Whether you are an individual online creator or a business with a YouTube channel running paid ads, YouTube SEO will work wonders.
YouTube is the second most popular social media platform, with 2.49 billion monthly logged-in users. That’s also a billion-dollar opportunity to make YouTube the place to build brand awareness, connect with users, and grow sales.
More than 114 million channels are active on YouTube, and over 500 hours of content are uploaded every minute. With all-time high consumption and competition on this platform, getting your videos to the top of the search results might sound difficult.
Luckily, it’s easy (if you do it right).
In this post, we’ll cover what YouTube SEO is and how it works, as well as provide tips to boost your visibility on the platform (regardless of your channel’s size). Read on!
Understanding YouTube SEO: What It Is & How It Works
YouTube SEO is ‘almost’ identical to how you do SEO on Google. It is the process of optimizing your videos and channel to gain visibility.
The goal is to get ranked and be seen. More views equals more subscribers, which drives website traffic and makes sales (or your ultimate goal).
If you’re already familiar with Google SEO, you’ll see that the basics are the same as YouTube SEO. You will always go through:
- Doing keyword research to find popular search queries (or keywords) that people use to find information.
- Optimizing your webpage (in this case, your YouTube channel) for those keywords to gain more visibility.
We’ll touch on this more later under YouTube SEO tips. In the meantime, we must first understand that ranking videos on YouTube will highly depend on the YouTube algorithm and its ranking factors.
YouTube Algorithm & Ranking Factors: How YouTube Ranks Videos?
Like any other search engine, YouTube wants only one thing: to show searchers the most helpful content.
For example, if you search “how to rank on YouTube,” YouTube won’t show you videos about ranking on TikTok or Instagram. Instead, it will serve you relevant content that answers your query.
Other than relevance, YouTube also considers these other factors when ranking videos:
- Watch time (how long viewers stay on your video): A long watch time = valuable content; a short watch time = skippable content.
- Engagement (likes, comments, and shares): Engagement signals also influence the recommendation system to feature your video in the recommended results.
- Quality: To evaluate quality, the algorithm looks at the channel’s authority and determines trustworthiness on a given topic.
| Helpful Article: Use techniques from “Boost Your Sales by Using Marketing Psychology” to increase viewer retention and engagement, which are crucial metrics for YouTube’s algorithm. |
The final factor that YouTube considers is personalization for each user:
- What videos have they enjoyed in the past?
- What topics or channels have they watched previously?
- What videos are typically watched together?
This is why people will sometimes see different results for the same query.
Where YouTube Ranks Videos?
YouTube recommends and ranks videos in 3 places within the platform:
1. Home
This is what you first see when you open the app/visit the site. The engine selects videos based on the performance of the video and the user’s watch and search history for ranking videos here.
2. Suggested Videos
This is the list of videos besides the one you are watching. YouTube shows videos here based on the topic of the current video and the viewer’s watch history.
3. Search Results
Here’s the easiest part to take advantage of to rank your videos. YouTube SEO done right will help you show up here. YouTube will base the signals on the following:
- The relevance of the title, description, and video content to the search term.
- Performance and engagement of the video.
Now that you know how YouTube works, it’s time to optimize your channel so that YouTube can rank it and boost your visibility.
10 Advanced YouTube SEO Tips & Key Tactics
Just like increased visibility on Google boosts your website traffic, conversion rate, and sales, YouTube SEO can enhance key metrics like follower count, brand awareness, website visits, and revenue. Below are 10 proven tips that successful YouTube creators also follow:
1. Set Goals
Success on YouTube depends on your goals. YouTube offers many helpful metrics to help you assess your progress.
For example, if your goal is to grow your audience, track your subscriber count, impressions, and audience retention. For engagement, focus on likes, comments, and shares. Want to drive web traffic? Add links to your video descriptions and annotations, and track these on your website.
Tracking the right metrics will help you understand how you’re growing your audience and enable you to create more effective videos for your users and SEO.
2. Research Keywords
The YouTube SEO process begins with video keyword research. The easiest way to generate a big list of potential keywords for your YouTube videos is to use YouTube’s Search Suggest feature.
All you need to do is head over to YouTube and type in a word or phrase. YouTube will then present many keywords related to what you typed in.
These suggested keywords are great and popular because they are terms people actually type into YouTube. No need to wonder—if YouTube suggests them, they definitely are.
Next, from this list, find the best keyword. You want to target those with low competition and enough search volume. You can do this with paid SEO tools like SemRush’s Keyword Analytics for YouTube or for free by typing it in on Google and seeing the number of results (the little description you see below the search bar box).
With that keyword picked you can use it throughout the following steps.
3. Make Catchy Titles
Video titles are your first shot at grabbing viewers’ attention and are crucial in helping your video index and rank. Your video title should Include the exact keyword right at the start and match it closely with what users are searching for.
Keep it concise, too. Most top-performing videos have title lengths between 50-60 characters. Take Mr. Beast, the biggest YouTuber with over 300 million subscribers. He is known for his very straightforward video titles.
