YouTube SEO

When you think of a search engine, you probably think of Google first. But the second most-used search engine in the world is YouTube. That’s right! YouTube is not just a place to watch videos; it’s a powerful search engine where people look for information, entertainment, and products.

Just like with a website, you need to use SEO to rank higher with your videos on YouTube. YouTube SEO is the process of optimizing your videos so they are more likely to appear in YouTube’s search results. The first step of YouTube SEO starts a lot like Google SEO: with keyword research.

Start with YouTube keyword research

Before you create a video, you need to know what people are searching for. You can use a few different methods to find keywords for your videos.

YouTube Search Suggest

The YouTube search bar has a suggest feature that shows you the most popular keywords and phrases people are searching for. This is a great way to find relevant keyword phrases for your video. For example, if you type in “online marketing,” YouTube will suggest a lot of different phrases, like “online marketing for beginners” or “online marketing tips.”

Analyze Your Competitors

Another way to find keywords is to look at videos from your competitors. You can go to their channels and sort their videos by “most popular.” This will show you their most-viewed videos. You can then look at the titles and descriptions of those videos to find keywords that you can use for your own videos.

The title of your video

Once you have a list of keywords, you need to create a good title for your video. A good title is very important because a good title gets more clicks.

• Include your keywords: Your title must contain the keywords you want people to find your video for. You should also try to use your keyword phrase at the beginning of your video title.
• Use numbers and “how-to” phrases: Titles with numbers, like “Top 5 SEO tips,” or titles with “how-to” phrases, like “How to do keyword research,” tend to get more clicks.

Making the video

Now that you have a good idea of what keywords to use and what title to use, it’s time to make your video.

Video length

The length of your video is important. If you make a two-hour long video about a topic and the top five videos on that topic are only five minutes long, it’s very unlikely that your video will rank in the top five search results. You should look at the top-ranking videos for your keyword and try to make your video a similar length.

Engagement

Engagement is also a super important factor for YouTube. If your video has more likes and comments than another video, it is more likely to rank higher in the search results. You should ask your viewers to like, comment, share, and subscribe to your channel. This is a simple and effective way to get more engagement on your video.

Watch time

Watch time is important for YouTube to understand if your video is good. If your video’s watch time gets longer, YouTube will rank your video higher in search results. This is why it is important to keep your video interesting throughout the whole video.

Video description

The description of your video is very important. It tells search engines what your video is about. A good video description should be around 150 to 200 words long and should include your keywords. You should also use your keyword phrase in the first or second sentence of your description.

Video tags and hashtags

Video tags and hashtags also help a search engine understand what your video is about. You should use around 5 to 10 tags that describe your video. You should also use hashtags to get more traffic to your video.

Upload your video to YouTube

Once you have done all of your research and made a great video, it’s time to upload it to YouTube. After you have uploaded it, you can go back to that video after a few weeks to analyze it and see what you could have done better. A professional SEO platform like Clickrank can help you with this. The platform free keyword research tool provide a list of keywords that you can use to boost your rankings.