6 Tips For Your YouTube SEO Strategy/Campaign

If you have been keenly observing Google search results of late, you may have noticed that YouTube videos are increasingly being featured on the first page. Why is this? Well, Google has realized that more and more search engine users are interested in video results as opposed to traditional results like blogs and websites. Developing a cohesive YouTube SEO strategy is key to making sure your videos are seen in search results.

If you post videos on YouTube, you are probably wondering how you can get your videos to rank on the first page of Google search results, and/or within YouTube’s own internal search engine. The social media team at EverConvert is here to help you not only create engaging video content for your site but also make sure that it is fully optimized so your videos can be seen by as many people as possible. We discuss some of the techniques we use below.

Optimizing Videos to Maximize Search Engine Visibility

Almost everyone who has access to the internet visits YouTube every once in a while. In fact, YouTube is one of the most visited websites in the world. More than 6 billion hours of video are streamed on the site every month. This is nothing short of incredible! YouTube is an excellent platform to gain followers and reach out to your preferred target audience with content they love and enjoy. Some of the most successful personalities on YouTube take home huge ad-revenue checks each month thanks to their massive following and popularity.

As with Google Search, making it on YouTube requires a great deal of effort and time. Not everyone’s video is lucky enough to be ranked at the top of search results. That’s why some videos only manage to garner a few hundred views while others get millions of views. Mind you, there may be very few differences in terms of quality of content between the videos that rank high and those that rank low on search results.

As you may know, YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine on the web – after Google of course. For your videos to rank high on YouTube and Google search results, there are a number of techniques you must employ. These techniques are what make up your YouTube SEO strategy/campaign. Below are some of the YouTube SEO techniques that you can employ to optimize your YouTube videos and channel for increased search engine visibility.

1. Use Long and Detailed Descriptions For Your Videos

First and foremost, always write long and detailed descriptions for all of your YouTube videos. This is a requirement that you must meet if you want your videos to feature prominently on both YouTube and Google’s search results. The longer and more detailed your descriptions are, the better. Why is this? Well, Google loves content. And not just any content – content full of contextual keywords.

Simply put, you must feed the search engine monster with content made up of a variety of closely-related contextual keywords in order for you to increase your video’s search visibility. Don’t just use one long-tail keyword in your video description and leave it at that. Look for more keywords that may be related to your video. Hitting multiple keywords allows YouTube and Google to better understand what your content is about so that they can provide it as a relevant result in a search query.  Also, you can add social media hashtags to your video descriptions to spice things up.

2. Carefully Research and Select the Right Keywords For Your Videos

This tip should have probably preceded the first tip but it makes more sense to place it here now that you know the importance of keywords. All types of search engines rely on keywords to generate results. Keywords are therefore the dominant factor or criteria that affects search results. It is possible for your video to rank at the top of search results for one keyword and at the same time rank at the bottom of search results for another version of the same keyword. This is because some keywords are more competitive than others. It goes without saying that you should look for less competitive keywords to associate your videos with, as it increases the likelihood that your content will be able to rank quickly.

So, before deciding which keywords to associate your video with, do some research and find out how competitive those keywords are on search results. Doing this will save you a lot of headaches and disappointments.

3. Share and Embed Videos Wherever Possible

Don’t just upload your video to your YouTube channel and leave it at that. Share your videos on social media sites, blogs and other platforms on the web. Sharing and embedding your videos in as many places as possible increases their chances of featuring on search results. You can make use of the sharing and embedding buttons tools offered by YouTube to disseminate your videos on the web. The more social media sites, chat rooms, forums, and websites that link to your videos, the more likely they are to be found on search results or be shared by someone else. This is a basic SEO strategy, not only for YouTube videos but your website’s content in general.

4. Themed Playlists

If you are a seasoned YouTube content creator, you probably know the importance of categorizing your videos into themed playlists. Themed playlists make it easier for viewers to peruse through your content. It simply helps to keep things organized on your channel.

Having themed playlists increases views, user engagement, channel time, and other important ranking criteria. Playlists also feature YouTube’s internal search results which are good if you want to gain an added advantage.

5. Subscribers

The number of subscribers you have has been observed to have an effect on how high your videos rank on YouTube and Google’s search results. Channels with millions of subscribers often have their newly-posted videos propelled to the top of search results just because of their existing ‘clout’. YouTube assumes that its users will want to watch videos made by seasoned content creators who already have a huge following regardless of how ‘good’ their videos are.

6. Video Length

It’s worth noting that more and more people prefer watching videos on their mobile devices. This fact is important as it affects how much time, on average, people are spending watching a single video on YouTube.

Most videos on YouTube are 10 minutes long and the average length of a page 1 result is almost 15 minutes. This is an ideal length for a video as it is not too short nor too long. It’s not wise to make your video too short or too long as this can reduce your post’s user engagement and visibility. Reduced user engagement directly translates to a lower ranking on search results, making short content (less than 3 minutes) a vicious cycle that has a negative impact on your individual videos and channel as a whole.

Conclusion

To sum it all up, it’s important to be thorough when posting all your videos on YouTube. Make sure you fill in all the necessary details required to publicize your video on both YouTube and other search engines. If YouTube provides a field for you to input data when uploading a video, you should populate that field with the most helpful information possible (they didn’t provide the field for no reason, right?). Also, be mindful of the production and quality of videos you upload. It is much better to have one long (10-15 minutes minimum), high-quality video than have a bunch of mediocre, short videos.

Regardless of whether your business already has a YouTube channel or is starting fresh, our digital marketing experts at EverConvert are ready to help you see the full benefits of video content. We have a dedicated social media team that specializes in the production and promotion of visual content, helping you show up in search results and develop brand recognition, which ultimately leads to traffic coming to your digital channels. Contact our team today to receive a free SEO analysis and see the benefits of a team who understands that:

Sales Cures All!

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