The Science Behind Managing SEO for YouTube
Most content marketers today are using YouTube as a leverage platform for their campaigns.
The allure of hosting and distributing your videos cheaper than traditional advertising, and the proven effectiveness of content marketing for any business makes advertisement via YouTube irresistible for anyone trying to make an impact on the online World.
If done properly, YouTube Videos can be a source of evergreen content that you can leverage for years to come. But the thing is, there’s a lot of competition out there now as many people have come to recognize this resource for what it truly is, a Gold Mine!
Case On Point?
With an average over 300 hours of video being uploaded every single minute, getting your videos ranked can be easier said than done!
By the end of this (If I may say so myself) insightful post, you should be more than capable of properly understanding how YouTube SEO works in immense detail, and know the specific steps before you upload your next viral video. You should also be very clear on how these specific steps can help you grow your online presence. Even if you’ve just started out, you can have a better online presence than someone who has been at it for much longer, through these bits and tricks.
This comprehensive Youtube Seo guide is solely written to help you rank your videos and to be able to reach the right audience.
Step Number 1: Find “Keywords”
Keywords are the heart of YouTube SEO, or any online venture for that matter. Keywords that are well placed and established could also give you impressive results from the prominent search engines, such as Google.
The following are a few popular keywords that Google seems to hold a special place for in search engine results:
How-to keywords: “how to shave a cat”
Reviews: “Blue host review”
Tutorials: “Setting up WordPress”
Anything fitness or sports related: “Cardio kickboxing”
Funny videos: “Cute animals”
I mean who doesn’t love cat videos!
Questions You Need To Ask Yourself:
Is there sufficient traffic for the keywords that have been identified above?
Is the keyword space crowded? Is there simply too much information on the topic already?
Have I chosen a preferred keyword that Google prefers to display?
Once you have identified the main keywords that you are going to use in your video, on YouTube, it’s time to move on to the next step.
Let’s Analyze the Number 1 ranking video on Google using Majestic.
Having links from websites that have skateboarding related terms in the domain name, URL and anchor texts weigh in quite heavily. You can use Majestic Clique Hunter to analyze up to 10 results. You can see if they have any common back link sources. Then perform outreach to get a link on that domain as well (White Hat SEO). On the other hand, you can build your very own links through the connections you have in your industry (guest post or sponsored posts), or get into buying private blog network links etc (grey or black hat SEO depending on who you ask). The aim of this exercise is to see what exactly is causing these videos to rank in Google and YouTube in addition to prior engagement which composes of comments and subscribers.
Step Number 2: Making Your Own Video
Videos on YouTube are very different from regular blog posts generally used for SEO – you can’t just use backlinks to rank your videos as you would for a blog post.
YouTube uses what we call “User Experience Metrics” – different statistics, facts and figures that tell YouTube whether your viewers are finding your videos valuable or not.
The first user Experience Metric is Video Retention. It is indeed a significant part of Youtube Seo and is something that shouldn’t be ignored.
This refers to the total percentage of your video that people tend to watch through. The more your video is watched, the more it signals to YouTube that your video is of proper quality.
Comments:
Comments are one of the most crucially significant signals to YouTube indicating that someone has gained some value from your video. So be sure to always, and I mean always, ask for comments and what your viewers think in every video that you put out.
Subscribers:
Subscribers are also a strong signal to YouTube indicating that your channel is putting out reliable, relevant, and relatable content. Thus your page becomes something of immense value to Youtube as you are bringing more viewers to their site through your content. YouTube places more weight on your content once you have a strong following on their platform.
Shares, Thumbs Up and down and Favourites:
This part is pretty much self-explanatory, and it should not be too hard to understand why they are counted as ranking factors by YouTube. The more shares, thumbs up and favorites you have, get you heavier weight age on YouTube, and vise versa. This is the most legit and verified Youtube Seo technique and it acquires a significant weightage for a video to rank.
The more entertaining or informative your video is, the more likely a viewer would be to favorite your video. This also depends on a range of multiple factors.
