In this guide to YouTube SEO, I’m going to show you how to increase visibility and rankings for your videos on YouTube.

YouTube has been growing its impact on the digital marketing industry since it has successfully merged advertising and video content via its online search channel. Data from Statista, a statistics portal for market and consumer data, shows that in 2021, there are approximately 203.8 million YouTube users in the United States, and based on the 3^rd quarter 2020 data, 62% of YouTube users accessed the platform on a daily basis, and 92% of users responded that they used the platform weekly.

So if you want to reach your target audiences at scale, we highly recommend you to include YouTube marketing in your marketing strategies and optimize your videos for more exposure.

Before we dive into how to rank higher on YouTube, let’s look at the basic principle behind the YouTube ranking process.

How Does YouTube Rank Your Videos?

YouTube uses its advanced algorithm to decide how well the title, description, and video content match the viewer’s query (the audience’s search); Therefore, we should get the algorithm and the audience to love your videos!

If you want to get more views and traffics from YouTube, stay with me to the end of the YouTube SEO guide. There is a bonus tip at the end!

The strategies in this post helped me grow my client’s video from single-digit views to three- or four-digit views for a single video in her new channel.

Let’s dive right in:

Strategy #1: Find the Right YouTube Keyword for Your Video

First of all, generate a list of keyword ideas. There are several ways to find potential YouTube keywords:

• Make the best use of the YouTube Search Suggest Feature. It is free and easy. All you need to do is go on YouTube and type in a word or a phrase in the search box; then, you will get a list of keywords related to what you typed in.

These keywords are legit because these are popular queries that people search.

• Search a popular video on your topic or in your niche and make a list of the exact keywords they used. You are able to find keywords your competitor used in its video’s title, description, and video tags. This is easy. Just find out the words or phrases they used repeatedly. If you want to bring this strategy to another level, check out YouTube SEO toolkits like Tubebuddy, which will help automatically analyze your competitors’ videos or similar videos.

Second, find the best keyword from your list that best fits your video and your channel. If your YouTube channel is new, you may want to skip the “most popular” keywords on your list since the first few search result pages were already occupied by those channels with a hundred thousand and millions of followers. So, you want to target low-competition keywords. Again, you can use Tubebuddy to find low- competition keywords, and I have also used Ubersuggest to find low-competition keywords by looking at the search difficulty score.

If you decide not to use any of these tools, you can go to Google and guess which keywords have high or low competition by simply typing your keyword into the search bar and note how many results it brings up.

Strategy #2:  Follow the YouTube Video Optimization Best Practices

Create Effective Video Title and Thumbnail

The first thing that your audience sees is the title or the thumbnail of your video and that’s often what determines whether they will click to watch your video. So, it is better to make the title and the thumbnail effective, catchy, and concise. Most importantly, include your keyword!!!

Here are tips drew from Youtube Creator Academy:

• Keep titles concise (60 characters) with the most important information upfront.
• Avoid using misleading, clickbait, or sensational thumbnails and titles since violations on thumbnails may result in your custom thumbnail being removed.

Optimize Your Video Description

Video description helps YouTube understands the content of your video. Include your keyword in the first and second sentences so that the YouTube bot will crawl your keyword immediately! But remember, include your keyword smartly and try not to spam it into the description.

You can also include related hashtags (#) at the end of the description to help audiences find your video when they search for a specific hashtag.

Use Video Tags

YouTube Tags enable you to enter relevant keywords to increase video exposure. I recommend using the TSC Tagging formula to tag your video:

• Target keyword: Include the exact target keyword (Example: “Digital Marketing”)
• Synonym: Include a few variations of the target keyword (Example: “Online Marketing”)
• Category: Include tags on other topics that the video covers (Example: “Search engine marketing”, “Website development”)

Generally, around 10- 12 tags should be enough.

Add Video Cards and End Screens

Using video cards and end screens can effectively direct your viewers to another video or playlist in your channel. It is a fantastic way to promote your channel and other great videos you have. Remember to make sure your viewers are well aware of the cards and end screen by telling them where they are and encouraging them to click.

Increase Video Engagement Signals

With more video engagement, YouTube will think that your video is highly relevant to the audience’s interest and will rank your video higher. So how do you boost your video’s engagement?

• Encourage your audiences to comment below and share their point of view.
• Encourage “Subscribes” after watching your video
• Encourage your audiences to “Thumbs up” for your video if they like your content.

Optimize Your Channel Page

Optimize your channel page will help your channel rank on YouTube and get more subscribers, which means indirectly improve your ranking.

First of all, you need to have a professional, clean, consistent channel page. Then, include keywords in your channel description naturally without being spammy. Lastly, create Playlists based on topics. The Playlists is one of my favorite promotional tools on YouTube because it automatically plays every video in the playlist!

Strategy #3: Keep Tracking the Audience Retention

According to YouTube, audience retention is a KEY ranking factor! Audience retention indicates how much of a video people watch. The longer your viewers keep watching the video, the more YouTube believes your video has been keeping viewers happy and will rank your video higher. Therefore, it is great to use this retention data to optimize your next video creation for a longer view time. To see the report, you can go to your YouTube Studio.

Here’s the explanation from YouTube on four common audience retention situations: 

Strategy # 4: Promote Your Video Everywhere

More views on your video mean a better chance the video can rank higher. So, share your video on social media, embed your video in your blog post, put your video on your website; the more traffic you get for each video, the better your video will rank!

Bonus: YouTube #Shorts

YouTube has begun rolling out its YouTube Shorts to the US since March 2021. It is exactly the best time for creators to take advantage of YouTube’s promotion on the Shorts videos. It is simple to get on the trend:

• Upload a vertical video up to 60 seconds
• Use #Shorts in the title or description of your video 

Well, if you like my SEO strategies on how to rank higher on YouTube, hit the like button, share my blog with your friends, sign up for our newsletter! I will share more valuable strategies on YouTube marketing and digital marketing in the future.

Lastly, let me know which strategy from today’s post are you going to try first?