YouTube is, in reality, the world’s second-most-used search engine. Over one billion users watch hours of video daily. With that much attention, video SEO through YouTube videos is critical to digital marketing success.
Because of YouTube’s prominence, it is critical to flesh out your search, social, and content endeavors. However, the value extends far beyond increased visibility within your target audience segments on YouTube. An efficient video SEO approach promotes your content in Google SERPs. As a result, video development as well as optimization will enhance your marketing plan.
If YouTube video production is on your company’s agenda, use 5 video SEO methods to ensure that the right people see your masterpieces.
1. Conduct Extensive Keyword Research for SEO
YouTube keyword research tactics and Google organic keyword research processes are highly overlapping. There are, however, some YouTube-specific research tools and sites that you should take advantage of.
Despite its massive scale, YouTube still has less competition than the rest of the internet. That means you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to break through and earn higher search rankings for YouTube video searches while your competitors are still sitting on the sidelines.
Even better, YouTube’s search behavior is more straightforward. Long, complex searches and questions are less common than simple, direct requests. That is, while you will undoubtedly find long-tail keywords on YouTube, you will not be able to build a nest from them like you would with your website’s content strategy.
Let’s look at some keyword research tools to find the best keyword phrases to target while optimizing your YouTube videos for SEO.
Suggestions from YouTube
YouTube’s auto-suggest function, like Google’s, can do much of the heavy lifting for you. Enter questions related to the overall topic matter of your video and see what comes up. It is a fair probability those are the keywords you wish to target.
YouTube Search Data from YouTube Studio
Do you already make high-quality videos? Then, utilize YouTube Studio’s beta analytics to influence your next round of keyword research. This will give you a plethora of information on who is watching your company’s videos – and, more importantly, what they are seeing.
What else is essential to your target market? What exactly do they want to know? Do they have a preference for specific brands or aesthetic styles? This is such a fantastic insight into your customer’s psyche that it nearly feels like cheating!
This information may be used for keyword research and content ideas to transform your company’s brand personas into actual people with particular tastes and hobbies.
YT Cockpit
YT Cockpit, explicitly created for YouTube, delivers detailed organic and sponsored YouTube search information and keyword suggestions. Digital information from YouTube / Google Suggest, Google Ads, and Google Related Searches are used in the service. YT Cockpit will offer you competitive insights for the top ranking videos for any niche or keywords you submit.
Tags for TubeBuddy
TubeBuddy’s tag explorer will examine and score your potential tags based on the strength of the opportunity. It can also suggest tag possibilities and show you competitive info. Because your tags on YouTube should match your keywords the tag explorer and keyword research are practically equivalent.
vidIQ
It’s another YouTube-specific tool that provides a comprehensive view of keywords and the broader search audience. vidIQ claims to “raise your library of tags by ten times in less than 10 minutes.” It also shows engagement data, brand mentions, competitive insights, and rankings and recommends the optimum time to submit your films on YouTube.
YouTube Keywords Explorer by Ahrefs
If your organization uses popular keyword research tools like Ahrefs, examine if they provide information particular to YouTube searches. Ahrefs, for example, does: their YouTube Keyword Tool provides search volumes, keyword ideas, and search trends in a manner that users of the program’s SEO tools will recognize. You may also use the tool to identify comparable queries people are asking, phrase matches, and freshly discovered keywords.
KeywordTool.io (YouTube Setting)
KeywordTool.io is another search engine optimization fan favorite that delivers statistics for your video SEO: navigate to the YouTube tab to get started. Other options include Amazon, eBay, Instagram, and Google Play. You can use this tool to look for keyword recommendations, frequent questions, and prepositions related to your target keywords.
HyperSuggest (YouTube Setting)
HyperSuggest is a sophisticated autosuggest tool with a YouTube option. Amazon and Instagram questions are among the other options. Furthermore, the device displays search trends for your selected keywords. HyperSuggest uses a unique query strategy to reveal terms of a search phrase preceding the keywords you enter, yielding as many results as some of the other YouTube tools.
