Ways to Optimize YouTube Videos for Better Search Rankings
You Tube’s not the only world’s leading video uploading solution but is next to Google in terms of garnering highest online searches. In fact, it has over 1 billion subscribers who are continuously thronging its website to pile up unlimited hours of views on a daily basis. And the number just keeps ticking over. And the tally goes to more than 684,931 years in terms of its online viewership per month.
According to an last year’s online survey by TNS, it was found to get the feel of the product that You Tube’s domain is being searched across by the buyers of autos, beauty products and mobile phone, before making a purchase. The survey showed that 72% of recent car buyers and 62% of new smartphone owners searched YouTube for getting more insightful “Product Visualization”.
“YouTube helps me learn about products through how-to videos, product reviews or even ads better than any other web site.”
It’s hardly a surprise why a large number of smart brands are using this medium to provide a virtual test drive of their products and piling up information through the How to videos section. This is the reason why YouTube’s “How to videos” section’s popularity is growing at a rate of 70% per annum. Click here for further insights on its growing presence.
Our previous article, Leverage Your Video Content Like the Pros to Skyrocket Your Site’s Traffic, explained all the great reasons to host videos on your own website. Now, in this article, we’ll show you all the ways you can leverage your YouTube videos in order to acquire new traffic for your sites.
Adding to the stat, nearly half of the online video searches end up as You Tube views is self-more than explanatory in itself of the capabilities of YouTube’s platform as a premium video sharing entity to drive traffic to your site. But in order to fully tap its desired traffic generating potential, you’ll have to optimize for it, which can be done by following the process as below.
Effective Keyword Research for Videos
In order to get started with your video optimization process, look for relevant and appropriate keywords as a part of your video promotional strategy.
The basics requirement for the medium will remain the same, but the demographics of your targeted user base may slightly differ. Fortunately, YouTube tools can be leveraged to the needful.
- YouTube Search Suggestions – when you enter a query in you tube’s search box, it will display entries using highest traffic terms. These suggestions as such are often personalized if you happen search them while logging in to your account. But you can also look for long tail keywords if that doesn’t suit your requirements.
- Google Trends – It will show you as to which direction your keyword’s search volume is heading. Is it a trending topic or bygone matter? This tool will yield a killer keyword along with its popular search location which can be compared with the former one to test its overall effectiveness in the longer run.
- Google Keyword Planner Tool – This tool can be leveraged to get hold of the “hot phrases”, which can be effectively garner millions of hits for your videos. It will provide you with an array of unknown keywords that never existed in your vocabulary.
YouTube’s Organic Ranking Signals
The Organic video ranking signals are those video features which can be indexed by the search engine bot. They are your video information similar to the text but aren’t related anyway to traffic or social metrics. Just enter you video’s URL in the required search space to view all your video’s metadata information. These are the required guidelines before you proceed further to generate other signals.
- Title – The title of your video is of utmost importance and needs to be carefully optimized. The character limit of 100 words will be indexed by You Tube and that means you can use 40-60 characters to highlight important video information for YouTube to display it across various locations in its search result.
- Description – This provides you with ample space to highlight video related information in about 5000 character limit. You can do well to use only 200 character space to come up with necessary video highlighting information, which is what you tube displays to your viewers.
It’s advisable to put your website URL (or link to your blog post) within the initial part of your video description by
using the: http://www.yourdomain.com format. Despite YouTube nofollows these links but they have the ability to generate high dose of desired traffic volume to your site. - For your local SEO requirements, you can include your NAP citation (Company Name, contact address and contact number) into the description section.
- Raw Video File Name – Similar to your webpage’s file name, be precise with the title name of your uploaded video which is just a minor ranking signal in Google’s SERP’s.
- Tags – Similar to your title and description, use only the most important keywords. Besides that, use the name of your brand, company’s name in the tag information to get featured in related searches. Its hidden information but it still have the power to influence your video search rankings.
- Category – Don’t neglect to properly categorize your video which can also affect your search rankings. You Tube can also automatically do it for you but it’s advisable that you select your video category yourself that best suits your requirements.
- Video Thumbnail – Thumbnail images helps to increase the overall click-ability ratio of your uploaded videos. Hence you can select any of the three you tube recommended images or else upload a new custom image (or an image of 2MB file size, in case your YouTube account is 30 days old) from your desktop. But if you violate YouTube’s community norms then the due privilege may be revoked altogether.
- Location -You can geotag your videos with intended location for your local SEO requirements so that when someone searches your video, location will show up as latitudes and longitudes of your video shot location.
- Google Places – Ensure that the account that you use posting You Tube videos is the one you log in as your Google Place Page. This is a great way to increase both your video views and Place Page of your brand.
- Dates – YouTube displays your uploaded video content with respect to their upload date.
Don’t worry about them, since they have no influence on your search rankings. - Language – Select the desired form of language on the basis of your targeted demographics.
- Privacy – When you are finished with your final video touch up, make sure that you set the the video for public viewing from the initial private setting option.
- Video Quality – The quality of your video is of utmost important. Ensure that you use 1080p HD with16:9 video format capabilities to not only enhance your viewers experience but also improve your video search rankings.
- Syndication – Select YES for syndicating your videos for mobile and TV platform to attract more audience to your video searches.
- Annotations – They are pretty useful CTA buttons within your video. You can use it to create links within your YouTube channel. This is more effective as its right in front of your viewing audience.
- Cards – This is a new inclusive You Tube feature , which functions similar to your annotations tab. You can select any of the six cards options such as Merchandise, Fundraising, Video, Playlist, Associated Website and Fan Funding. Besides that, cards are created as a possible annotations replacement in future. So, play your cards well. You can even watch a YouTube video to know more about it.
- Closed Captions – YouTube fills this entry automatically for you. So, no need to do it manually to accrue any SEO benefits as such.
External YouTube Ranking Signals
Similar to the Google search functionality, YouTube’s search considers ranking videos based on the external as well as organic factors. So, you can do well to consider some options as below
- Views & Frequency – The more the better both in terms of garnering video views and frequency of views. You can influence these numbers by sharing them across your social presence such as Facebook, Google+, your website and other related sites.
- Comments – Comments are sign of the user interaction but they are not important metric to boost your search rankings as such. It’s better to avoid some negative or spam comments on your videos. You can even block some spam users if you wish to do so.
- View Duration – Your video view duration counts as such when your video is watched for 8 secs. You can do your best when creating a new video by ensuring the viewer stays with your video for at least 8 secs. This is an important metric for your search ranking.
- Thumbs Up & Down – The more Thumbs Up the better than Thumbs Down for increase your video’s search ranking.
- Embedding & Inbound Links -Embedding your video helps in terms of increasing your video views and search rankings as well. Hence, maximize your sharing these links in your website, social media presence and other online forums.
- Playlist and Favorites Saves – Add your videos in Playlists category so that user can tag your video as favorites or add in their own playlist, which also adds up to your search ranking.
- Shares – The more the shares, the better your search rankings.
- Favorites – It is seen as a positive sign when viewers favorite your videos.
Additional YouTube Video Promotion Tips
- Playlist and Favorites Saves – Add your videos in Playlists category so that user can tag your video as favorites or add in their own playlist, which also adds up to your search ranking.
- Shares – The more the shares, the better your search rankings.
- Favorites – It is seen as a positive sign when viewers favorite your videos.
YouTube Partner Program
After optimizing your videos for better search rankings, you can also partner YouTube channel by monetizing and verifying your channel. Read YouTube’s guidelines on the same before you consider opting monetization.
Readers: Want to add something? Just put your views in the comments section below.