4. Write Clear Descriptions
Just like the title, the video description is key. You get 5,000 characters to explain your content in detail, but only the first 120 characters appear in search results before viewers click “show more” to see the rest.
That’s why it’s wise to put the most interesting information first. In the rest of the description, use the exact keywords and include a call-to-action (CTA) that asks viewers to subscribe (or whatever else you want them to do to reach your goal).
5. Use Tags and Hashtags
Note that YouTube tags are different from YouTube hashtags. While tags help YouTube understand the content of your video, hashtags provide relevancy to your content and guide your viewers through similar hashtags.
The best practice is to use popular competitors’ tags to help YouTube understand it better.
Hashtags will appear right above your description box, beside the # of views and date. You can use your company name or include related keywords.
Using hashtags in your YouTube description is acceptable, but don’t go overboard. The YouTube algorithm constantly checks for spam and may inadvertently flag you if you overuse it.
Instead of using every hashtag you can think of, choose two to three that most accurately describe your video.
6. Name Your Video Files
Your YouTube SEO game starts even before you hit upload.
Search robots don’t dig through the actual video; they scan the source code. By including the exact keyword in the video file name, the YouTube algorithm can read the keyword and all the code right when you upload.
For instance, if you’re talking about “YouTube vlogging guide,” name your file “YouTube-vlogging-guide” and then tack on the video file type. MOV, MP4, and WMV work best with YouTube.
7. Create Eye-catching Thumbnails
Your thumbnail is the main image viewers see when scrolling through a list of video results. Thumbnails don’t directly affect your video SEO, but they definitely boost the click-through rates (CTR). An average CTR between 2% and 10% is ideal and sends a positive/negative signal to the YouTube system.
Avoid picking one of YouTube’s auto-generated thumbnail options. Instead, create a custom thumbnail with a company logo, as it is more memorable and stands out in the vast pool of videos.
One best practice is to draw inspiration from competitors or similar videos. Identify the words or styles you can mimic, but add your style to it. Never copy!
YouTube recommends using images with a resolution of 1280×720 pixels (representing a 16:9 ratio) and saved as .jpg, .gif, .bmp, or .png files of 2 MB or smaller.
8. Add Interactive Elements
When watching a video, have you ever spotted a small white circle with an “i” in it or a bar asking you to subscribe?
Those are info cards, which YouTube describes as “preformatted notifications that appear on desktop and mobile to promote your brand and other videos on your channel.”
You can add up to five cards to a video, and they come in six types:
- Channel cards
- Donation cards
- Fan funding
- Link cards
- Poll cards
- Video or playlist cards
For detailed steps on adding a card, follow the official guide from Google.
End screens are similar to cards but pop up only after a video finishes and pack more visual details. YouTube also provides detailed instructions for adding end screens tailored to the platform and content type you’re working with.
Remember that YouTube constantly tweaks end screens to improve viewer experiences, so sometimes, “your end screen, as designated by you, may not appear.” Consider these points when choosing which to use.
9. Create Chapters or Timestamps
Chapters are best for segmenting long videos. They help break down your video into sections, each with its own thumbnail, timestamp, and title. This makes it easier for viewers to jump to the parts they care about, boosting engagement and SEO.
You can put these timestamps in the comment section or your description, which will help viewers understand different parts of your video, and the YouTube algorithm in matching your video to the right searches.
You can manually add timestamps or tweak automatic video chapters in YouTube Studio.
10. Group Videos Into Playlists
Playlists are an awesome way to sort your videos under one theme. When you make a playlist for your channel, it’s like creating a guided tour of your content.
The best way to do this is to group your videos in keyword-optimized playlists or stick to a theme. This does more than tell YouTube what your videos are about. It hooks viewers, keeps them hopping from one video to another, increases your views, and boosts your channel’s visibility.
Bonus: How Do I Optimize YouTube Shorts?
One of YouTube’s newest formats is YouTube Shorts, which are short, vertical videos similar to Stories and TikTok videos.
The algorithm for Shorts is different from regular YouTube videos. Instead of users picking what to watch, they swipe through content, so the algorithm focuses on showing various videos to keep everyone interested.
Here are some things you have to remember:
- Viewer Engagement: Unlike other platforms, YouTube Shorts require viewers to watch beyond the first frame to count as a view.
- Storytelling Over Length: Focus on compelling storytelling instead of sticking to a specific video length, though most Shorts are under a minute.
- Thumbnail and Hashtags: Custom thumbnails are discouraged for Shorts, and the effectiveness of hashtags can vary.
- Post Timing: The timing and frequency of your Shorts uploads are less important than the quality of the content you post.
- Avoid Spam: YouTube advises against deleting and reposting Shorts repeatedly as it can appear to be spammy behavior.
And That’s a Wrap!
We’ve discussed creating videos that follow YouTube SEO best practices, which is essential. But for YouTube to measure these signals, you need to get views on your video! So follow the tips in this article and be consistent with them.
