Posted by YouTube is growing massively, with approx 600,000 hours of videos uploaded every single day. It has gained maximum outreach than any other online platform. That’s the reason everybody wants to be on YouTube and gain popularity.
Often, creators keep asking about how to rank YouTube videos and what’s the special ingredient to touch millions of views and get enormous subscribers. However, the truth is, it won’t happen overnight.
Everybody has to start from 0 views and 0 subscribers. Some of them reach millions or billions of subscribers/views, while a few of them can barely touch twenty-thirty people. One thing or strategy which makes the winner different from strugglers is YouTube SEO.
Yes, with YouTube SEO tips, you can optimize your videos and appear on the first page for relevant keywords.
Ground Reality to Know Before Implementing the Youtube SEO Techniques
When we examine the most popular YouTube channels and videos, it’s tempting to attribute their success to the fact that the channel is popular and has a large following. However, not a single YouTube user started with even one subscriber. While a result, you must exercise patience for the subscribers to increase. Additionally, it seems intriguing: how can one video get millions of views while another on the same topic garners less than ten? The solution is neither enigmatic nor cryptic. YouTube “SEO services” and “Youtube marketing services” are the solution.
Understanding the ABC’s of YouTube SEO
Search engines, such as YouTube, use a complex algorithm to decide how your videos are ranked on the platform. Optimizing for YouTube may aid in the growth of critical KPIs such as follower count, brand recognition, website traffic, and income.
YouTube SEO is the process of optimizing the page, playlists, metadata, description, and videos on your channel. You can optimize your videos for both YouTube and other search engines. Users may find your videos through Google, or other search engines.
Optimization for YouTube involves seeing how well your video ranks in a particular category and the number of people who have watched it. When businesses optimize for YouTube search trends, research indicates that their watching time has increased by 50% year over year over the last three years.
How to Rank Youtube Videos Fast?
After you’ve created your video and uploaded it to YouTube, you’re probably going to want to ensure that it appears on the first page of search results on the platform. Numerous variables influence your video’s ranking on Youtube. Several of these Youtube ranking criteria decide the ranking of Youtube videos on SERP.
Now, let’s get into the technical details of quickly ranking your YouTube videos!
1. How To Create Effective Titles For Your YouTube Videos
YouTube video names may include up to 100 characters. Google, on the other hand, terminates the title after 70 characters.
Include the most critical information, including the keyword, at the beginning of your title.
The most critical factor in ranking YouTube videos is their keywords. Consider the question you’re attempting to address with your video when choosing your keywords. These are the terms that users will enter into Google or YouTube searches.
Indicate a distinct and particular advantage. Indicate in the title why the audience should watch your video. How will this affect their lives?
While brainstorming potential titles, do a Google search and compare your ranking competitors. Consider a variety of alternative approaches to the questions to see which will have the greatest probability of ranking YouTube videos. Consider the search results and proceed accordingly.
If one variant already has a few very great videos, it is not the ideal choice. Consider an alternative approach.
Bear in mind that Google favors the following kinds of keywords when displaying YouTube video results:
If it is acceptable (in light of the content), using these keywords in the title will almost certainly result in some Google search traffic.
2. YouTube Tags
Although keywords help you rank on Google, tags help YouTube videos rank inside YouTube.
To choose which tag to use, visit TubeBuddy and enter your keyword suggestion. After that, pick all tags associated with your term (these are often more than one word). Take care not to overdo it! While you may use up to 500 characters in your tags, we suggest limiting it to less than 400. You do not want to cause the YouTube algorithm to get confused. Maintain a focus on tags that are relevant to the keyword/phrase for which you are attempting to rank. Do not attempt to rank for several keywords.
Additionally, you may utilize TubeBuddy’s Chrome Plugin to see tags associated with other people’s videos. This ties with the previously discussed approach of generating “Similar Content.”
3: Description of YouTube Video
You have the option of adding a description to each movie.
If you really want to rank YouTube videos quickly, ensure that your video description adheres to the following guidelines:
At a minimum, your description should be 250 words long.
Include your keywords in the opening 25 words of your essay (eg, in the first sentence)
Repeat your term (“naturally”) about three to four times.
As an added bonus, we suggest that you always provide the following information:
A synopsis of yourself or your business — Don’t count on people returning to your profile. Inform them about your cause directly in the video description.
A rallying cry – What is your video’s purpose? Do you want them to purchase something, subscribe to your YouTube channel, or visit your website? Inform them of their obligations!
Resources – If they like the video and want more information, do not force them to return to Google. Provide them with resources that will assist them in resolving their follow-up inquiries. Provide another video or a link to your website for more information if possible.
Links to social media profiles – Congratulations, your films have shaped them into people that resemble you. Now inform them where else they may get more supplies of you. Chances are, if they’re on YouTube, they’re also on Facebook or Twitter.
Yes, hashtags are now a thing on YouTube. If you include a hashtag in your description, it will appear above your title as a blue clickable link.
If you’re aiming for a keyword approach, it’s critical to fill out the description for each video with as much information as possible.
4: Thumbnail of YouTube
YouTube will automatically give your video a thumbnail. It may be flattering or a good reflection of your brand, but it might not be.
