YouTube SEO Maximizes the World’s Second Biggest Search Engine
Despite being the second biggest, the Google-owned YouTube is an underrated search engine that many brands forget. Despite that, by optimizing your YouTube SEO strategies, you’ll ensure your video is seen by relevant queries and even under YouTube’s recommendations. Those “YouTube recommendations” referrals are important as they drive more than 70 percent of total daily watch time on the platform. If you don’t know where to start in building a YouTube SEO campaign, here’s a few guiding principles to take into account.
Metadata is more important to YouTube
Metadata may not be so important to Google SEO however when it comes to YouTube, it’s actually very important. Fill in metadata to ensure the YouTube search engine algorithms accurately place your video in the site’s catalogue. Too often, a video’s metadata is incomplete or missing altogether. If you’re going to maximize results on YouTube, remember this strategy.
Including the target keyword in the video title
The title of your YouTube video has a lot relying on it. From a technical standpoint, it should have your target keyword as a part of it. Also, it should be designed in a way that grabs the attention of and engages the target users. Click-friendly titles are even more important on a platform like YouTube.
Descriptions filled in with keyword variants
Descriptions are a great opportunity to type out keywords and keyword variations on your YouTube SEO strategy. Ensure it’s at least 250 words long. Include major bullet points included in your video. Remember, the more that’s here for YouTube algorithms to process, the more likely they will be to rank your video as intended.
Tags, playlists, and thumbnail
These three components are important in the grand scheme of YouTube SEO. Keyword tags still count for a lot on YouTube. Include keyword, keyword variations, and related topics spoken about in your video. Creating and including your video on playlists that feature related content can assist in getting your content alongside and in association with other users. The thumbnail is also important and should be eye-catching, click-friendly, and engaging in an immediate sense.
Video data
YouTube SEO is not all text-based. The data contained in the video itself is of significant importance. YouTube is already analyzing audio and generating transcripts from those, as an example. Be sure to use keywords in the video sporadically throughout, and keep things direct and structured. The clearer the audio is, the more likely algorithms will pick up on every word.
User data
User data on a video is important. It tells YouTube whether a video is popular, important, good, bad, or whatever the case. There’s ‘explicit’ user data, such as how many likes it has generated and how many video subscriptions it’s responsible for. Then, there’s ‘implicit’ user data like watch time. Creating videos that lead to positive trends in user data is ideal and intuitive across many YouTube SEO strategies. If you find that you’re losing your audience somewhere along the line, determine where and why, and make your fix.
If you’re looking to take your YouTube SEO and/or YouTube digital marketing campaign to the next level, contact Unlimited Exposure today. Using tips, tools, and techniques to get your video ranked, there’s a lot of knowledge and experience Unlimited Exposure draws from to create customized video marketing solutions. Improve your chances of success today and partner with Toronto’s top digital marketing agency!