YouTube can be a great way to market a business, make yourself public, or even to gain extra income. These days YouTube is used as a search engine and millions of people are searching for videos everyday. Whether the video is a tutorial or purely for entertainment purposes, people are making searches for it and the video creators are making money. However, what can make or break a YouTube video is how many views the video is getting and how popular it is. YouTube SEO is extremely important in driving views towards you video, so this guide is going to show you how to get your videos to rank on both YouTube and Google.
1. Finding “Video Keywords”
The YouTube search process begins with keyword research. The first thing you will want to do, is get YouTube results on the first Google page. Google uses video keywords and actually dedicates a large portion of the first page of a search to YouTube videos. There are certain phrases and keywords that show up often such as, ‘how to’, reviews, funny videos, tutorials, and anything fitness related. These keywords are important because using them in your video title can help viewers find your videos easily in a search. By using the keywords that show up on Google, you’ll be able to get traffic from Google searches as well.
The best way to find keywords that will work for your videos, is to search keywords in your niche. After finding video keywords, you’ll want to figure out if there’s a lot of search volume for it. Aim for finding a keyword that gets at least 300 searches per month on Google. 300 searches per month means that it’s a high traffic keyword and that a lot of people search it.
2. Create Your Video
The better your video is, the more successful it’s going to be. If you really want it done right, you can always hire a professional videographer or editor to help you out. For tight budgets, you can use a Powerpoint presentation and just do a voice over with it. Quality is key when it comes to drawing viewers to your videos and to your channel. Even if you have great SEO, if the video is bad, you’re not going to rank. People will have no reason to subscribe to your channel if they don’t like what they see in your videos. YouTube judges videos by how many people are viewing and commenting on it.
YouTube uses video retention to determine how good your video is. Video retention is the percentage of the video that people watch. Ideally, you want people watching the entire video and not just watching certain parts. YouTube also uses comments. If people are commenting, then they most likely enjoyed the video. Subscribes after watching is also really important. If people are subscribing to your channel right after watching your video then that’s a good indication that you made a great video. Subscriptions will keep your views up and will help your SEO. Shares are how many people are using social media to share your video. The number of people who favorite your video or add it to the “watch later” list can also show how many people are enjoying what you created. And of course, you always want to be get thumbs up on your videos. You can see how well your videos are doing by looking at the user data in YouTube Analytics.
Longer videos tend to rank better so, make sure your video is at least 5 minutes long. Don’t worry about videos being too long, as long as it is getting all the information across.
3. Upload Your Video With SEO in Mind
When you’ve completed your video, make sure you’ve used the keyword in the video’s filename.
Video titles should be at least 5 words long so that you can include the whole keyword. Videos tend to do a little better if the keyword is at the beginning of the video title.
The video description is very important when it comes to boosting the SEO. YouTube and Google use the description as a way to determine your content. When creating your description, put your link at the top of the video. This will help drive traffic to your site. Make the description at least 250 words. Include your keyword within the first 25 words. Include your keyword 3 to 4 times throughout your description. An SEO-optimized description will let Google and YouTube know what the video is about.
Tags can help you rank with your target keyword, as well as get your video to show up more on the sidebar of YouTube.
4. Get People to Watch Your Video
The more views you get, the higher your ranking will be. YouTube can catch on to fake views so you need to have your videos being watched by real people.
Mention your video on Q&A sites to get high retention. Add your link to your video or embed it into your answer.
Add your video link to your email signature to get more views.
Place your video link in blog posts. If you are a blogger, be sure to include your link somewhere in your post. This can get you views instantly.
Conclusion
Taking these tips into consideration can boost your SEO and make your YouTube channel very successful. YouTube has gained so much popularity in the past few years, that it’s becoming a lot more than just a site to keep people entertained. With all the people and businesses uploading videos so often, it’s beneficial to know what can help you to make your videos stand out and get you a high ranking in searches.
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