Reclaim control and design the ideal thumbnail for your movie, replete with descriptive and enticing overlay text. This will not immediately help you rank YouTube videos more quickly, but it will improve the likelihood that people will click on your video when they see it in the search results. If your video is ranked but no one clicks on it, it will not be ranked for long.
YouTube thumbnail creation tips:
We suggest that you just search for your keyword on YouTube and check the thumbnails for the videos that are presently ranking, then create a better, brighter thumbnail! For the victory, arouse interest.
5: YouTube Closed Captioning File
We used to suggest that if you wanted to rank YouTube videos, you needed a caption file. However, we believe this is no longer true.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, a caption file is a file that associates the written language of what you say with a timestamp.
Rev charges $1 per minute to generate a caption file from a video. For lengthier films, you may utilize Otter.ai, an “AI-powered assistant,” to transcribe them.
Once the file is generated, it is simply uploaded to YouTube.
I’ve experimented with rating videos without a caption file and found that they still rank. However, SEOs continue to recommend that you utilize a caption file.
The reason we believe this is no longer necessary is that text to voice technology has advanced to the point where Google understands what your movie is about even without the transcript. This is just my hypothesis; however, if you want to be certain, get the caption file.
6: Backlinks to YouTube
When other websites or social media profiles are connected to your video (backlinks), Google recognizes your video as relevant and valuable. Google will prioritize YouTube videos with a large number of backlinks.
To increase the number of backlinks, post it on social media platforms and leave a comment on related sites with the URL to assist others in answering their concerns.
However, not all connections are beneficial. If an untrustworthy tabloid website connects to you, you are associated with an untrustworthy source. Too many of these low-quality connections will undermine your attempts to rank YouTube videos.
You might post your video as an “explanation” on Quora, Reddit, and other platforms. Additionally, you might write a blog post about the movie by embedding it on your blog and blogging about it (or post the transcript of the movie as a blog post).
Helpful Hint: As soon as your films are uploaded, you want to maximize traffic and interaction. If you do have an email list or other big following, it’s a great way to encourage the video to them immediately after it’s published.
7. Research keyword for YouTube video
The top priority is to research the keywords that people are looking for. It simply means that before jumping in to launch your videos on YouTube, you must find the right keywords.
It all starts with creating a list of keyword ideas.
No worries! You don’t have to brainstorm about the keywords; instead, you can simply use the YouTube search suggest feature.
Here is how to do that.
- All you have to do is open YouTube, type a few words (relevant to your video), and YouTube will display a list of related keywords.
- Some of these keywords might not make sense, but that’s how people search on YouTube.
- Another powerful way in keyword research is to copy the keywords of a popular video in your niche and use those keywords in yours. That’s one of the astonishing YouTube marketing strategy.
- For that, sort the YouTube videos by most popular, pick the video that has garnered huge views, check its title, tags, description, and leverage them to optimize your videos.
- Additionally, you can also use the traffic source report for YouTube search to find some of the best keyboards that generate high traffic.
- In all these ways, you can enrich your keyword list so as to avoid the witch hunt.
After creating the keywords list, it’s time to identify the best one
To choose the best keyword, you should always focus on low competition keywords, and it becomes more critical when you don’t own too many subscribers. If you try to rank for highly competitive keywords, you will most likely lack in the search results. So, how to find low competition keywords? The answer is Google. Here is how to do it.
- Open google, search for your keyword (add YouTube after that), and look at About results.
- Here you will see a number, maybe in thousands or millions, that indicates the number of videos on YouTube about that particular keyword.
- If you found that number to be in millions, that shows it is highly competitive, and ranking for that particular keyword might take a long time.
- On the other hand, if you found that number to be in thousands or tens of thousands, that means it is less competitive keywords.
So, that’s how you can headhunt for the keyword and find the one that suits you the best.
8. Use well-optimized Video Descriptions and Title
Obtaining the right set of keywords is one part and optimizing it on your videos is another. In this YouTube marketing strategy, you will need to use the keyword in title and description creatively. Also, it should have an appeal to attract the viewers and compel them to watch it.
Always think like an audience, that if you would have been at their place, which video title appealed to you the most. Other aspects to consider while choosing the right title and description – Are you making a video to teach your views on a specific topic? Or are you making it to entertain your viewers? Your video title and description should have a feel for your content’s theme.
9. Don’t Forget to Include the Right Tags
Keyboard research is done, title and description optimization are also complete, now comes the use of the right tags. It is one of the most underrated tools for YouTube SEO. Tags are basically for the YouTube reference only, and the visitors have nothing to do with them. You can add as many keyword variations in tags as you want. You will have to brainstorm on different ideas while finding the right tags for your YouTube videos.
10. Create high-retention videos
Audience retention is another crucial factor to rank on YouTube. YouTube wants people to keep coming or stick to watch videos, and the creator who supports YouTube in that venture is promoted. The retention rate is the amount of time people are watching your video. You should always aim to achieve a hundred percent attention rate so that you can frequently appear on the search results on YouTube.
