Marketers optimizing YouTube videos for search engines should recognize that traditional SEO tactics don’t fully apply. Unlike standard web pages, search engines rely on text elements like video titles, descriptions, tags, and transcripts to understand and rank video content. Mastering these components is essential for effective YouTube SEO.
YouTube SEO best practices
Maximize the chances of your videos being discovered organically by following these tips to help optimize your videos for search.
Create content people want to watch
The most important criterion for your YouTube videos is that people want to watch them. This means they must provide value through information, entertainment, or education.
Don’t waste time with a long, boring intro that people will want to skip ahead—or worse—leave altogether. Instead, get straight to the point.
Mixing up the type of content you share can help provide variety and appeal to a broader audience. Depending on your brand, you may want to try different creators and types of content.
Incorporate the right components
The content of your YouTube video is vital, but so are the components you add to support it. Including the following pieces’ll increase your chances of appearing in search results, engaging viewers, and driving consumers to act.
Research your keywords
Do you know which words and phrases your targeted audience is searching for? Identifying these words and longtail phrases and how they relate to your video will help increase your video’s discoverability. Add these keywords to the title, description, script, thumbnail, and tags where they fit naturally to provide context to your viewers and the algorithm.
Add hashtags
Although you don’t want to bait your viewers by stuffing your video descriptions with trending hashtags, including those that are popular and relevant to your topic is helpful.
Include closed captions
Because the algorithm can’t read videos based on code and text alone, adding closed captions will provide a more inclusive experience for hearing-impaired viewers and improve your SEO on YouTube.
Add a transcript
Plenty of software programs are available to provide a transcript of your video. Doing so will provide additional options for hearing-impaired viewers and a swath of keyword-heavy text for the search engine.
Use compelling thumbnails
YouTube’s search algorithm looks at engagement factors such as likes, shares, and watch times. Thumbnails can help grab consumers’ attention and increase clicks, improving SEO rankings. Use captivating images and text related to the video topic.
Categorize your videos
While some content creators may set a channel default to save time when uploading consistently, setting categories (e.g., comedy, education, entertainment) for each video individually can help expand your reach and maximize visibility with the search engine.
Likewise, creating playlists—indexed separately in YouTube search results—can help your videos be found and increase your watch times by automatically playing the next video on the list.
Rename video files
Taking five extra seconds to rename your video files with relevant keywords can help search engines find it more easily.
Use an end screen
To increase your watch time and drive viewers to take action, add an end screen with a call to action. This could include up to four elements within the last 5 to 20 seconds of your video. Ideas might include an invitation to watch another video, visit your website, or subscribe to your channel, for example.
Add cards
Using YouTube’s cards functionality can drive user behavior (e.g., link to a branded landing page), play a supplementary video alongside the current video, or provide you with additional information about the type of content your viewers want to see (e.g., a one-question poll).
Cross-promote your videos
Cross-promoting your videos on your brand’s social channels can help increase their visibility and in turn, boost engagement and watch metrics. The more you can show to search engines that your videos are valuable, the better your ranking.
Beyond your social channels, you can embed your videos on your blog, share them on YouTube communities (or build your own), and collaborate with YouTubers or other non-competitive brands to expose your videos to new audiences.
Analyze what’s working
How will you know if your YouTube videos are doing well and, therefore, increasing your chances of showing up in search engine results? Start with some basic data, such as:
- Engagement: The views, likes, shares and comments on a video.
- Watch time: How long viewers spent watching the video (or the channel).
- Subscriber growth: Are your videos contributing to new subscribers?
- Like-to-dislike ratio: Which videos are mostly thumbs up vs. thumbs down?
- Audience retention: What percentage of video viewers watch? (Divide watch time by video length and multiply by 100 to get a percentage.)
By reviewing the analytics of your YouTube videos, you can gather insights to determine the types of content that attract the most viewers for the longest watch times, as well as which CTAs drive action.
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IZEA MANAGED SERVICES
Strategy and execution from the company that launched the industry.
IZEA MANAGED SERVICES
Strategy and execution from the company that launched the industry.
IZEA MANAGED SERVICES
Strategy and execution from the company that launched the industry.
IZEA MANAGED SERVICES
Strategy and execution from the company that launched the industry.
