocomplete comes up with.

Rely on Online Communities for Traffic

This method doesn’t have anything to do with the video itself on YouTube, but it works brilliantly. These days, despite quantity, it’s hard to find informative and useful content online. The exception is online communities, such as Reddit, LinkedIn, or Quora.

If you want real answers to your questions, this is where you would go to find them. The tricky thing about using online communities to drive traffic your way is the fact that these places don’t like posts that are overly promotional.

But, what you can do is become an active member of those communities and genuinely contribute to the discussions. If you think your video is relevant to the conversation, then, by all means, share it.

Another bonus of this approach is that you are already talking to the people who are interested in the sort of content you are producing, which means you won’t have to target keywords. Plus, they will hang around for much longer than your average visitor.

Ask for Links and Subscriptions

Another important component of YouTube video SEO, as far as written content is concerned, is backlinks. Based on their quality, Google will rank your website higher or lower. However, when you are producing videos for YouTube, you don’t have that option at your disposal.

What you can do is ask people to subscribe to your channel and/or link to your video content. The more subscribers you have, the higher your ranking will be, at least in theory, because that’s one of the major signals YouTube considers. Another signal is the number of likes your videos have, although it’s not nearly as important as the number of subscribers.

Use Keywords inside Playlists

If you have just created your YouTube channel and only have a few videos, you won’t have to create playlists. But, as the number of videos increases, playlists will become necessary, because it will enable your viewers to navigate your channel much easier, which in turn provides a more pleasant user experience. But, the main reason why you should create them is that you will be able to insert your target keywords.

You have already done more of the same when writing your video descriptions. Having some written content to go along with your videos will only increase your visibility on Google, and will influence your ranking in a positive way.

Conclusion

Even if you think you are an expert when it comes to SEO, video content requires a slightly different approach. Youtube Video SEO, apart from the quality of your content, depends on YouTube’s suggestions, the number of subscribers and likes, as well as video keywords, which have been explained in this article.

Online communities can also drive a lot of traffic your way, provided that you invest enough time to produce something of value for others. Finally, text-based content also plays a role here, as described in the case of descriptions and playlists.

These YouTube video SEO tips should help you optimize your YouTube efforts and improve your ranking on both YouTube and Google. Start relying on them today!

Author Bio :- Brenda Savoie is a content marketer, private English tutor, life coach and desperate dreamer. Writing her first romance novel. Seeking contentment through mindfulness. Check her blog BestWritingClues

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