Are you struggling to get more views and subscribers on your YouTube channel? If so, here is the complete, step-by-step tutorial on how to do YouTube SEO the right way. YouTube SEO is a little different from traditional SEO, and it may take some time to get used to and rank videos on YouTube. To make this process smooth and effortless for you, I have compiled the tactics to bring you the visibility you need on YouTube. Let’s get to it.
1. Conduct Proper Keyword Research
SEO on YouTube begins with the proper keyword research for your video. Here’s the complete guide on how to find the best keywords to rank your video.
List Your Keywords
Without overthinking it, create an extensive list of relevant keywords. Here are some tips for finding keywords for your YouTube videos:
Go to the YouTube search bar and enter a word or phrase, and YouTube will give you a keyword list similar to what you have written in the search bar. These recommended keywords are outstanding.
Why is this so? Because these are the terms people use to look for videos on YouTube. So you don’t have to wonder about how effective these keywords are. They are excellent, without a doubt, if YouTube recommends them to you.
Choose the Top-Notch Keywords
Now that you have got a list of keywords, it’s time to select the finest ones. You should specifically seek low-competition, high-volume keywords. This is especially crucial if your channel has a small number of subscribers. If you swing for the fences and target competitive keywords, your video will get buried in search results. Instead, you want to discover terms with less competition.
So, how do you do it? Enter your keyword into Google and also look at the “About results” section on YouTube: This is the total number of videos on YouTube concerning that topic.
The greater this value, the more competitive a keyword is. So you’d have to target keywords with a lower “About results” number. By doing this, you can find keywords with less intense competition, which will help you rank your videos.
2. Improve Retention
By looking at viewer retention on YouTube, you may deduce viewers’ satisfaction and delight. Likes, shares, comments and improved rankings are frequently the byproducts of excellent retention.
YouTube’s objectives are to:
- Provide the viewer with the right video that is relevant to what they are looking for.
- Increase the retention time by increasing engagement with the users and optimizing your retention rate.
The only thing you have to do for retention is to create content that captivates and hold the viewer’s interest. One can increase the retention time by doing the following:
- Planning properly before creating the video
- Hooking your audience in the beginning by relating, identifying their problem and providing the best proposal and solution to it
- Asking viewers to comment, like and share your video and subscribe to your channel
- Editing your video strategically according to the taste of your audience
3. Create an Optimized Title
It’s best practice to maximize your written content headlines, and the same is true for YouTube titles. You should include your focus keyword in your video title and, if possible, highlight a pain point. You want viewers to instantly know what benefits and knowledge they’ll receive from your video. Use clear and simple titles, and you will see improvement in the ranking of your videos.
4. Insert Closed Captions
Here’s an excellent YouTube SEO strategy that will give you a substantial advantage. You may already be aware that closed captions are available for YouTube videos. These are designed for hard-of-hearing people, but they also provide an unintended SEO benefit: Closed captions can be easily crawled by search engine spiders! As a result, adopting closed captions will give you a significant boost to your SEO. YouTube also provides automated captioning. It isn’t perfect, so you may want to alter or add your captions.
5. Add Optimized Tags
Tags are another way to provide context to your video, which may help you rank better in YouTube search and suggested videos. YouTube simplifies this by recommending that you choose keywords and phrases that are most descriptive of your video. Again, it should be relatively straightforward because you’ve already done your keyword research and optimized your title and description for these keywords.
6. Create an Eye-catching Thumbnail
Your video thumbnail isn’t a ranking element that YouTube directly utilizes, but it significantly influences your SEO. An excellent thumbnail leads to more clicks, which in turn results in improved SEO. Make sure your thumbnail is eye-catching and tells people what your video is about. Many people will watch videos based on the thumbnails alone, so don’t neglect this step.
7. Produce Professional Videos
This is an article on YouTube SEO. However, as with any SEO approach, there is a quality component to YouTube optimization. So, I’d like to give you a few tips on improving video quality, which will improve search performance.
Understandably, not everyone can afford a professional-level studio setup, but that doesn’t mean your video quality has to suffer. Most of us have smartphones with video recording capabilities, which is more than enough to get started. Seriously, all you’ll need is your iPhone or Android device! To improve the quality of your films, you could also consider investing in the following basics:
- A tripod for better stability
- A professional-looking backdrop
- A good lighting setup
- A good microphone for crystal-clear sound
8. Promote Your Content on Diversified Social Media Platforms
The concept of this point is simple, yet it may give you a considerable edge. The internet of today has turned almost entirely social. Because YouTube is a social media site, you should share your videos on as many social media platforms as possible to improve your YouTube exposure and SEO.
One of the first things you should do is share your video on Facebook. You might get a good amount of traffic from Facebook, mainly if you include an engaging description. In addition, Facebook native videos get more views than YouTube videos shared on the social media platform.
The same principle applies here – get the word out and get more people to see your video. Native Twitter videos are certainly engaging. But the amount of YouTube shares on Twitter is much more than the number of Twitter videos posted. Videos shared on Twitter will get a lot of attention and views.
From my perspective and perhaps yours, too, people on LinkedIn seem to be more active than on other social media networks. If you design and create video content that is related to business, LinkedIn is the place to be. Using video on LinkedIn to establish and develop your company or personal page is highly effective.
9. Use Tools Specific to YouTube
There are several tools that can do wonders for you on YouTube. These tools conduct online research and show you the keywords to be targeted, video thumbnails to be used and other YouTube-SEO-specific insights that can help rank your video.
10. Run a Final SEO Check
Why go through all the trouble of designing and creating a video if you’re not going to optimize it?
A few things to consider while uploading your video is to ensure that it is within the standards of YouTube and is optimized well. Here’s how:
- Give your video a title. Naturally, include your target keyword in the title. While it isn’t guaranteed to improve your ranking, it may improve your click-through rate (CTR).
- Include a description. Make a compelling video summary. Keep it short, crisp and sweet but make sure it covers all of the essential aspects of the film. The more closely these 100 characters match the video content, the more viewers will know what to expect – and be less inclined to abandon the video as a result.
Here are some more helpful hints:
- Include essential keywords as early as possible and keep them short.
- A minimum of 250 words and a maximum of 1000 words is required.
- People are here to watch, not read; therefore, the quicker, the better.
- Use language and keywords that your target audience is familiar with.
Conclusion
YouTube isn’t just for celebrities and influencers. You, too, can be successful in your YouTube endeavors. Surprisingly, it isn’t as complicated as it appears. Views will increase if you work hard to create content that truly benefits others. You can then send that traffic to your website or blog or invite people to subscribe to your mailing list for more information.
It’s surprisingly easy to generate many views using the YouTube SEO methods I’ve shared with you. It doesn’t take a significant investment to start making great videos. You only need your phone and a free video editor to make a viral video. What are you waiting for?