YouTube SEO 2023
It’s also a lot of competition for YouTubers and brands. Harnessing YouTube SEO to increase rankings and views is essential.
Without it, videos don’t receive views and channels can’t grow. Entrepreneurs and businesses don’t get exposure and fail to progress.
Luckily, I’ve put together this straightforward guide that explains how to utilize YouTube SEO techniques, so you can learn how to rank YouTube videos.
It’s not an easy fix but by working smarter not harder, anyone can see success on YouTube.
Let’s dive in!
What is YouTube SEO?
Let’s start with the basics. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
It’s the practice of adapting content using tried and tested techniques that will improve that content’s rankings on a search engine results page.
The techniques required to optimize content for a traditional search engine like Google differ from YouTube SEO techniques.
YouTube uses different metrics than Google to determine the quality and relevancy of a piece of content to a search query.
But some of these ranking factors overlap, so it’s absolutely possible for videos to rank well in both Google and YouTube!
Don’t worry if you don’t know what the differences are and how to optimize YouTube videos to rank higher in search results. I’m going to explain both and use examples.
How YouTube SEO Benefit Businesses?
Mostly for the audiences, video content remains the most popular kind of content, performing video SEO is more essential than website SEO.
The higher rankings on YouTube indicate more extra clicks, more engagement as well as more users.
And as YouTube continues to be the fastest-growing video sharing platform in the world, this remains the optimal spot for video content.
As YouTube was bought via Google in 2006, optimizing for YouTube could be an even more robust SEO strategy than any other form.
Because, Google has access to each of the information as well as an optimization that is presented with the videos, optimizing for YouTube remains essentially optimizing for Google, too.
How to Rank: YouTube Video Keyword Research
So, if I’m researching potential topics for a new video, I want to find keywords that have low competition from other YouTubers or brands.
But, I want keywords that people actually search for, so my videos have an audience.
Though I could use a keyword research tool, this is a way to find the right keywords organically.
Step 1: Generate Keyword Ideas
YouTube auto-suggests phrases that users have already searched for e.g., “Premiere Pro Tutorial” and “Premiere Pro Text Effects.”
I could also pick a handful of competitors within the video editing niche, look for their most popular videos, and see what keywords they’re using.
I can spot keywords by looking for repeated phrases in their video’s title, tags, and description.
And those are just two ways to find great keywords!
Step 2: Check Keyword Competition
I want to strike a balance and choose a keyword phrase that has a decent number of search queries but not a lot of competition.
If I type “premiere pro” into Google, I receive Google’s search results which prioritize text results. If I switch to the Video results page, this will show me results from YouTube.
But for some search queries, Google’s standard search results page includes videos as well as text when it’s likely that the user wants a video result.
So, I want to pick a keyword that already gets video results on Google’s standard results page.
I also want to pick a keyword that (approximately) receives less than 1,000,000 results in Google, so the competition is low.
Once my YouTube channel attracts more subscribers and views, I can try higher-competition keywords.
I’m going to choose “Premiere Pro Transitions Tutorial” as my keyword phrase because it meets these guidelines perfectly.
How to Optimize: YouTube Video Elements
To successfully optimize my YouTube videos, I have to use that keyword in the best way if I want more people to watch my awesome videos.
I’m going to show you how to do YouTube SEO properly, considering all the different elements.
Step 1: Optimize The Title
I should try and put my keyword at the beginning of the title as long as it makes sense according to the video.
I want YouTube to know it’s my video’s focus, but I also want my title to encourage viewers to click on it.
Step 2: Optimize The Description
But only where relevant as I don’t want to appear spammy.
My description should also be at least 250 words long. Within it, I will entice viewers with a summary of the video but not give away the great content within the video.
I’ll also be helpful and include links to any products or services I mention.
Step 3: Optimize Tags
One of my tags will be “Premiere Pro Transitions Tutorial” but I will also include variations like “Transitions in Premiere Pro” and “Adobe Premiere Pro Transitions.”
I will also tag secondary, but still relevant, keywords like “Premiere Pro Tutorial” and “Premiere Pro Skills”. These phrases are still connected to my keyword but cast a much wider net.
Tagging my video correctly will help it to appear in the “suggested videos” section of YouTube as well as search results. And that is definitely what I want!
Step 4: Optimize The Thumbnail
That means I need to make my thumbnail as eye-catching as possible to improve my YouTube SEO!
It’s always a good idea to create a custom thumbnail. That way, I have control over what my viewers see and can make it an enticing, exciting image.
The thumbnail should be at least 1280×720 because modern videos use a 16:9 aspect ratio. It should be under 2MB and can be formatted as a JPG or PNG file.
Step 5: Optimize the Channel Page
If viewers enjoy the Premiere Pro video content I’m posting, they may want to subscribe to my channel and see what else I’ve posted.
So I want them to find a great profile picture, eye-catching channel art, and well-organized playlists.
I could also attract new viewers by optimizing my channel page’s description.
My niche is video editing tutorials with Premiere Pro, so I should include my top niche keywords.
Those keywords could be “Premiere Pro Tutorials” and “Premiere Pro for Beginners.”
More YouTube SEO Techniques
Technique 1: Create Videos With High Audience Retention
I want my viewers to be hooked by my videos until the very end. 20% of viewers stop watching a video after 10 seconds, and I definitely don’t want that happening to me!
