We all want to rank higher in Google’s search results. Many different factors affect where your website ranks, but one of the most important is YouTube SEO. In this article, we’ll talk about what YouTube SEO is and why it’s so important for online marketing strategies.
YouTube is an incredibly powerful platform that can help you increase brand awareness, build relationships with customers and generate leads – if used correctly. It’s also one of the best places where prospective customers go to find out more about a product or service they are interested in purchasing (in fact, 78% of people say that they use YouTube as a source of information). That being said, companies must take advantage of all the different ways their business can benefit from being on YouTube.
When done correctly by professionals who know what they’re doing (like us), YouTube SEO can be an immensely helpful tool for businesses looking at increasing traffic back to their websites from videos posted on Google’s properties like search results pages or social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter.
YouTube SEO
YouTube SEO is an important part of the YouTube marketing strategy. It can help you boost your rankings and increase the traffic to your videos.
YouTube SEO is different from Google SEO (Search Engine Optimization) in many ways, but they are related in that they work together to increase visibility on YouTube. You need a good video title, description and tags, and keyword research.
A good YouTube keyword list will help you find long tail keywords that can drive more targeted traffic to your videos when people search for them on Google or other search engines like Bing, etc.
Video Titles
Your video title is one of the most important elements in optimising your video for search engines. You want to make sure that it’s descriptive but not too long. If you’re using a keyword in your title, keep it short and sweet so that people can quickly identify what they’re watching.
As with any other part of your content creation process, we recommend testing out different titles and seeing which ones perform best on YouTube and beyond. A good way to test out different titles is by tracking them with Google Analytics; if one specific title performs better than others over time (for example, by getting more viewers or views), then it means that this particular variation was better suited for what you were trying to accomplish with that particular piece of content. You should also consider whether doing so could potentially help boost awareness about other content-related topics within the same niche area.
Video Descriptions
You can also add a call to action at the end of your description, such as: “Click here to subscribe” or “Check out our website link. It’s important to remember that people will only see about 10% of the words you write in your video description, so you don’t want it to be too long. Try and keep it between 150-160 characters for maximum efficiency.
Finally, make sure that your videos have an error-free transcript! This will help search engines understand what’s being said in your video content and give them clues as to what keywords should be associated with that particular video.
Video Tags
Tags are a great way to help YouTube easily find and identify your videos and thus, get them in front of more viewers.
To maximise the effectiveness of your tags, it’s important to use relevant and accurate ones. Suppose you tag your video with “funny cat videos” or “cat fails compilation 2018”. In that case, YouTube may mistakenly think that this is what your video is about and therefore show it to people looking for those types of videos instead of yours!
Also, remember: when using tags, there should be no spaces between words (e.g., don’t write “feline+videos” but rather “feline videos”).
Video Thumbnails
- Use a vertical image, not a horizontal one. You want to ensure that your video thumbnail will show up when someone searches for it on YouTube or Google.
- Don’t use a video thumbnail. Video thumbnails are good for grabbing people’s attention, but they can be hard to read and take longer than text-based thumbnails to load (assuming you’re still using those quaint “broadband” internet connections).
- Use high-resolution images: When optimising your videos for search engines, high-quality images are essential—especially if your objective is to rank highly for keywords like “best business productivity tools.” A shot taken from your phone may not be as crisp as one taken with a DSLR camera or professional lens setup, but if it’s good enough, go ahead and use it!
- The more important thing here is consistency; that way, everyone knows what they’re getting when they click on one of these links – whether they’re looking through an online gallery or searching through Google results pages themselves.
Video Annotations
Annotations are an incredibly easy way to add a link to your website and links to other videos and websites. They can be a great way to get backlinks from other sites, especially if you use them to link back to your own videos.
Annotations also act as clickable call-to-action buttons. This makes them an excellent tool for boosting engagement on social media pages like Facebook or Twitter, where there isn’t room for long descriptions in the status update a text box or tweet text area.
The main advantage of using annotations over thumbnails or cards is that they can show up at any point during the video – even in the middle of another line of dialogue! This makes them ideal for capturing attention when watching something long like a lecture series or educational documentary on YouTube – no matter how far into it someone actually is!
Public Human Relationships
Another way you can use YouTube is as a social network. If you are part of a brand or SEO agency/business, then you’re likely already familiar with the importance of having great content that resonates with your audience. But many people don’t know that YouTube is also a social network where people like to connect with brands they like and businesses they trust.
This means that if you create engaging videos, your channel will become much more personal and trusted by your viewers since they can interact with you as an individual instead of just seeing some corporate logo or product being sold to them (like most TV commercials).
There are many ways to make sure that your video content on YouTube is engaging:
- Make sure there are relevant subtitles in different languages so non-English speakers around the world can understand what it’s about (will attract more views from these countries)
- Create funny clips about current events/trends, which will help expand viewership beyond just those searching for specific keywords related to whatever topic it covers (will attract more comments).
YouTube SEO Is Really Important
SEO is important for any website, so why not YouTube?
SEO is even more important for YouTube than it is for websites.
Why? Because people come to YouTube to find videos. And when they’re looking for something specific like “how to tie a bow tie” or “funny cat videos,” they don’t want to have to sift through hundreds of results on Google’s search engine just to find the exact video that matches their needs. They want you—the owner of said funny cat video—and only you!
And since Google owns YouTube, having optimised tags and titles will help your content rank better with their algorithm overall. In other words: optimising your tags and titles makes it easier for people who might be interested in watching your videos (and thus sharing them) to find them in search results.
Final Words
The truth is that YouTube SEO has a lot to do with your video’s success. The better you optimise your videos, the more likely they are to reach viewers, which means they’re more likely to be shared by their viewers—which in turn makes them go viral and get tons of views.
