GET STARTEd
These 7 Video Optimization Tips Take YouTube Channel Growth To New Heights
JAN 19 2023

If used consistently as part of your marketing strategy, YouTube can be a valuable tool to expand your business. However, as a creator, you probably already know that growing your YouTube channel isn't as easy as it seems.

Creating engaging and high-quality content is the beginning of a YouTube success story, but it's only half the battle. SEO techniques, high-quality content, emotional marketing, and cross-sharing can help brands expand their reach and improve the online presence and engagement of their videos.  

It would be exciting to rank high in the search engine results for the biggest, most popular video platform on the web, right? So keep reading and by the end of this edit, you’ll be equipped with 7 amazing tips to boost your YouTube channel growth.

Why Invest in Your YouTube Channel?

You may (or may not) have doubts about whether YouTube is the best platform for your goals.

Using YouTube to promote your brand and business is an effective strategy for all types of businesses. It doesn’t matter if you work for a multinational corporation, a startup, or a university, you simply cannot ignore the power of video. And if you want to include video in your content promotion, then YouTube would be the best choice. 

Why? Because every video content creator can use YouTube to publish video content for viewers and connect with an estimated 2 billion monthly active users on the world's second-biggest network. Don’t forget that a wide variety of businesses, content creators, teenagers, seniors, public figures, and media sources use YouTube, and any of them could be your viewer.

In addition, YouTube is a great tool for promoting your brand, improving SEO efforts, and generating traffic and sales. When you use YouTube in your business marketing strategy, your website's authority rises as well. And as your website becomes more authoritative in Google's eyes, every page of your site will get better rankings.

Video has now become one of the main content formats for both entertainment and marketing purposes thanks to this platform. If you are reading this, you already know that it's time to begin investing time and money into video production. We would be glad to hear from you if so, so please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

Video Content Marketing for The Win

There has always been a fascination with - sometimes even a dependence on - video content among humans. Over the past few years, this has become more and more apparent. In the wake of the pandemic, 68% have changed their video-watching habits - and 96% are now spending more time watching videos.

Videos are not only more entertaining, but viewers also absorb information from them more readily than any other type of content. According to studies, viewers can recall 95% of a message after watching it, whereas reading it only results in a 10% retention rate.

In Wyzowl's State of Video Marketing Survey, 68% of respondents said they would be interested in learning about a new product or service through a concise video. That’s an excellent opportunity for you to produce engaging content related to people’s interests.

In addition, B2B buyers favor video content over written content, with 95% stating that video plays a significant role in their decision-making process. These are all reasons why video is becoming a vital tool for marketing, business development, education, and customer support.

If you want to turn your visitors into customers, video content should be at the core of your sales and promotion campaigns. However, with so many individuals posting videos on the internet and so much video content already available on YouTube — which is growing at an exponential rate every day — what can marketers do to make their content distinguishable, and what can they do to drive growth?

7 YouTube Channel Optimization Tips

As with any search engine, YouTube video rankings are based on a sophisticated algorithm, but take care not to get bogged down in analyzing each individual factor. Instead, just remember what search engines are designed to do: to present searchers with high-quality and relevant content based on their search criteria.

Whenever a user enters a search term on YouTube, the platform's crawlers scan across all the channels and videos to provide the most relevant results. In order to accomplish this, the algorithm analyzes a number of factors, including channel engagement and a variety of optimization variables.

The goal is to make YouTube analytics aware of what your video content provides and how it might benefit the audience. That’s how you can be sure of a high number of views and engagement when your videos are optimized.

Note: Before optimizing videos, understand that YouTube has two algorithms. First, YouTube's recommendation algorithm determines which content appears on its homepage as well as in its suggested video section. Additionally, there is the YouTube search algorithm, which organizes search results. The information in this section, and all that follows, refers to YouTube's search algorithm.

Finding & Choosing Channel Keywords 

There are millions of people using YouTube search every day to find videos about video games, beauty products, e-commerce, and other topics.

The message is simple: Chances are good that someone from your target market is looking for one of your videos at this very moment. And if you can figure out what keywords they're searching for (and optimize your video accordingly), you can get your video right on top of their search results.

And let’s not forget about your channel keywords. YouTube channel keywords are used to provide YouTube with contextual information about your channel category. Therefore, your keywords play a crucial role in attracting more viewers to your YouTube channel.

Even though you know that it is important to do research and choose the right keywords for your video creation, you should also brainstorm what keywords you would like to rank for in search engine results. Consider finding niche keywords that match your company's mission and vision, rather than just looking at what ranks highest or has the lowest competition.

SEO experts also recommend using questions as keywords, since many users tailor their search by interacting with smart devices (Siri, Cortana, etc.) or search engines themselves.