These are some audience retention techniques:
- Start the video with a quick summary of the video’s content
- Remove overly long introductions
- Entice viewers with something coming later in the video
However, just because 20% of viewers drop out after 10 seconds, it doesn’t mean I should create a 1-minute long video! Actually, YouTube loves long videos.
But one hour, for example, is way too long for my “Premiere Pro Transitions Tutorial.”
It’s important to remember that the length of my video isn’t that vital when it comes to YouTube SEO. My video should be just as long as it needs to be.
Technique 2: Ask Viewers to Like, Comment, and Subscribe
That’s why at the end of my video I’m going to remind viewers to do either one of these three things to help my channel grow.
I could create a clip to add to the end of each video with this information, so I don’t have to repeat it again and again.
Technique 3: Add Cards to Videos
Adding cards directing viewers to other videos I’ve posted encourages them to check out more of my content, but too many can be annoying.
So, I usually only use cards at the end of my videos. I’ll only link to another video in the middle if I mention it.
More Important YouTube SEO Techniques:
- Rename the video file with the keyword before uploading
- Speak the keyword within the video’s content
- Upload subtitles to improve the video’s accessibility
YouTube SEO Will Help Your Videos:
- Get More Subscribers
- Make More Revenue
- Monetize Your Videos
- Grow Unique Views
- Achieve Higher Organic Rankings
- Achieve More extra Engagement
- Appear in The Recommendations of ‘Suggested Video’
Equip Yourself With Powerful YouTube SEO Tools
Consequently, here is a collection of some best-breed YouTube SEO tools that you must check out.
YouTube Analytics
Because, this tool remains irreplaceable while it proceeds to know your audience moreover how it engages by the videos.
This should be further mentioned that YouTube possesses recently shifted from “Creator Studio” to the simpler as well as more instinctive “YouTube Studio Beta”.
This tool provides the overall performance of the channel as well as the data on particular videos.
YouTube Analytics additionally enables you to uncover the viewers’ watching habits, investigate their demographics, moreover perceive where the traffic originates from.
There are likewise some new metrics such as impressions click-through rate, impressions, and unique viewers that remain present in this tool’s updated version.
At the top of that, the new YouTube Analytics analyzes the latest video performance to the earlier ones to track the progress.
Awario
It is recognized for a certainty that helps in gaining social signals do a lot of impact on the YouTube ranking algorithm.
Besides, linkless mentions preference most probably earn more authority in YouTube’s ranking algorithm as they exist already as the ranking signal to Google.
In this information, you require to track as well as analyze the videos’ social media moreover Internet presence also searches for more mention plus link sources.
Fortunately, Awario can serve you with both responsibilities.
To understand what kind of buzz surrounds the video on social media, just begin the video’s URL while setting up the alert.
Or you could type in the keywords that you’ve researched as well as track them by one alert (including the assistant of Boolean search) moreover find various opportunities to promoting the videos.
Set specific tools to pursue YouTube results entirely moreover carry out intense competition research for boosting the rankings.
At the peak of this, you can correlate the YouTube account to the Awario to be capable to like as well as reply to comments immediately from this tool.
Canva
Canva remains a freemium graphic app, that allows a tremendous selection of numerous templates for all kinds of visuals, including creative custom video thumbnails.
This app has one free version, that is somewhat limited in terms of the specific number of templates as well as members.
Though, if you chose to spend in any business-class account ($9.95 monthly for 1 user), you’ll acquire access to a tremendous image database of 300, 000 images and the possibility to upload your fonts as well as color pallets.
TubeBuddy
TubeBuddy remains one of free extensions that helps the work ten times by everything that befalls YouTube channel management.
Because it’s an extension, and you can also operate on YouTube without switching to any other external app.
With the guidance of the TubeBuddy tool, you will be able to monitor the live video stats, track the social shares, and get the video optimization tips.
One of the most useful things regarding the tool remains that it presents all the above-mentioned data for each video on YouTube.
Therefore, you can view how your competitors optimizing their videos and analyze how your videos accumulate against your competition.
Rank Tracker
With the Rank Tracker YouTube SEO Tool, you can establish YouTube as a favored search engine moreover track the rankings there and monitor the video effects in SERP traits.
This tool likewise enables you to accumulate keywords by 23 keyword research techniques, including the YouTube autocomplete, moreover then compare them as per the most powerful SEO indicators.
As already mentioned, that this tool is excellent at extracting video keywords as well as tracking – you can detect the specific keywords that make the videos appear with organic search results.
And make sure to review out Rank Tracker’s exclusive YouTube Keyword Difficulty metric for a quick spot as well as get easy-to-rank-for keywords.
How to Do YouTube SEO: Explained!
It’s not that different from any other web-based SEO practice. It still focuses on keywords at the core.
There are just some minor variations in YouTube SEO techniques and how to rank YouTube videos.
This guide explains everything you need to know about YouTube SEO.
But if you’d prefer an SEO marketing expert at TWH to take care of your keyword research and SEO implementation, find out more about our SEO packages.
Comments (2)
Indeed, a professional guide on “YouTube SEO”. Thank you for sharing these YouTube tips and strategies.
Thank you Ankit, for your kind feedback. I really appreciate it. Keep visiting for more such tips and tricks.