SEO For YouTube Videos: Ways to Optimize videos for YouTube
Today, social media is no more restricted to entertainment but has become an essential form of marketing. Today, people are using internet platforms to promote, sell, and earn business in many different ways.
Out of all available content on the internet, one of the most engaging ones is videos. They not only communicate what the user wants to share but also keep the audience engaged. It could be a reason that why YouTube today is the most visited site, after Google.
Many marketers prefer YouTube today, but some have millions of views and subscribers while some struggle for even a thousand!! Do you know why??
Why the same content is booming on one’s account while another one is facing a tough time??
It’s because YouTube is not about just posting content or video but optimizing them, and the process of optimizing your YouTube videos is called SEO for YouTube videos.
There are few basic steps to keep in mind for YouTube SEO
- Proper keyword research: The right keyword is the key to successful optimization. The primary way for this is brainstorming. Just type the keyword in the search tab, and its in-built autocomplete feature will suggest the most suitable option. Google Trend is the most helpful tool here as it tells the latest trend.
- Tracking YouTube SEO: To increase your subscribers and views on YouTube, it becomes mandatory to track the progress. There are many free or paid tools to check the SEO of YouTube videos.
- Be Consistent: Getting too many likes on a video is not enough; what is most important is getting more subscribers. It is necessary to be consistent while posting videos regularly along with quality content. Quality content helps to invite more subscribers, and consistency helps to retain them.
- Watch-time matters: YouTube video should be at least five minutes long to tell what the video is all about. A 2-3 minutes video is not often enough to answer the user’s question. Also, not too much, but a lengthy video could help to attract ads and hold viewers for a long time.
YouTube SEO Tips:
- Use relevant keyword-oriented title: Titles play a significant role for SEO for YouTube videos, so keep that crisp, clear, and convincing. The title should contain the keyword and should be an answer to the viewer’s requirement. Use keyword research and competitor analysis to find a suitable option.
- Thumbnail image: This is as crucial as the title. An attractive and relevant thumbnail image attracts the viewers and plays a significant role in SEO for YouTube videos. It makes people decide whether to invest their time or ignore the video.
- Write accurate description: Utilize the description part for information with links and a call to action. To direct a viewer to any website, add the link before show more option. Use some catchy content before show more so that the viewer would click and read the full description. It could make the viewer like or subscribe to the video.
- Caption helps: Captions or transcripts are a part of YouTube’Rs ranking algorithms. Add a caption to the video and make sure that it is error-free and should match the video’s timing. A virtual assistant is a great help for creating transcripts of the video.
- The Global translation: The YouTube video’s translation feature helps them convert to any foreign language and reach a global audience. Foreign viewers can watch the video and increase views and subscribers, and rank in a foreign language. It is one of the forms of SEO of YouTube videos.
- Tags: #ashtags are the latest trend today. By tagging the videos, it could reach a large chunk of the audience and help in YouTube video ranking. Tags are, however, not visible by default, but you can check them on the free vidIQ Chrome extension.
- Let’s call for Call to action: The last step of video optimization is to invite viewers for the Call to action, asking them to subscribe. Show them where to subscribe and why they should do so. It would ultimately help in boosting the videos.
There are various tools available that support YouTube SEO tools such as:
- Ahrefs: Keyword plays a vital role in a website’s ranking, and one of the best platforms of keyword research is Ahrefs. The keyword explorer feature of Ahrefs helps to find a keyword’s search volume, clicks received on every keyword, relevant keywords, monitor ranking, traffic generated, and many more. Ahrefs help in SEO for YouTube videos.
- Canva: The Canva helps create a design template for cards or photos and helps create a Thumbnail image for YouTube videos. It makes the perfect 1280* 720-pixel thumbnail.
- Hubspot: Hubspot helps in strategizing the content by organizing keywords into groups. Hubspot reflects how popular a keyword is and how it appears on the Google search engine results page. These groupings have both blogs and videos that can club together to give viewers options to capture traffic.
- VidIQ Vision: It is a Chrome Extension that stores links that help YouTube videos reach more audience. The tags help in video optimization, monitoring watch time and support the videos in gaining traffic.
YouTube optimization is an essential step for letting videos gain more traffic and reach a large audience. It seems pretty challenging, but if the basic steps of video optimization are done step-by-step, Seo for YouTube videos becomes easy.
Article on – Ways to Optimize videos for YouTube – Written by Pooja Saxena (Digital Marketing Intern)