Tubics
Tubics allows you to track how your films rank on YouTube. The YouTubeSEO analysis tool examines 15 ranking criteria for your YouTube channel. Tubics also creates suggested tags for your videos and provides you with a prioritized YouTube SEO action plan.
Google Video Advanced Search
Okay, so this isn’t a YouTube-specific tool. However, it is still beneficial as a reference for your YouTube video SEO efforts and immediately assists you in ranking in the SERP.
Google’s Advanced Video Search provides a more SERP-focused perspective on autosuggest. You can use the tool to search by video duration, posting date, and other criteria. Look at the videos that show up in the search results for your keyword searches.
Ranking your video organically and on YouTube will increase its exposure and views. Remember that every time your videos show in search engine results pages (SERP), they capture additional SERP real estate for your business and push down competitor content, improving your total video optimization performance.
2. Make Insanely Good Video Content
You must stand out to capture your audience’s attention through the video. Much fantastic video content is available from brands and high-profile influencers. As a result, you must set a high standard when creating and editing video content.
Here’s how to make, edit, and rank films your viewers will enjoy!
Select the Best Format for Your Videos
The how-to or tutorial content type works particularly well on YouTube. And you can expand yourself beyond dull troubleshooting or product setup tutorials!
Always strive for useful or entertaining material that your customers will enjoy. However, you can refrain from preceding firm promotion in the process.
Make It Superior to Any Other Related Videos
If you need help clearing the bar, consider brainstorming more unique ideas for your video or selecting more relevant keywords. This is the most straightforward approach to ensure that your videos outperform the competition. When developing an efficient, profitable video SEO strategy, this is only half the battle.
Keep the Videos Brief
These days, the average human attention span for watching videos is around eight seconds. That means four-minute videos could hamper your company’s YouTube growth.
Edit your videos as lengthy or as short as necessary while preserving the same impact and message.
Pay Attention to the First 15 Seconds
People skip around 15 seconds into a video due to short attention spans. You should start with the most important or “hookier” content.
Review Long Videos
Short videos are likely to get the most engagement. However, your viewers’ behavior is also affected by your video’s industry and subject matter. Experiment with longer-format videos to see how your audience reacts. As a result, you’ll be able to choose the ideal video length.
Make Eye-Catching Thumbnails
Although small, video thumbnails significantly impact engagement, so utilize them wisely. Select a high-resolution, visually appealing image and crop it to the required dimensions. Make use of a graphic that exclaims, “Your Company!”
Another option is to incorporate humans into your thumbnails. Faces are naturally appealing to humans. As a result, it’s worthwhile to compare the performance of thumbnail photos focused on branding vs. those containing people’s faces.
Make Use of ‘Pattern Interrupts’
A pattern interrupt alters a person’s mental state by disrupting their predetermined routine or expectations. This works because people are more open to suggestions when changing norms.
If you’ve ever seen someone deviate from a “planned” conversation?
For example, if someone asks in passing, “How are you?” If you say “Good,” “Great,” or “Tired,” and the other person says something different than “Good,” “Great,” or “Tired,” you’ve witnessed a pattern disruption. The other individual likely needed a few seconds to respond appropriately to the new knowledge.
Playfully defying expectations is a terrific approach to leaving your audience with something special to remember. For example, when Hulu brought back the renowned Old Spice Man to promote Hulu, they masterfully inserted a pattern interrupt. They mimicked the style and tone of Old Spice advertising before departing from the expected subject.
Make It Unforgettable
Interrupting patterns is one of many methods to make your videos distinctive. Another strategy is to elicit an emotional response from your audience. If you want that emotion to be, “Who’s cutting onions?” watch Google commercials.”
3. SEO-Optimize Your Videos
Once your content gets more attention, there are certain steps you can take to improve the SEO performance of your video. They are as follows:
Video Title
Now is the time for your keyword research to pay off. Similar to on-page SEO, you’ll want to incorporate your keywords as naturally as possible into the title of your video. The most important thing, though, is to make sure your movie title is catchy and descriptive.
