If you use your YouTube channel to promote your brand, products, or services, you’re likely looking for ways to optimize your video content. To do this, seasoned marketers often rely on YouTube SEO. You can do the same.
Learn how to use simple YouTube SEO tactics to promote your video content. With the right SEO strategies, you can turn viewers into customers in no time.
1. Choose the Right Keywords
As reported by Digital Authority Partners, selecting the right keywords is the first step in optimizing video content. Through thorough keyword research, you can find the best keywords to use in your video content.
Keywords must be added to your video titles, metadata, scripts, captions, transcripts, and video descriptions so that search engines can better understand your content and index it.
Your keywords must be several terms that best relate to your content and how your audience searches for your business on YouTube. Here are some SEO tactics to consider when researching for the right keywords.
- Use the search bar on YouTube to find relevant keywords or key phrases.
- Use search engine results, related searches, and People Also Ask
- Leverage keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner
- Go for long-tail keywords. These are more specific and can better target your audience.
- Search for your competitor’s keywords. Try using their keyword research strategy and see if it works for you.
2. Add Closed Captions to Your Videos
Captions and subtitles to your videos allow you to share your content with a much larger audience. That includes people who are hard of hearing and those who speak a different language.
Another great reason to add captions is to improve your video indexing for SEO. As you include your keywords in your video messages, they will also appear in captions. It helps search engines find your content in a sea of videos online.
You can also bet videos with closed captions have improved average watch times. It is the most critical metric for video content as it means that your video is more engaging and that more viewers will stick around to watch it till the end.
Here are a few tips to optimize your closed caption and subtitles.
- Use auto-translation captions. Let YouTube automatically translate your caption file to different languages. Just go to YouTube Studio and add the translated title and description.
- Reposition your captions. Use your mouse to drag the captions around the screen to improve visibility.
- Get help from live stenographers for your live stream event. Use the Creator Studio to create your event and get a link to share with your live captioning assistants.
- Add a transcript to your videos through the Creator Studio. A video transcript can help people who are hard at hearing to understand your content better and for easy indexing.
3. Improve Your Video Title, Description, and Tags
People will determine if your video is the one they are looking for through your title, description, and tags. Like any search engine, people will likely choose the first video considering that this is the best video for their needs.
After Google, its parent company, YouTube is regarded as the second-most popular search engine in the world. It has more searches than AOL, Ask.com, Microsoft Bing, and Yahoo! combined.
Therefore, you should never neglect ranking on YouTube. You can optimize your video titles, descriptions, and tags. Here’s how to maximize your video tags.
- Self-reference your video. Tag your brand name in many variations to help viewers and search engines know your brand.
- Use Keyword Search Tool from YouTube. This tool can help you extract relevant competitor keywords and get suggestions based on your basic terms.
- Use specific tags. Doing so helps YouTube better understand the content of your videos.
- Consider video optimization tools. VidIQ is one tool you can try to find tags from other related brands. Use the information you gathered to create better tags for higher views.
- Utilize as many tags as possible. In doing this, you must mention the most important tags first. Create playlists of related videos based on your tags.
Here’s how to enhance your video title and description.
- Perform thorough keyword research. Choose high-traffic keywords and start your title with them.
- Maintain a title length of 70 characters. Excess characters will be cut off. That’s also why you must place your primary keywords in the first part of the title.
- Place non-essential information at the end of the title. These include branding and video episode numbers.
- Update your video titles regularly. Search engine trends and algorithms change from time to time, so you must keep up with them.
- Don’t resort to clickbait titles. Your viewers will likely feel misled and exit your videos, affecting your average view times.
- Engage your viewers with a captivating description. The first two sentences must be engaging enough to click the video.
- Add a call-to-action at the end of the description. CTAs tell people what to do next, such as watching more videos, checking the following video, visiting your website, etc.
- Use time codes in the description for longer videos. These codes will allow viewers to jump to the parts that interest them.
- Include links. Be sure you have links to products or services you mentioned in the video, social media pages, or your official website.
4. Check User Engagement
YouTube continues to be the top online video platform in the world, with more than 2.6 billion active users in 2022. More than a quarter of the world’s population watches YouTube videos monthly. No wonder businesses using this platform enjoy better interaction with their customers. But a part of creating YouTube videos is monitoring your progress.
After investing time and effort in creating and optimizing your video channel, you must monitor your user engagement. Doing so lets you have an overview of how your users interact with your video content and what videos your audience prefers. Remember, an engaged viewer can be your audience for life.
To find your YouTube channel user engagement rate, add the total number of likes, dislikes, and comments for all your videos and divide these by your total number of subscribers. Consider a selected time range for the number of likes, dislikes, and comments.
Final Words
Take the time to find the best formula to optimize your YouTube content. These SEO strategies can help boost your video rankings, promote your brand or business, and leave your audience craving more of your content.
