Video marketing is one of the most interesting realities in the industry. The statistics are clear in this regard: it will be increasingly important to invest in visual content, especially in what manages to synthesize emotions and information. On the other hand, however, new needs arise. And we try to understand how to improve the ranking on YouTube of the videos you upload on this platform linked to the Google universe.
Yes, because these videos have to be uploaded somewhere, and usually YouTube offers a great service to those who work in this sector. Because you can embed videos, insert them on web pages and also share them on various social channels. You can make money with YouTube, but it all depends on how you manage to position your content on this platform. You need to improve your video ranking to be found.
It is not easy, I say it right away. And there are no certain results. But there is an art behind video placement. There is real SEO on YouTube to get good results. Or in any case to try and challenge those who rank high. How does all this happen? Here are the tips to highlight a video by optimizing some basic aspects (but effective in terms of the final result) of on-page optimization.
Find keywords for YouTube
Ranking on YouTube is important, but for what? I mean, what is the goal you need to achieve? You know well that thinking in terms of positioning and SEO optimization does not make sense if you do not have a clear idea of the point you want to achieve. A point that often goes beyond appearances, and that you must address with good keyword research. Namely with an analysis of the keywords useful for your universe.
To work in this direction you can use the various SEO tools to explore the various searches made by users, and which deserve your attention. But I recommend first of all to analyze the suggestions that come from the YouTube search bar: the completion has the same characteristics as Google and tells you what people are looking for around the keyword you typed. To complete the job you can use Keyword.io, Ubersuggest, and Hypersuggest which have specific filters to search for keywords on YouTube.
Once you have found the keywords that interest you, you can create a good mind map to organize the contents. Immediately after, you create an editorial calendar to define the dates of the publications.
Edit the title tag of your video
What is the most important element for good on-page SEO optimization? The title tag, as always. This is true when you want to improve your YouTube ranking. To communicate the main theme of the content to the search engine, you must insert the most important keywords, possibly at the beginning of the string.
Use keywords in the video description
That’s not the point: you don’t have to use this field to overwhelm your content with text designed to satisfy that phantom keyword density. It does not work like this. The description of a video you want to use for YouTube ranking must take advantage of the basic rules of SEO copywriting: write for people, not search engines. Surprised? You shouldn’t, what the public likes is always liked by Google.
The step is this: you need to understand what your audience wants. That’s why I tackled the topic related to keyword research: only in this way can you discover the needs, the questions, the needs of the public. And you can add some useful text in the description, not just a lorem ipsum of circumstance or a list of keywords that have no chance of piercing the interests of the audience you want to conquer.
Encourage visits, engagement, sharing
Many underestimate this point. The video preview is decisive for attracting the audience to your video. Not everyone knows that there are several factors related to the positioning of videos on YouTube that affect audience behavior. Backlinko published research with the main elements of a video ranking on YouTube and highlighted the importance of public behavior:
- Comments
- Shares
- Time spent on the video
- Like
So you have to do everything you can to bring people to your video and push towards real and virtuous engagement. For example, by creating a captivating cover image, inserting a musical theme and a small summary to anticipate the issues addressed in the content, facilitating the embedded video in contextualized web pages. And perhaps by crossing the editorial plan of the other social networks with YouTube publications.
Make the most of YouTube video tags
Another aspect to consider for YouTube ranking: the well-defined use of video tags can have advantages in SEO optimization. How many tags can you put on YouTube? You have 500 characters, use them to help the search engine understand your content. Which tags to use? The rule is simple
Carefully define generic and specific tags, create separate lists and enrich them with keyword research operations. But you can get a good extra result with VidIQ, a Google Chrome extension to discover the tags (and other information) of viral car insurance videos, the most successful ones.
Optimize the video file before uploading it
What is the basic operation you need to follow before uploading the YouTube video? First of all, I suggest you create a file that suits your needs, light enough but without giving up a basic element: quality. A poor video is not liked, it is not shared and it does not prompt the public to embed it. These signals are important, remember that ranking on YouTube is about people’s satisfaction.
Is this enough to optimize the video file before uploading? No, you can do something more. For example, it is useful to create an SEO-optimized filename. This means that the name of the video that will be uploaded does not have to be a combination of numbers and letters, you have to describe the content you are about to upload.
Ranking on YouTube: your experience
What’s your YouTube experience? Were you able to have a good optimization to position the videos? Have you increased your views thanks to your on-page SEO activity? Not everything depends on what you do on your YouTube account card, it is often the behavior of users that creates the conditions for good positioning. But at this point your ability to understand what to create, how to package the content comes into play. The work of content marketing is always in motion and with different nuances. Do you agree?