Video Description
Another place to include keywords is in the video description. You’ll also have more area to experiment with up to 1000 characters. Put the most critical information first and include a call to action and an incentive. Most importantly, give a link to your website so people may learn more.
Video Tags
Video tags are an excellent place to include keywords. Unfortunately, many people overuse them and harm their SEO. Stuffing your tags with keywords, like Google, will backfire.
Because YouTube doesn’t know which keywords have weight, you’re less likely to rank for any of them. Instead, concentrate on 5-8 well-researched, focused tags. Put your primary keyword first, followed by your secondary keywords. Finally, add a few common variations and one or two long-tail keywords.
Video Transcriptions
Video transcripts will have an impact on your video SEO optimization both directly and indirectly. Crawlable text now aids YouTube and Google in more correctly indexing the video. In addition, this accessibility feature allows your deaf customers to see your videos. By the way, 15% of individuals suffer from hearing loss. Furthermore, some people would instead read than watch movies.
Video Sitemaps
It is a great practice to develop a separate video sitemap for any videos embedded on your site. This allows Google to distinguish between different types of material and index it more effectively.
Optimized Meta Data
Optimize the meta descriptions on the page where the video is located, which is also connected to embedded video files. This will benefit both your video and your on-page SEO by emphasizing the relevancy of your keywords.
Video Intent
Do you want to ensure that your keywords are as relevant as possible?
In each video, say them out loud. Even if you didn’t transcribe your video formally, YouTube is good at auto-transcribing. It will take notice if your keywords are not included in the video.
Page Focal Point
Do you intend to include the video on your website? Giving it the attention it deserves makes it a prominent page feature.
Content Relevancy
Another effective technique to emphasize the importance and relevance of your video is to surround it with similar content on the page. While keeping the focus tight, reinforce the same argument via images, video, and text. This will convey a clear message to Google about the page’s topic.
Internal Links
When search spiders traverse your site, they use the links as their highways. As a result, it’s critical to provide relevant connections to and from your videos for them to be discovered and indexed. However, when developing your internal linking techniques, adhere to established practices.
Duplicate Videos
Finally, avoid perplexing search engines by forcing two pages to compete for the same material. Choose one page on your site where you want to incorporate your video and then work on upgrading that page.
4. Increase Social Sharing & Engagement
Due to FOMO, social proof in the form of social media and website views drives others to watch the film. Social shares help spread the word about your video. When your videos are incorporated into your websites or blog posts, this leads to more backlinks.
Social proof contributes to the video’s increased prominence in search engines. Increasing views and shares is thus an essential component of video SEO. Here’s how to go about it:
Distribute on Social Media
Although it may appear straightforward, companies frequently need to distribute their movies on their social media sites. This typically occurs when their video production staff needs to be more connected to their social media team, resulting in campaigns that need to be integrated. Encourage collaboration and ensure a framework is in place to ensure that every video made is posted on social media.
Upload straight to each social site when sharing on social media. This will start auto-play and yield the most outstanding results. However, be sure to post your web or blog pages that contain your movies. As a result, any social sharing and linking will improve the SEO performance of your website.
Encourage Employees to Share on Social Media
Asking your staff to share the video with their networks is a terrific approach to jumpstarting a video’s social media success. This is easy money for amplifying your content and encouraging greater social sharing and backlinking.
Your employees’ willingness (or lack thereof) to do so could be an early indicator of how beneficial and shareable the video is. So if you email your employees, the only person who distributes the video is your HR director.
Request for the Viewers to Subscribe
It’s easy to forget that sometimes all you have to do to elicit action is ask. Viewer subscriptions are a fantastic example; many individuals are eager to do the quick, easy step of subscribing, but it is not at the forefront of their minds. At the end of the video, nudge them and ask them to subscribe.
Invite Folks to Comment (Reply to Them)
The same idea applies here: inquire! If your company receives comments on their films, ensure someone is ready to answer immediately. Responding to comments is an efficient way to keep viewers loyal, spread your films, and return to watch more.
Allow People to Embed Your Videos
If a viewer wishes to share your video on their blog, they should embed it rather than include a text link. Making your films embeddable is a simple adjustment in your YouTube settings, so ensure you’re not putting up additional obstacles by limiting distribution.
