How to Search Optimize your YouTube videos

Videos have become an essential part of content marketing mix for a few reasons. First, we have the fact that people just prefer video over text in many cases. Humans are visual creatures, and we tend to remember what we see rather than what we read .

Second, some experts claim the average adult's attention span is shrinking. While the myth of the 8 second attention span is mostly bankrupt Even the most dedicated readers get bored with too much text. Content marketers have known this for a long time, which is why you often see text-based content broken up with visual content.

Third, the metrics themselves. More than 500 Millions of hours of video content watched each one day only on YouTube which means we will see more content in a month than US TV networks have broadcast In 30 years . OH!

More than 500 Millions of hours of video content are watched every day on YouTube. Click to post a Tweet

Google's bias

In 2006, Google bought YouTube. It might be the biggest outbound investment they've ever made – and the most profitable. All the way back to 2014, it was estimated that the site could be of comparable value $40 billion per year . That number is not exact, but I am sure it has increased significantly.

So, Google has done what you'd expect: they prioritize search results that include YouTube videos. Videos hosted on their site get featured snippets – a goldmine for those who want to watch. When we at Internet Marketing Ninjas did our own research on the topic, we found that more than 20% of the top results were YouTube videos.

User preferences

I'm sure you've heard this phrase: "Have you watched YouTube?" The only more common search-related phrase I hear is, “Have you Googled?” Not surprising, considering the video platform is search the second largest on the web, and it's not the search engine to begin with!

We live in a time where failing to create consistent and high-quality video content can have a marked negative impact on your brand. The best time to get on the train was five years ago. The next best time is now.

But should it be optimized for search engines?

Of course! In fact, optimizing video is easy as the process is akin to how you would optimize content for any other medium.

But first, let's look at our opportunities. Videos can gain visibility in two ways:

YouTube videos rank in general Google search results.

YouTube videos rank in YouTube search results, as well as show up in related and recommended videos.

Here are tips for generating visibility from both Google and YouTube search results.

As with Basic SEO, Content Quality Comes First

This is especially useful for video discovery on YouTube itself as the platform is pretty smart at understanding how a wide audience engages and likes your videos.

Before we get into the tips on how to do this, let's learn some basics of how to make great videos. video content worth watching :

Make a video everyone wants to see . In the past, it was enough to just create a video version of what you created, and your user base would do well. But if you look at popular channels on YouTube, they have a certain formula. You need to make sure you're following a similar structure and keep your quality high, consistent, and viewable. Your topics should be ones that your audience will be passionate about. Most importantly, you must present it in a way that attracts their attention. Just talking in front of the camera won't cut it, unless you're really engaging.

Make up your own style and format. Unique ideas always win. Example: Youtuber Daisy Brown created an entire weird sub-story using sub-messages in the caption. They're basically easter eggs that only people with captions enabled can see. They then inform other users about it in the comments, and it creates a richer story while also bringing in second or third watches by the same users who missed out. stuff for the first time.

Plan ahead. Whether it's a series of videos or single-shot videos on different topics, you need to really plan. Set subjects for certain times, with a shooting schedule. Outline the video itself, the script, and the presentation. Create a video editing schedule and stick to that schedule.

Focus on what works . This will be an ever-evolving process with some hits and misses along the way. See what works and what doesn't and listen to your audience . If something doesn't appeal to most of them, you won't convince them with much of the same.

Building an eye-catching brand . Youtuber ImJayStation regularly gets millions of views on each of his videos. His most popular video has 9.5 million views after a year. How does he do that? By selling it, although almost every video has the same type of content. He uses eye-catching thumbnails with bright red text in the corner.

Finally, use all of your available marketing channels to promote your video content and help discover it. This includes using social media accounts and displaying videos on your website (you should use themes and plugins to embed your YouTube videos in your blog).

Conduct Video Content Keyword Research

While Google has become much smarter , it still relies heavily on keywords. For queries with low competition, ranking on youtube.com is easy!

Yes, the first step should be the same as the one you would use for any other content. Having a spreadsheet of high-ranking keywords for your own brand and industry is an important part of the process.

I personally like Serpstat for this because they have a video-specific feature that indicates whether or not a video is currently available to rank for a particular query. You can easily sort and filter for keywords that still fit your niche, so you won't put your video in a group that's already flooded with big names or brands.

To set up Serpstat to search, use the following filters:

SERP Special Elements -> Video Thumbnails

Keyword difficulty -> 1 – 20

This way you'll see queries that have combined video results within the general results and without too much organic competition:

Keyword difficulty is a measure of Serpstat that evaluates the competition for a keyword phrase in the top 10 search results, where:

0 – 20 => pretty easy to rank in the top 10;

21 – 40 => medium organic competition;

41 – 60 => difficult to rank in the top 10;

61 – 100 => very difficult to rank in the top 10.

Since we're primarily looking to dominate low competition queries here, we're focusing on keyword difficulty 1 to 2.

Another cool tool for discovering video content opportunities is Video SEO Tool (Disclaimer: This tool has been developed by the company I work for). The tool checks the top ranking in your domain and retrieves all the videos that rank for the most valuable queries. The tool that analyzes both Google and YouTube search results shows you which video won the race:

Video Optimization Basics

Now, the first two steps are the most important and challenging ones. You may find yourself spending a frantic amount of time coming up with unique ideas and keywords, creating videos, and styling/editing them to perfection. Uploading them to YouTube is the easiest step: Don't skip the basics, though.

It's really simple: Search engines like textual content, so make sure you have plenty of it around videos. Add more content to each video page consists of:

Detailed and attention-grabbing video titles (including the keywords you're targeting)

ONE detailed description (at least 500 – word description of the video subject, or where possible, a full transcript of the video, which you can piece together using services like this)

Other cards

Use the checklist:

Another great idea is to create a clickable table of contents that lists the things to note/subtopics included in the video. Both the pinned description and comments should have a clickable table of contents to engage viewers in the video. This will improve the “deep” views of the video, which is an important factor in YouTube ranking. For example:

YouTube has its own language, interface, and formula. If you optimize based on what you see on the most popular channels, you'll be able to build a strong audience base and get your brand discovered through this powerful platform.