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It’s discouraging when you create videos and nobody watches them.
No one can watch a video they don’t find, so let’s begin there. How do you increase the odds that someone will find your video at all?YouTube, as you know, is the king of the video platforms – owned by Google, it is the largest video search engine in the world and the second-largest search engine, period.
The strategies below are focused on YouTube, but they will also be helpful no matter where you put your videos. (DailyMotion, Rumble, or our own StreamMachine.tv.)
YouTube SEO is the process of optimizing your videos, playlists, and channel to rank high in YouTube’s organic search results for a given search query.
What is YouTube looking for when it comes to high rankings?
Youtube explains its discovery and search engine algorithm in just two sentences.
YouTube says, “Videos are ranked based on a variety of factors including how well the title, description, and video content match the viewer’s query. Beyond that, we look at which videos have driven the most engagement for a query, and make sure it’s easy for viewers to find those.”
So in essence you need to focus on two things:
Optimizing the video itself
and
Getting people to watch it
Optimize the video itself by adding SEO-related information
Making sure that video titles, descriptions, and content match the keywords you want to rank for, is extremely important.
(Note: Just as with other types of content, keyword research is important. Pick a keywords that have high search volume in both YouTube and Google – various tools offer this type of research. Ahrefs is one. You can also use TubeBuddy.)
The title of your video is the most important on-page SEO factor when it comes to ranking in YouTube search results. It’s also the first thing that shows up in search results, so it’s critical that you optimize it. You do need to keep it short – 60 characters, maybe 8 or 9 words – with the most important information at the beginning.
Make sure your title and description both include the words you want to rank for. Search YouTube for the keywords you have in mind and see what videos show up. If they’re a good match, look to see how recent they are – how they word things, what is in the video description, and what tags are used.
The beginning of the description – what viewers see before the Show more link – is the most important. Adding keywords is smart but your true goal is to talk to HUMANS at this point, to persuade them to watch.
Add a few links to the description too – to your website, social media, Google Business Profile – as well.
It’s also a smart idea to add transcripts to your video. It not only helps Google read the full message of the video, it helps people understand it too. (Besides, not everyone watches videos with the sound turned on.)
Get people to watch your video and engage with it
You also want people watching your videos – the longer they watch (and stay on YouTube), the better. The percentage of your video that people watch is known as Audience Retention. YouTube also looks at the total amount of accumulated minutes people spend watching your video, appropriate labeled Watch Time.
To put it another way, the longer you can keep people watching your videos because they have great content, the more likely it is that YouTube will show those videos again to new searchers.
YIVE has a great solution to help you here – it’s called Stacker Views. Here’s a video about it from YIVE Founder Marcus Cudd:
Thumbnails are usually the first thing viewers after they search for video content, and having custom thumbnails really helps. Be sure that your thumbnail is vibrant, easy to read and clearly indicates the topic of your video.
Add hashtags in the end of your video description too – YouTube only displays the first three, but there’s no problem adding 10 or so.
And don’t forget – encourage people to watch your next video. Subscribe to your channel. Visit your website. Use CTAs (Calls to Action) on your videos as well as your other marketing materials!For more information:
YIVE Video, our video creation platform
YouTube’s video creator tips:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/11616410YouTube SEO Study from Semrush:
https://www.semrush.com/blog/youtube-seo-study/Case Studies Expert | Google News Expert | Domain Expert | I Make Websites Work Harder
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