Send Your Videos to Your Email List
This is another low-hanging fruit strategy. Your email subscribers are some of your most devoted and enthusiastic audience members, so start with the accessible population and work your way up.
Send Videos to Influential People
It is good to share new films with influencers who reach your company’s target market as you build relationships with them if your audiences enjoy them. Videos that are witty, hilarious, or captivating enough are shared widely…and frequently!
If it’s that amazing, perhaps some of your brand’s influencers will not only share it on social media but will also embed it in a relevant blog post or generate other related content where it will have a longer shelf life.
Include Videos in Your Blog Postings
Incorporate your videos into your blog strategies to generate a plethora of related topical content. For example, Lowe’s embeds videos in its how-to blog pages.
Promote Your Other Videos in the Last Frames
You can select what displays in the “What to Watch” pop-up at the end of each video. Consider each video attentively and select the finest related videos you can. This is an excellent approach to taking the customer on a journey and providing new information.
Add a grab-em-by-the-collar, kick-butt trailer to your YouTube account.
Your channel trailer is similar to a movie trailer in that you want to captivate your viewers rather than intrigue them. Keep your campers under two minutes long and offer your viewers an idea of who your company is and what they care about.
5. Use Analytics to Improve SEO & User Experience
Finally, don’t just throw your videos into the world and hope you never see them again. Keep track of the outcomes of each video so you can continuously improve your video strategy and user experience. Here are some data points to keep an eye on:
Rate of Completion
How much of your video did the viewer watch? If people leave before the finish, the duration of the video is most likely to blame—experiment with making shorter videos to see if the completion rate changes. Alternatively, your film’s opening is insufficiently captivating and should be repeated.
Total Time Spent Watching
The watch time in YouTube analytics is the time the user spends watching the video. This is closely related to the completion rate because they both indicate the same thing: the customer’s attention span when watching your movies. Completion rate and view time are both effective comparing metrics; use watch time to evaluate two very identical videos to see which one performs better.
Time Spent Watching Each Section
YouTube’s goal is to keep users on the site for as long as possible, and the session watch time measures this. If your video prompts a viewer to click on a linked video, increasing the viewer’s session watch time, YouTube will reward you with a visibility bump. Take note of which videos have better click-through rates and inspire similar views as you investigate this metric.
Fluctuations in Viewership
Keep note of any changes in your audience. These data spikes indicate that something occurred on a specific day. You’ll better know how different days of the week or other video marketing SEO efforts affect your viewership as you figure out what it is.
Backlinks
You can use a video link-building plan like you would for a website or blog article. Video SEO services may assist you in contacting high-authority, relevant websites, blogs, publishers, partners, and influencers and requesting that they share the video.
The same approach to website link-building applies here as well: offer them a reason to share it, and make it as simple as possible for them to create relevant material.
Conversions
Keep track of the actions taken if you include a specific CTA at the end of your movies. Tracking and optimizing for maximum conversions is one of the most critical things you can evaluate with your videos, whether signing up for your email list, arranging a demo, or anything else.
Make the Winners Into a Video Series
Once you’ve gathered enough data to establish which films are clear winners, turn them into a series. You’ve already worked hard to hook your audience; all that remains is for you to continually deliver videos that provide value. As a result, your entire movie library should experience a compound effect. Someone who enjoys your series is likelier to stick around than someone who only watches one video.
The overarching goal is to give your audience more of the stuff they enjoy. This, in turn, will improve your video SEO via the crucial “session viewing time” measure.
Experiment with different keyword variations for each video to target more interested viewers and widen your reach. However, keep your primary keyword consistent throughout the series. This will function similarly to a hashtag, allowing viewers to quickly and easily find videos in the series.
Use videos as a trial ground for new topics and focus on what works. You’ll discover new methods to extend your wings and creatively communicate your brand’s voice. Combined with your video SEO strategy, you can ensure that spectacular, helpful, authentic, fascinating, you’re-going-to-love-this-company films are created. They will be observed as well.
