Before jumping into optimization, it’s important to remember that YouTube works very similarly to your other content—it has to be quality, targeted content that will make people want to link back. You should stay consistent and put a lot of thought into what types of videos you’re going to create. This includes doing audience research and even creating personas so you know you’re putting out videos that will earn clicks.
It also helps to know what YouTube looks for when it comes to ranking videos. All of the optimization techniques that will be discussed in the next section will help you rank, but there are certain things YouTube looks for in a video that you should keep in mind:
- The number of times a video has been viewed.
- The amount of time someone spends watching the video.
- The number of times a video appears in a user’s playlist.
- The number of positive ratings and user comments.
- The number of subscribers the video’s creator has.
- How many times the video is added as a favorite or to a playlist.
- How many times the video was embedded on the web.
As you can see, some of the things YouTube looks for are factors that will only come about if you have a great video. SEO is incredibly important and is a way to help bring you traffic and help you earn the things on this list, but YouTube pays attention to what happens when people get there. Moral of the story: Your video has to deliver.
Top 6 Ways to Improve Your YouTube Rankings
Now onto the actual optimization, below are six different ways you can help your video rank on YouTube:
1. Keywords
Being able to find video keywords will help you figure out what you want your video to be about as well as help you know how to optimize that video. In other words, this is usually a definite first step. The YouTube Keyword Tool is an excellent place to try out a few different keywords in your industry and see where there isn’t much competition but there is a need for a video. Below is an example of what the keyword tool looks like:
Being able to find video keywords will help you figure out what you want your video to be about as well as help you know how to optimize that video. In other words, this is usually a definite first step. The YouTube Keyword Tool is an excellent place to try out a few different keywords in your industry and see where there isn’t much competition but there is a need for a video. Below is an example of what the keyword tool looks like:
Are you looking for YouTube Optimization help?
As a side note, you can also focus on video keywords and use video rich snippets to help your videos rank on a Google SERP. Sometimes videos will outrank other results just because they are videos, so it’s a good idea to take some of these terms and plug them into Google as well as YouTube to see what the competition is like.
2. Title
The title of your video should be short and grab a reader’s attention. You have 120 characters to get across what the video is about and make people want to click. From an SEO standpoint, you also want to add in a one or two of your keywords in the title, but of course without keyword stuffing. It has to appear natural.
It also helps to put your keyword phrase at the beginning of your title if you can help it. For example, if you’re trying to rank for “riding a bike,” then you would want your title say something like “Riding a Bike: Learn How in 10 Easy Steps” as opposed to “10 Easy Steps to Learning to Ride a Bike.”
3. Description
When the YouTube bots crawl your webpage with your video, you have to remember that they can’t actually watch the video and listen to the words. This is why your description is so important. You want to make sure your keywords are included (but again, not stuffed) as well as a few other, similar words to help with semantic search. This not only helps YouTube classify your vide correctly, but gives viewers more information.
It’s also a good idea to put your link at the top of your video because descriptions do get cut off (only about the first 55-70 characters, or approximately 22 words, are usually shown). Many companies also choose to add in a transcript of the entire video if it’s not too long.
4. Tags
Tags simply allow you to put in a few keywords that will help YouTube learn about your video. You can usually have as many tags as you’d like, so try to be extra specific and add in your location, categories, the names of people in the video, etc. I usually say that 10 tags is a good rule of thumb.
5. Links
Building links back to your YouTube video works the same way it works with traditional link building. You want to have a good link profile with lots of authoritative pages linking to your video. This means links that you find on the web as well—not just backlinks found on YouTube. In other words, if someone links back to your video on their blog, that links still improves your YouTube video ranking. Remember, Google owns YouTube after all!
It’s tough to say if the links you build on social media have anything to do with your rankings, but they will promote your video, which will hopefully help you build some of those links. After all, the more people who know about your video, the more people who will reference it when writing something on the web.
6. Thumbnail Optimization
Your CTR (click through rate) will improve if you have a quality thumbnail image, so I suggest creating a custom thumbnail for each of your videos. A custom thumbnail gives you control over what people see before they decide to click. Your thumbnail should have a resolution of 1280x720, .JPG, .GIF, .BMP, or .PNG form, and use 16:9 aspect ratio.
Do you have any tips for helping your YouTube videos rank? Anything you’ve done in the past that didn’t seem to work? Let us know your story and your thoughts in the comments below.
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8 Tricks to Ranking Higher on YouTube
Below are some different tips to keep in mind that will help your video rank higher on YouTube:
1. Choose a Title/Topic.
If you’re trying to reach the masses, a generic video subject could work just fine. But if you do that, you’re also going to be going up against a whole lot more competition, meaning it would be just that much more challenging to rank higher on YouTube or search engines.
