How to Optimize Videos for YouTube Search

Are you looking to get started with YouTube video marketing?

That’s a smart marketing plan for your online business. With audiences for every genre, YouTube can benefit your online business in a number of ways.

That’s not all!

YouTube gets over 5 billion views per day and is the number 2 search engine in the world!

When you optimize your YouTube videos properly for search, you can gain exposure to your brand, get more customers, more sales and create a real community around your online brand.

Today I’m going to show you 4 powerful YouTube SEO tips to help you rank videos in YouTube.

The Power of YouTube Marketing

Before I get into some powerful YouTube video optimization tips, I want to show you why creating videos is so important to grow your business online.

If you are a blogger, that’s awesome! Blogging is not going away anytime soon.

But …

More people are watching videos than ever before and that number continues to grow exponentially. When you combine blogging with YouTube videos, you can create a powerful online brand!

Here are some mind blowing facts about YouTube:

• 6 out of 10 people prefer online video platforms to live TV
• In an average month, 8 out of 10 18-49 year-olds watch YouTube.
• YouTube reaches more 18-34 and 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the U.S.
• YouTube growth over the last 2 years is up 60% year-over-year. The number of hours that people watch videos on YouTube has grown like crazy.

For these reasons and many more, using YouTube videos as a marketing strategy to complement your blog is more important than ever.

Proof of Using YouTube SEO to Get Maximum Video Results

When I first started making YouTube videos, I had no idea what I was doing!

I figured out a few YouTube SEO tips and tricks along the way that helped me understand how to get more traffic and build an audience for my videos.

Here are two examples of my videos on YouTube that got a ton of traffic without any promotion at all.

The good news?

I only used SEO for video to drive the traffic. I call it “one and done.”

You can see that for the YouTube keyword search term, my video ranks in the number one position in search with over 52,000 views.  This video also has hundreds of comments.

In Google search for the same query, my video has been the Featured Snippet at the top of the search results for a long time.

Here’s another video of mine. It ranks in the number 2 position both in YouTube and Google search and has over 25,000 views. That is with NO additional promotion at all! It’s all YouTube optimization for video!

YouTube SEO Steps to get Top Search Rankings

Now that you can see I actually get thousands of views on videos, let’s get into the key steps to rank your videos high in YouTube.

YouTube uses an algorithm, much like Google to determine which videos best match a user query. Since the algorithm doesn’t understand your video content, it relies on other elements to figure it out, like title, description, and tags (also called meta data).

Refer to this image for the meta data examples.

Step 1: Create an Engaging Video

The first step is to create your amazing video! I won’t get into video creation here too much since I am going to mainly focus on other video optimization tips.

But …

You should know that the majority of viewers drop off with the first 10 to 15 second of a video. You have to capture your audience’s attention in those first 10 seconds to keep them engaged throughout the rest of the video.

If they leave before they really hear your message, that can affect your YouTube search rankings.

Use YouTube analytics to gain information about how engaged your viewers are.

Step 2: Create a Compelling Title for Your Video

When people search for videos to watch, a compelling title can make the difference between someone choosing to view your video or not.

Make sure your title includes the keywords you want to rank for. It should also be clear and concise so views understand what your video is about. YouTube video titles have a character limitation of 100.

Here are two ways to create title for YouTube videos (or blog posts):

• Fresh Title to get ideas for great titles.
• CoSchedule Headline Analyzer to analyze headlines.

Step 3: Create a YouTube Video Description

Write a clear description for your video that explains what your video is about. Include your keywords in the description.

The description has a 5000 character limitation. Use as much as you like. The most important part is the beginning.

Highlight the most important information at the beginning of your video description. Keep your first couple of sentence to 150 characters or less. When your video shows up in search, these first sentences appear. I don’t recommend including a link in this up front information. Anything below this requires a viewer to click to see more.

You can see in these search results, the videos include enough information in the first 150 characters to let a person know what the video is about.

When it appears in search, the viewer will know right away what your video is about. Be sure to include links in your description for your website, affiliate products or your own products.

Step 4: Create YouTube Video Tags

Creating tags can help your videos rank better. Do some research before you go on a tagging craze. YouTube tags are limited to 500 characters total.

Your tags should be congruent with the content of your video and its description.

For example, if your video is about dogs, but you use tags about cats, that would not be a good practice! It can actually hurt your YouTube search rankings. If people think your video is about cats and it’s not, they will leave after a couple of seconds which hurts your audience retention numbers.

I recommend using about 10 tags for your video. Include the specific keyword phrase as well as related keywords.

• One word Tags: These are one-word keywords that represent the topic at hand.
• Multiword Tags: These are multiple-word tags.
• Generic Tags: These are words like how-to, tutorial, and vlog.

Set a default or unique tags for your videos. When you include a unique tag in all your video, you have a better chance of your videos showing up in the suggested videos when your video is finished playing as well as the right side of the page.

Final Thoughts

Ranking your videos high in YouTube search can get you a ton of traffic! If you create videos that are congruent with your blog posts, be sure to embed them in your posts.

This will get you even more exposure!