Youtube, the 2nd largest search engine behind Google, is often overlooked by many marketeers these days. While the frenzies about website SEO on Google, Bing and Yahoo are everywhere, only few people pay much attention to video SEO on Youtube. A big mistake for digital marketeers. If you want to be successful in digital field, you’d better know how to apply SEO on Youtube.
Not convinced yet? Here are more quick facts about Youtube.
- Youtube is the 2nd largest search engine, outperforming Yahoo and Bing
- Every minute, there are 35 hours of content uploaded on Youtube
- Brands with optimised videos are 50% more likely to be put on Google 1st page listing
Nowadays, you and your mom have videos. Without SEO, be ready to see your videos go unnoticed.
Now that you realised the importance of video SEO, let’s have a look at four pillars to get your videos the highest ranks. And nope, views and virality are not included.
- Content (50% of the pie)
- Promotion (25%)
- Metadata (15%)
- Community (10%)
- Stick to monogamy!
Create a portfolio of videos around the same content and use similar keywords.
Make videos with long shelf contents and high replay value In plain English, your videos have to be relevant and timelessly needed by people.
Optimise your keywords and playlists Optimise your playlist using the most searchable keywords relevant to your content. Choosing keywords on Youtube is a bit tricky as they are different than what searched the most by people on Google. So how do you choose? Use https://ads.youtube.com/keyword_tool to analyse which keywords work the best.
Leverage Youtube insights Youtube insights is a powerful tool to see which video works and which does not. In this way, you can continue using the approach that holds people’s attention the longest and avoid using approaches generating low traffic.
Again, social media Promote your videos on other social media and make sure to put a “Share” button on your post to increase traffic and link building. The more your videos are promoted in blogs and other websites, the higher your video rank is.
Youtube Promoted Videos Use this tool so browsers can find your videos on Youtube homepage when they type certain keywords.
Call to action overlays Youtube has been generous to give people a free tool to give a brief description of your video during your video play time. This will keep people who are interested in your content watching. This tool has been proven to increase 3.7% of the click-through-rate.
Cross-promotion Promote other videos in your video. Youtube has been generous to give you a clickable feature within your video. This is brilliant to get that one person to watch your other videos.
The obvious
Make sure to fill in appropriate title, description and tags.
The non-obvious
Put captions of the videos.
Interesting and engaging thumbnails
Your thumbnails will appear on a lot of search engines' lists. Be sure to make yours interesting to encourage people to watch your video. Keep in mind that Youtube also captures a thumbnail from ¼, ½ and ¾ of your video. Putting some watermarks on your video in those periods won't hurt.
Optimise your homepage
Who wants to follow you if you have a blank homepage? No one. Spend some time on your homepage to make your Featured video and Playlist look neat and interesting.
Who wants to follow you if you have a blank homepage? No one. Spend some time on your homepage to make your Featured video and Playlist look neat and interesting.
Have a personality
Never try to be liked by all people. It’s better to be favourited by certain group and hated by other groups than having everybody feels neutral about you.
Never try to be liked by all people. It’s better to be favourited by certain group and hated by other groups than having everybody feels neutral about you.
Open up a comment board
Make sure to check the comments and respond to them quickly and appropriately.
Make sure to check the comments and respond to them quickly and appropriately.
Get people to rate your videos and stay ranked organically.
If you want to know more, click here to watch a complete tutorial how to optimise your Youtube video.
If you want to know more, click here to watch a complete tutorial how to optimise your Youtube video.
Have any useful tips of your own? Share them in the comments below.