But narrowing your focus and choosing a Title/Topic can mean you reach your target audience quicker and more effectively, in large part because you’re also narrowing the pool of competition. If you have multiple aspects to a certain topic, you can always make more videos or web pages to send people to. Don’t try to cram everything into one video; that will only generalize your overall topic, keywords and title.
2. Keywords.
Just as in anything else when it comes to ranks, keywords are an integral part of the process. If you want to reach your audience, find keywords in your niche that people may be searching for. Do some research and determine which words are the best triggers for your target audience and craft your video title around that. For example, if you’re doing a tutorial video, you can always start with “How to…” which lets people know immediately that it’s a teaching video and then follow with your description of how to do something related to your industry.
It’s also a good idea to put your keyword at the beginning of your video title. If your video is on helping companies boost SEO, for example, you can title the video something like “SEO tips and tricks: Helping your company thrive.”
3. Meta tags.
Once you’ve chosen your niche, you want to find the best words that reach your target audience. Meta tags are a great place to start, using keywords that are relevant to the content of your video. The more relevant tags you get, the better chance of reaching your audience.
Before you upload your video, do a quick search of similar topics that reach your target audience. Check out the top-ranked videos and copy some of their keywords (if applicable). If their video is ranked high, their keywords are obviously working, so you can jump on the bandwagon and follow in their wake.
4. Description matters.
If you take the time to shoot, edit and upload a video and fill out all the other areas, you might as well come up with an effective description. So often people get lazy with their description thinking it doesn’t matter. However, when a person searches a video, the description shows up, right up there with the title of the video. Your descriptions should be relevant, use keywords and be geared toward your target audience. Also keep in mind that search engine bots cannot view your video, so the description is one of the few factors they have to use when it comes time to determine what exactly your video covers.
Also, be sure to include a URL back to your website in the description in case people want to navigate to your website.
5. Playlists.
This is one of the most often overlooked aspects of trying to rank videos higher. YouTube’s playlist feature allows viewers to include videos they like or find useful into their own playlist. This would help give your video a boost in rankings in much the same way link building works for articles or web pages. The more playlists your video is included in, the more popular it would appear to search engines and YouTube. There’s not much more you can do to boost this area besides encouraging viewers to add your video to their playlists, but that can go a long way.
6. Build a following.
That’s easier said than done, and it’s also pretty obvious. But the more established your channel is and the more followers you have on your YouTube channel, the higher your videos will rank. That’s hard to do, especially for newer companies or channels, but commit to the long-term focus. Uploading quality content and uploading videos regularly will help boost your channel.
You can also utilize the comments section to your advantage. The first people to comment on a video may be your core audience, and you can help build loyalty by responding immediately. Plus, responding to comments yourself increases the total number of comments on a video, helping give off the appearance of popularity, which will give your video a boost in the rankings. It also lets your audience know you are truly reading what they say and care about how they feel. Don’t simply go on and comment a bunch of times on your own video, unprompted, obviously, because that will only make your company come off as disingenuous. But responding to valid comments in a timely fashion is an easy tool you have at your disposal to help increase your video’s popularity.
You can also ask people to subscribe to your YouTube channel, ensuring more eyes looking at your content when you upload. You can use annotations in your video to ask people to subscribe to your channel, or use social media to spread the word.
7. Work to increase your viewership.
This may be the most obvious way to increase your ranking, as more views equals more popularity for your video, which in turn leads to a better ranking. But so often, companies don’t take the steps to increase their own YouTube video views. Once you upload content, blast it out via your social media channels and embed on web pages. Consider a separate page just for wrapping text around one particular video. Give people other avenues to view your content on more than just a YouTube page. Including your YouTube video on multiple pages on your own website is a big help, but also consider utilizing the video in blogs or press releases.
Remember, analytics are your friend. You can monitor the analytics on your YouTube videos and try to ascertain what works best and what content draws the most eyes. If a piece of content you upload picks up steam and you’re not sure why, use analytics to help figure out where the views are coming from and conduct some research to see what topics are the most popular. That knowledge will come in handy in the future as you create more content.
Don’t underestimate the importance of time watched, as well. No matter what the topic, the higher quality the video is, the longer people will be watching it and the better off your video will be in all rankings.
8. Encourage social signals.
The more places your video is embedded, the higher it ranks. Again, this works much like link building. So while you can take steps to embed the video on multiple web pages you control, your content will also get a boost if other people are embedding your video on their own sites and blogs. Ask your followers and audience to share the video.
The more your video is Tweeted or shared on Facebook or other social media, the more social signals it sends out, boosting the video’s popularity, which in turn leads to a higher ranking. Encourage viewers to share the video.
In your experience with YouTube, what tricks have you found to increase the rank of videos? Let us know and share your story in the comments section below.
Thanks :- Ganesh Singh Bista
Thanks :- Ganesh Singh Bista
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