YouTube is not equipped with features like adding backlinks, which Google has, and that’s the reason it relies heavily on audience retention as a ranking factor. All you have to do is create a highly informative video that adds value to the visitor. Does that mean you will need costly equipment? The answer is no; instead, the quality content will work wonders. Here are four essential factors to pump up your ranking on YouTube.
- Video comments: A good number of comments on your video indicate highly informative or engaging content. You should always encourage your visitors to comment on your video, and you must be prompt to reply to those messages.
- Video shares: The more the video is shared on social media platforms, the more organic visitors you will get. So, think about creating highly informative and value-adding content.
- CTR (Click-through-rate): CTR also directly impacts your YouTube ranking. The more the number of people clicks on your videos when it appears on search results, the more is the CTR. Higher CTR will make YouTube display your video on search suggestions for relevant keywords. Creating compelling thumbnails will help you increase the CTR.
- Video length: As per research, the long videos rank better as compared to the short ones. However, you need not stretch the video unnecessarily. Strike off the right balance between video length and video content.
11. Encourage Engagement
Creating high retention videos impacts audience engagement directly. Almost all YouTubers end their video with – if you like the video, please hit the like button and don’t forget to subscribe. The reason is pretty simple; whenever someone hits like or puts a comment on your video, it sends a strong signal to YouTube, suggesting that the audience is enjoying the content. In that way, YouTube will evaluate your video’s performance and frequently appear on the suggestions list.
12. Be Creative with Your Video Script
Creativity is always treasured, and the same goes for YouTube also. A few creators do not prefer to follow the basics of YouTube etiquette, and that’s where their videos get buried down the search results. The overall objective is to look natural and be spontaneous with your script, which is most preferred by YouTube and visitors. As per a recent study, YouTube marketers or creators get 10 to 15 seconds to impress the audience and engage them to watch the video till the end.
Practice your script before appearing in front of the camera and publishing the video. It will help you eliminate the minor hiccups that might arise when you do it in real-time. Also, do not afraid of editing the video to make it professionally appealing. If you engage your audiences for the first 30 seconds, you will most likely retain 33% of them until the video ends. Here is the pro tip:
- Start with creating a script.
- Include a short intro in the beginning, to inform viewers about the content of your video.
- Set the right expectations in the beginning of your video.
- Create some energy and passion for higher audience engagement.
- Set a promise at the start and fulfill it at the end.
After considering all these factors, the next step is to optimize your YouTube videos. The following section explains this in a better way.
13. Optimize Your Videos with Keywords
Different ways you can optimize your YouTube videos with keywords.
- Include the keyword in your video content by saying the target keyword.
- That will help YouTube to learn about your video.
- Your video title should be 5 words long, inclusive of the target keyword.
- Help YouTube in understanding the context of your video by adding a video description. Here is a cheat code – the video description should be 250 words long, include the keyword in the first 25 words, repeat the keyword 3-4 times.
- There is a universal YouTube marketing practice to use the same title tags as your high ranking competitors.
14. Add Attractive and Interesting Thumbnails
Thumbnail is the face of your videos, and the more attractive you make it, the more will be you CTR. The user sees two things before clicking the video, the first is the thumbnail, and the second is the video title.
Although YouTube assigns you a thumbnail, but that’s just a random shot of your video. To make it more appealing, you should be a little creative, add attractive colors, include pictures, etc. to grab the visitor’s attention.
Taking thumbnail seriously will really strengthen your ranking performance on YouTube. Once you are done with keyword research, creating high-retention videos, and optimizing your videos with keywords, now it’s time to start promoting.
15. Promote The Video to Grab Views
Video promotion is the first step towards generating views for your videos and attracting traffic. However, it has to be done strategically by leveraging popular forums like Quora and other such sites. Imagine you get access to a website where people are looking for relevant information. If your website can handle those queries, it will be an instant hit and shared automatically on social media handles. Here are some of the powerful YouTube SEO tips to help you promote your videos.
- Embedding your videos in your blog post is one of the most powerful tools of promotion. Whenever you write a blog post, create a video along with embedding it in the blog.
- You can also use the playlist to grab more eyeballs. The benefit of a playlist is, your next video plays automatically when one video ends. If a visitor finds the next video interesting, then your retention rate increases automatically.
- Another focus area should be to optimize your channel page. You can do it by adding the relevant keywords to the channel description. A professional and nice-looking channel page is more appealing to YouTube and also to visitors. Don’t know how? YouTube marketing services can help you it with ease.
16. Be Socially Active
Being socially active is another way to promote your YouTube channel. It’s all about looking for an opportunity to share a word about your videos. Whether you do it offline or online, both ways work well if managed effectively. Whenever you create a new video, make a post describing a small summary about the content and share it on your social media account. Also, encourage your friends to share in their social media account as well. You can also enhance your network by frequently visiting social gatherings. By increasing your social circle, you get an opportunity to improve the subscriber count and target audience reach.
The Bottom Line
Although YouTube is highly competitive, but it offers a great platform to showcase your skills. Using these YouTube SEO tips will help you reach every corner of the world if appropriately managed. However, you will have to strategize from a short term perspective rather than thinking about the long term. Start small, take baby steps, use these tools, and get your dreams real.