YouTube SEO: Steps to Rank Your YouTube Video
Everyone knows that people prefer to watch a video rather than read a lengthy blog article. 59 percent of CEOs prefer to watch a video rather than read text. That’s a sizable group. As a result, video SEO can provide a slew of advantages, including greater view time, increased brand exposure, and more purchases and leads and steps to rank your YouTube videos.
For website and video ranking, search engines such as YouTube and Google apply the same concepts. The goal is to provide the greatest possible experience for the user, so YouTube video search results have been merged with Google search results to make things easier.
In this blog, I’ll show you exactly how to use some simple SEO tactics to boost traffic to your YouTube videos and steps to rank your YouTube videos.
Choose your keywords carefully.
Every month, the SERPs become more competitive. New competitors, new products, and new services are all vying for first place. As a result, it’s critical to identify ways to diversify yourself and your service. Do the keyword research, and until you can compete with extremely competitive terms, choose keywords that will bring you volume but are less competitive.
You can utilize the same keyword research tools that you’d use for PPC or SEO, such as Google Keyword Planner.
- The Free Keyword Tool from WordStream
- Google Keyword Planner is a tool that helps you find keywords.
- Moz and Semrush are two popular search engines.
Use keywords in the title of your video.
The first step is to figure out what your audience is looking for. We know that informational, commercial, navigational, and transactional search intent is the most popular. As a result, matching the content of your video to the purpose of your consumer will be critical for your video to appear in search results.
Second, make sure you know WHY you’re doing a YouTube video and who your target audience is. Use the brand names in the video title and description, for example, if you want to highlight a product review. It may appear to be an easy step, but many YouTube channels overlook it, resulting in their videos being near the bottom of Google and YouTube search results.
In your video file, include the keyword.
Simple, however, YouTube may consider this one of the ranking variables when determining whether or not to show your video in search results. Your video will have a far better chance of being ranked—and of gaining more search volume—if the file name you’re uploading contains the desired keyword.
You may view the filename when uploading a new video. This is how YouTube determines whether or not a video is relevant, so make sure your file name is up to date before uploading, and this is one of the important steps to rank your YouTube videos.
Improve the description of your YouTube video.
Making ensuring you have a great, optimized video description is one of the most significant ranking elements for YouTube SEO. YouTube will review the video if you edit or update any YouTube video aspect, such as video descriptions, subtitles, closed captions, or thumbnails. This can be beneficial or detrimental, so be sure you get it correctly the first time!
YouTube suggests that you include your most significant phrases during the first couple of lines of your description and that it be no more than 200 words long. In general, make your description useful. Remove it if it does not assist a user.
YouTube search results can be boosted by using video hashtags.
Hashtags (#) are now widely used on social media to assist consumers to identify information that answers their queries across several platforms. In video descriptions, you can include related hashtags (#) to assist people to locate your video when they search for a specific hashtag.
Tags, in particular, aid search by making relevant trends more obvious. When you include a hashtag in the video description, it will appear above the title and get hyperlinked.
It’s also crucial to remember to include video hashtags in this section. If you include a hashtag in the video title, hashtags from the description will not appear next to it.
Make your thumbnail image unique.
Thumbnails can be beneficial or detrimental to your YouTube videos. When consumers look at YouTube search results, they are the first thing that catches their eye. A great thumbnail can result in increased watch time, which can have a significant impact on YouTube ranking. Make something that sticks out from the crowd and draws people’s attention so that your video gets noticed.
Subtitles and closed captions should be added.
The final suggestion for success on YouTube search is to use subtitles and closed captions.
Closed captions are for viewers who are unable to hear the audio, whereas video subtitles are for viewers who are unable to interpret the video language.
Subtitles and closed-caption files, like transcripts, include the text of what is stated in the video. The file will also include timing codes for when each bit of text should appear in the film, so it can correspond to speech or another visual element.
Choose a video genre.
Users can customize the search to see videos from selected categories if they are looking for a certain film with sophisticated options. It’s critical to contextualize your movie with categories before uploading it to increase your chances of being discovered by a user.
YouTube has a lot of different category possibilities, so you should be able to choose one that fits your YouTube videos. When you upload your video, you can choose from a variety of categories.
Finally, conduct research in the same manner that you would for any other piece of material. Concentrate on making evergreen videos that you can use to expand your content portfolio. The more useful material you provide to users, the more traffic your business and YouTube channel will receive!