You might think that YouTube is all DIYs and dog videos but it can also be an invaluable resource for businesses and content creators looking to reach their target audiences. If you, like many others, want to maximise your video’s potential, optimising your YouTube SEO is a must. Yes, Youtube is one of the largest video-based search engines in the world, it’s no wonder it is owned by Google.
SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is how your business gets noticed, clicked and viewed, so with the right strategy you can ensure your videos are seen by the right people, every time.
We at White Digital have put together this comprehensive guide to YouTube SEO that will walk you through the basics, as well as best practices and tips to implement. You’ll learn how to optimise your videos for maximum visibility and discover how to use the right keywords and tags to increase your video’s chances of success. So, stop Googling ‘What is Youtube SEO’ and if you’re ready to take your YouTube SEO strategy to the next level, keep reading.
How to Find the Right Keywords
How to optimise your video titles and descriptions
How to choose the right tags for your videos
What is YouTube SEO?
As we stated previously, Google owns YouTube, which is the most popular online video platform and it’s estimated that over one billion hours of videos are watched on YouTube every day. Not only that, but YouTube is also a key source of traffic for businesses looking to promote their brands and products online.
To maximise your video’s reach and placement on YouTube, you need to optimise your videos for the Algorithm and optimise your video titles, descriptions, and tags to include the correct keyword, pretty similar to the way you would add meta titles and tags for your website. If you would like to learn more about SEO for your existing website, or just what exactly SEO is, go to our blog ‘What is SEO? The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide’.
Let’s get into the main benefits of optimising and using Youtube to promote your business.
Benefits of YouTube SEO
There are loads of reasons why your business should have a Youtube Channel and be regularly uploading and optimising. Let’s go through just a few of the many reasons that you should be implementing an SEO strategy below:
- Increases Video View Count – YouTube SEO can help you improve your video metrics like views, watch time, and the number of times your video is played. This means you’ll see an increase in video views, along with a boost in your click-through rate and audience size.
- More Traffic to Your Website – To be visible in YouTube’s search results, your videos need to be found and clicked on by the right people. By optimising your videos for SEO, you’ll increase your site’s traffic by bringing more people to your site and encouraging them to click through to your products, services, and landing pages.
- Better Brand Awareness – When you optimise your videos for SEO, you’re looking to boost your brand awareness by ensuring your video titles and descriptions are optimised for the keywords that best describe your business. This will help you rank higher in search results, and have your video show up more frequently on other pages on YouTube.
- Youtube Videos can be used on your website – Gone are the days of uploading large video files to your website, anything you post to youtube can be linked to your website and the best part is, it’ll have a minimal impact on your website’s loading speed.
YouTube SEO Guidelines
There are, of course, some rules you will need to follow to adhere to Youtube’s guidelines and if you stick to what Youtube wants then usually they will advertise or recommend your video for free.
- Video titles and descriptions keywords – The first step to optimising your videos for SEO is improving your video titles, descriptions, and tags. Take the time to write catchy and descriptive titles and descriptions that include the right keywords, within the tags. Don’t worry, we will go through this in more detail in our sections below.
- Use keywords in the video tags – Next, you want to ensure your video tags are also optimised for the right keywords. You can do this by using the same keywords in the tags as you use in your video titles and descriptions. Using the right keywords in your tags will help increase your video rank, and make your video more visible on other pages and videos on the site.
- Use a keyword density of 20% – To optimise your video titles and descriptions, you also want to ensure your keyword density is at 20% or higher. This will help you to balance the keywords and avoid your video being flagged for keyword over-usage.
- Make sure your video is not edited for Gag Reel or Comedy – Gag reels or comedy videos are typically edited with a lighter hand, have snappy cuts, and are more likely to have mistakes in the editing process which Youtube does not favour.
- Use the right thumbnail – The thumbnail is the preview image that appears on your video, alongside the title and description. Your thumbnail must be optimised for the right keywords, while also being within the recommended dimensions that Youtube provides.
- No copyrighted or inappropriate content – Don’t use copyrighted content or any content that you have not personally made or own, as Youtube can and will penalise you. Also, anything that could be considered graphic will be instantly taken down and your channel could be easily banned.
How to find the right Keywords
We have spoken at length about Keywords and how important they are to a good Youtube SEO strategy, but how do you find the right Keywords? There are a few ways of doing this, firstly think about what your video is, is it a product review, podcast, or even outfit review?
Then, take some inspiration from other content that is similar, have a look at their titles and see if anything sticks out or try and think what you would type into the search bar to get your video to come up. Whatever you search in the search bar, is considered a keyword to find your video, for example, if your video was a tutorial on how to make red shoes, ‘DIY Red Shoes’ or ‘How to make red shoes’ would be your keywords.
YouTube’s algorithm is constantly changing, and it can take time to learn how to find the right keywords for your videos for SEO to get the best results, so it’s sometimes better to call in the experts. We at White Digital are trained and experienced SEO specialists that are happy to help your business grow, see all our SEO services today.
How to optimise your video titles and descriptions
We have spoken at length about how important those video titles and descriptions are and for good reason. This is the first thing people will read on the results page and a great title means you might get more clicks and potentially more sales. Below we have laid out some of the main things to keep in mind when choosing the perfect title and descriptions for your video.
- Make them descriptive – You want to make sure your video title and description are well, descriptive! They should both shortly explain what the video is going to be about or intend to show or teach.
- Choose a keyword that is also a synonym – While choosing a keyword that is also a synonym is useful, you want to make sure you’re not over-using that particular keyword within the title or description. We recommend using it once in the title and once or twice in the description.
- No Slang – Avoid using slang, abbreviations, or excessive punctuation as it could limit your video’s reach to other countries. Your video’s description will also need to be keyword-rich, while also not being found to be over-explaining. To do this, you want to make sure it’s not slang, abbreviations, or excessive punctuation.
- Catchy Titles – Ensure your video title is catchy, you want your audience to think your video is entertaining and be excited to click on it.
- Don’t keyword stuff – As well as using the correct tags and correct keywords in your video titles and descriptions, you also want to avoid keyword over-usage. This can cause your video to be flagged by YouTube and removed from the site, which will result in lost opportunities, and potentially lost traffic.
How to choose the right tags for your videos
Tags are short descriptions used to help categorise and organise video content and can be used to target particular audiences. By using relevant tags for each video, YouTubers can connect with viewers who are interested in the same topics. This can be especially helpful for small or new channels looking to expand their reach. Additionally, tags can help differentiate videos and make them easier to find.
Let’s take a look at some of the main ways you can implement this into your SEO strategy.
- Use relevant, descriptive tags – One key YouTube SEO tip is to use the right tags for your videos. When choosing which tags to use, you want to make sure they’re relevant to your video and describe the content you have created.
- Avoid keyword over-usage of tags – Another key YouTube SEO tip is to avoid keyword over-usage of tags. This means that each tag you use should have a unique keyword, while not being keyword-stuffed, or over-explained.
- Avoid using generic, broad tags – These tags are too broad and don’t provide enough information about your videos, which will cause your videos to be removed from Youtube or never be visited due to the number of videos competing for these tags.
We hope you have found this information useful, if you would like help improving your Youtube SEO strategy or need a refresh of your entire website’s digital marketing strategy, get in contact with us today.
