YouTube SEO: How to Optimize Videos for YouTube Search

Introduction

With video consumption in high demand, getting your videos to the top on YouTube is difficult. Creating quality content is undoubtedly important, but other factors determine your video rankings. The YouTube algorithm is a challenge, so marketers must adopt strategies to optimize videos to improve their position. 

This article will explore the strategies and tools that help you improve your YouTube SEO. These will not only help you provide better results but also help you get a roadmap on how to get started with YouTube SEO.

So, let’s begin.

What is YouTube SEO, and How Does it Work

YouTube SEO is the practice of optimizing your YouTube videos and channel to increase its ranking via YouTube. Search engines like YouTube have an intricate algorithm determining how your videos rank on the platforms. This helps you get more views, subscribers, and engagement with your videos. You can optimize your videos for YouTube as well as other search engines like Google, Bing, etc. 

SEO for YouTube channels involves optimizing your videos with relevant keywords, including optimizing titles, descriptions, and meta tags, which helps you get higher engagement. Since Google owns YouTube, Google will automatically index your videos when you upload them to YouTube. However, you must implement the best YouTube SEO optimization practices to index your videos high on YouTube. 

Here are some astonishing stats that tell about the importance of focusing on YouTube SEO:

1. More than 90% of top-ranked YouTube videos contain at least a part of the keyword.
2. Adding a thumbnail can increase the views on your videos by 2x.
3. The video’s first 10-15 seconds are crucial for its success.
4. You must have understood by now the difference YouTube SEO can make in your videos’ metrics. So, let’s move forward and look at the checklist you must follow when uploading content on YouTube.

Youtube SEO Checklist

• Conduct Keyword Research
• Choose a Target Audience
• Create a Good Video Title
• Create Custom Thumbnails
• Edit your Filename to Improve YouTube SEO
• Add Tags to the video
• Write smart descriptions 
• Steal keyword ideas to improve your YouTube SEO
• Create Transcriptions and Captions for the Videos
• Promote Your Videos on Different Platforms
• Create a Playlist
• Take Advantage of End Screens and YouTube Cards
• Embed Your YouTube Video for Better SEO
• Experiment with Video Length

Youtube Ranking Strategy

To be successful on YouTube, you need a clear-cut YouTube SEO optimization strategy that encompasses everything from keyword research to analytics. Here, we have listed down some YouTube SEO tips to rank high on YouTube and get better results:

1. Conduct Keyword Research

Keyword research is a must for YouTube and Google. Conducting robust keyword research will help you identify the video subject and help you associate it with users’ searches. When you type the main keyword in the search bar, YouTube automatically suggests long-form keywords as Google. Incorporating these keywords will help you with YouTube channel optimization and gather the right audiences. 

2. Choose a Target Audience

With YouTube optimization and keyword research, don’t forget about choosing the right audience that resonates with your niche. Try to create a persona by researching from your competitors or from the past date. Ask yourself how much you know about your target audience, why they spend time on YouTube, why they will see your video, etc. 

3. Create a Good Video Title 

One of the fields where your keyword must appear is in the video title. Doing YouTube title SEO is a must because they are your viewers’ first point of contact and help your video index and rank. For the video to rank highly, your title must be close to the user’s search terms. Remember to include the exact keyword or a broad match keyword to get a higher visibility. 

4. Create Custom Thumbnails

Your YouTube thumbnail may not be a ranking factor, but it still greatly impacts your SEO for YouTube channel. An eye-catching thumbnail leads to more clicks, thus improving your SEO rankings. Your thumbnail is the first thing a user sees before clicking, so try to make it as appealing as possible. A good thumbnail can enhance your channel traffic and watch times, leading to good ranking across YouTube and other search engines.  

5. Edit your Filename to Improve YouTube SEO

Don’t upload videos full of codes that are incomprehensible to YouTube. Use a file name with your video keyword, as it indirectly impacts your SEO for YouTube channel. For example, if your file name is 20170613.mp4, then rename it with your focus keyword. 

6. Add Tags to the Video

Tagging is one of YouTube’s best ranking features for YouTube video SEO optimization. It suggests using tags to let viewers know what your video is about. Tags also help YouTube’s algorithm understand the content and context of your video. This way, YouTube discovers how to associate your video with similar videos, which will further help you rank better. 

7. Write Smart Descriptions 

Writing smart descriptions is important so your audience gets all the relevant information about the video in the most descriptive way. The title needs to be concise, and the description should be longer. Try to include all the relevant keywords in the description to increase the chances of ranking your video. You can even include the links and call to action in the description, as it has a limit of 5000 characters. You can even include time stamps and hashtags in the description to improve the quality of your video and description. 

8. Steal Keyword Ideas to Improve Your YouTube SEO

YouTube SEO is not a one-day task, so updating it frequently by analyzing your competitors is important. You might find that similar channels use certain keywords to improve SEO on YouTube. Try using those keywords in your video and tracking the analytics. Use this ranking strategy to do SEO for YouTube channel, and your videos will likely get more shares. 