I would strongly recommend that you should at least make your video 5 minutes long, or more.
Long form texts, long-form videos tend to outperform all other videos on YouTube. In other words, if you have a preferred keyword (how to, reviews, etc) and you have a long form video, that is more than 1 hour long, then the video is obviously extremely valuable. These Youtube Seo practices are extremely valuable for any one looking to promote their brand/channel at the earliest.
Step Number 3: Make sure that the descriptions of your video have the specifics in precise order.
Once you have managed to get your video uploaded on YouTube, there are still a few specific technical difficulties you may come across.
Video Title:
Keep your video title at least 5 words long, so that you can insert full keywords without over stuffing your keywords (unnaturally repeating your keywords too many times). You should also place your keywords at the immediate front of your video title.
Description:
The description of your video is where you further emphasize on your video’s content, and share with your videos more information that they can act on. But what a lot of people do not know is that the description actually helps your YouTube SEO too!
Descriptions help search engines, like Google and YouTube, to understand what your video is talking about.
Be Sure to Follow these tips before you post your next video:
Put your link at the very top of the video (this maximizes CTR to your site)
Include your keyword within the first 25 words
Make the description of at least 250-words
Step Number 4: Distribute your video
There’s still quite some work to be done if you want to outrank your competition.
For instance, remember that it was mentioned earlier that user engagement as a key metric that YouTube uses to rank your videos.
But without this first initial batch of viewers watching your videos, how do you expect to get any numbers in the first place?
That being said, it is extremely essential to reach out to individuals who could potentially benefit from watching your masterpiece, at least in the beginning of your YouTube career.
Experts on YouTube SEO recommend using forums like Quora to find these particular individuals who are seeking information on the topic that your video has answers to.
Once you have identified a potential question that this individual could ask, the next step is to embed your videos in the answers. This allows visitors to that forum thread to directly access the video, which is always a bonus when it comes to site experience (because we are all too lazy to even switch websites!) Besides Quora, you can also promote your video on Reddit. Other than submitting the video to the relevant sub-reddit, you can also find important questions related to your topic and leave a comment with your video (make sure the comment is impartial as Reddit hates self-promotion).
To make the process of finding Quora/Reddit users faster, use Just Reach Out.io. This tool will mine Quora and Reddit results thoroughly in order to find available questions with your keywords.
Link in your email signature:
Other method experts recommend using is getting the word out about your video content by including a link to your video in your email signature or anywhere after the email sign off.
Since email signatures are a do-it-once procedure, this means that you can reap the benefits of attaching that link to your email over and over again (until you change the link, of course).
Embed videos in your blog posts:
As you may have noticed, this is somewhat like a Catch-22: if you don’t have quality and high yielding views to your blog yet, you might be relying on your YouTube videos to gain traction to your blog.
Embedding your videos on your blog is an exceptional method to add depth of content and interactivity for your audience, which is always a bonus.
Get other bloggers to embed your videos:
This is a tactic not many people try out, but it can reap immense benefits if performed accurately.
It is also very important to frame your videos thus adding to their content’s value. To be very honest, bloggers might not care much about you or your content, but they definitely care about their readers.
The question is, how exactly do you reach out and pitch these bloggers and influencers?
This blog post on how to pitch press is a great place to start. If you already have a list of targets and want emailing help, check out this list contact us at mwmstudioz.com for professional help.
Conclusion
With everyone’s attention span getting shorter and shorter, it seems that video marketing is here to stay, and might even outperform blog post text in the near future as the top performance enhancer in the world of content/digital marketing.Therefore, it is vital to keep the Youtube Seo techniques in mind when marketing your videos on social channels.
Keeping that in mind, it is also important to use YouTube as part of your digital marketing strategy right now, so that you can build up a sizeable audience to leverage on for business in the future. If you are having trouble then I would definitely recommend getting help from a professional Digital Marketing Agency.
The question is: will seize the opportunity and you apply these tips to the next video you post on YouTube, or will you be just another egg in the nest waiting for the right moment to crack open and gasp your first breath of fresh air?