9. Create Transcriptions and Captions for the Videos

Transcriptions transform videos into text. These are important from the ranking perspective, as YouTube’s algorithm only understands text and codes. So, when you transcript your videos and add captions, you take a big step towards ranking. Turn on the captions by adding transcriptions. You can do it manually or with the help of various tools available in the market, like YouTube transcript.  

10. Promote Your Videos on Different Platforms

The YouTube SEO best practices also include cross-prompting your videos on different platforms. This helps bring your audience to your YouTube channel, maybe for the first time. Share your video link on social media marketing platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to get more visibility and reach. You can even advertise your videos by email marketing and recommending others share your videos. 

11. Create a Playlist

Your viewers aren’t the only ones using the power of playlists; you can use them, too. Creating a keyword-rich playlist can strengthen your YouTube SEO and get more traffic. When users add your playlist to their library and binge-watch your playlist, your views and retention of the videos increase. Optimize your playlists with strategic keyword use in the titles, descriptions, and throughout your videos. The easier you make your viewers binge-watch your content, the better it is for your YouTube SEO.  

12. Take Advantage of End Screens and YouTube Cards

Verbal CTAs are okay, but end screens are a direct call to action that motivates viewers to watch another video. YouTube cards are preformatted visual notifications that you can see in the upper-right corner of the video. These cards are engaging enough to encourage viewers to explore your channel’s other videos, links, and playlists. These features help boost your views, enhance YouTube engagement, and increase your subscribers and search rankings.   

13. Embed Your YouTube Video for Better SEO

Embedding your videos helps expose them to more people and enhances user engagement. Various aggregators are available in the market that help with the embedding process. Tagembed is one of them. Using this platform, you can easily embed YouTube videos, shorts or even channels without any coding headaches. Additionally, Tagembed has various features and themes that you can match with your website aesthetics.

14. Experiment with Video Length

What is the perfect length of a YouTube video? Well, there is nothing as such. According to some research, the top 10 most popular videos are 4 minutes and 20 seconds long. However, it’s not important in your case. You should focus on experimenting with different video lengths and content types to understand what works for you. 

Best YouTube SEO Tools

With YouTube video content in demand, various YouTube SEO optimization tools are emerging. Take a look at this list and choose the best one that suits your brand:

A. TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy is one of the most popular tools available to improve your YouTube SEO. With this browser extension, you can access a range of  YouTube optimization and AI tools designed to help you create, manage, and grow your YouTube channel. It gathers all your channel’s statistics on its platform and adds a keyword tool, a title planner for YouTube videos, a list of tags for your video content, the best times to publish, and more on YouTube itself. It is a tool backed by YouTube and is perfect for spying on your competitors, as you can get all their statistics easily. 

B. Tagembed

If you are looking for embedding options, Tagembed is the perfect solution. It is a free social media aggregator that allows you to curate and embed a YouTube video feed on your website. You can create a feed from various YouTube feed types, such as channel URLs, playlists, keywords, etc. It comes with advanced AI moderation features to filter out the best content for your visitors. Having a YouTube widget also helps in enhancing the overall performance of your website as it encourages visitors to spend more time. With Tagembed, you can also redirect your website visitors to your YouTube channel.

C. VidIQ

Similar to TubeBuddy, VidIQ is a tool embedded within YouTube that is designed to help YouTube creators optimize and maintain their channels. VidlQ has a robust YouTube SEO feature set that assists with creating SEO-friendly titles, descriptions, and tags. It also has a video optimization checklist to check video length, title, description, etc., for further improvement. It also has social interaction indicators, such as green for good, yellow for average, and red for bad.

D. YTCockpit

YTCockpit is a YouTube SEO tool that allows you to find keywords with a respectable search volume. It is a tool specifically designed for YouTube keyword research and collects data from YouTube Suggest and Google AdWords. This tool also tells you how easy and difficult it is to rank for the keywords depending on its competition. 

E. MorningFa.me

MoringFa.me is a tool focused on growing your YouTube channel. It guides you through the process of optimizing your videos. This tool will tell you which videos contribute to your channel’s growth and which do not so that you can improve your strategy. 

F. Keywordtool.io

Keywordtool.io is a YouTube SEO optimization tool for keyword research that allows you to search for keywords, specifically for YouTube. It also has a question section that helps you understand what questions users search for related to your keyword. This tool also has a dedicated section for YouTube hashtags that helps you find specific tags related to your keyword. 

Conclusion

No matter what YouTube SEO optimization tip or tool you start with, YouTube growth starts with quality content. Good content on the platform attracts more views, engagement, and shares. But optimizing the video is equally important, as it helps users find your video.

We hope this article has helped you learn about the important strategies and tools related to YouTube SEO. From conducting keyword research to embedding, each YouTube SEO strategy has a purpose: to add value to your YouTube growth and improve the user’s experience. So kickstart your YouTube SEO journey with these SEO tips for YouTube videos and take your YouTube channel to greater heights.