Optimizing your channel keywords in the right way will boost each video's search engine ranking on your channel. As a matter of fact, a YouTube ranking factors study found that channel keywords contributed to higher YouTube search rankings in a minor but meaningful way.

Title & Thumbnail

YouTube pays special attention to your videos’ click-through rate (CTR). And what is the most effective way to increase your CTR? Put your best foot forward with compelling thumbnails and titles. Also, don't worry about including brand names in title tags (they're usually part of the channel name anyway), and concentrate on what matters instead.

YouTube videos that naturally include relevant keywords in their titles are stronger contenders in YouTube searches. Your title is often the first thing viewers see and the factor that influences their decision to watch your video. So do your keyword research first, then check out who is competing for those keywords before creating a title.

Titles with fewer characters tend to perform better, but performance declines as the number of characters increase beyond 50. This finding indicates that concise video titles tend to perform better than lengthy and complicated ones.

And don’t forget about the thumbnail. A video's thumbnail image is in fact more significant than its title when it comes to capturing YouTube users. No matter how well you optimize your SEO, without an appealing thumbnail, no one will click on your video.

YouTube Channel Optimization Through SEO

The importance of video SEO in growing a successful YouTube channel cannot be overstated. As a matter of fact, SEO is often cited as the biggest reason for the popularity of YouTube channels by YouTube stars. 

Note that YouTube SEO does not only optimize videos for YouTube's search engine, but also for all other major search engines such as Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo, among others. 

But compared to Google and others, which put a lot of weight on backlinks, domain metrics, and various other factors when it comes to ranking, YouTube SEO essentially involves optimizing the factors within your control: Creating awesome videos and promoting them with proper metadata, subtitles, playlists, and so forth.

You’ve already become familiar with three of the most crucial aspects of SEO, including:

With YouTube SEO, you can directly reach out to people who are searching for your videos and connect with a broader audience. This mostly has to do with how many views your video has received and how well it is positioned within a particular category.

Shorter Isn’t Always Better

In spite of what you might have read about the popularity of short videos so far (which is in fact, correct,) longer videos actually do better on YouTube. Try searching for something on YouTube right now and you’ll find that long videos tend to rank well.

Why do you think that is?

On January 13, a spokesperson for YouTube had an interview with the Wall Street Journal and discussed the objectives of the Google Platform for the year. He explained that they plan to offer free television channels, allowing YouTube to compete with other services similar to Pluto TV.

It's clear that  competing with television is one of YouTube's objectives if they want to charge ad rates similar to television. They are always seeking top-notch, lengthy content so they can run more ads and capture users' attention for longer periods of time. 

This does not imply, however, that you should drag out your videos for as long as you can. This simply means that you should focus on answering questions completely and comprehensively rather than dividing a video into three separate chapters.

Video Quality

It is a proven fact that HD videos are more popular with YouTube users – 68.2% of the videos on YouTube's first page have HD quality. Naturally, the platform prefers it too.

It makes sense when you consider it this way: People wouldn't share low-quality videos, would they? Therefore, when YouTube notices that viewers are sharing your video, it assumes: “ Wow, this must be really good material ” and you'll rank higher for it.

The first thing you need to do is make sure that you use a good camera (with HD or 4K recording capabilities) to capture the video. When necessary, renting a video camera or investing in a good one can be helpful. 

It is also possible to upload videos using your phone camera, given that it shoots high-quality videos.

Emotional Connection & Empathic Reactions

There is a lot more to YouTube than just gaining views or promoting your business: The goal is to build a subscriber list that will last for years. So your video shouldn't just inform your viewers, but show that you are concerned about their problems and how you can assist them. 

Determine who your niche audience is;­ they are the ones you will have the most success with and those who stick with you. If you are authentic with your audience, they are more likely to trust you, so get to know your community and show how much you care about them.

One of the most powerful abilities of video is to evoke empathy by inspiring viewers to identify with another's feelings. Using both intellect and passion to connect with potential customers can make your marketing plan more effective. It encourages greater social sharing, purchasing, brand loyalty, and affinity.  

Embed Relevant Videos On Your Website

Utilize cross-promotional opportunities. It is natural that social networks are the first to come to mind when we think of cross-content promotion. This is indeed an excellent place to start your video marketing campaign. However, if you want to increase your video views, improve your overall YouTube reach, and show up in Google search results, put your videos on your website! 

If you thought that this would lead to people staying on your website longer, you were right. Offering your viewers multiple ways to consume your content – through text, images, charts, and videos – enhances viewer engagement and makes your content suitable for a variety of learning styles.

Adding links to your website and YouTube content can also help you earn some traffic and get found by Google. Besides that, you can post your videos on forums or blogs that are relevant to the discussion topic.

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

Learn More About Video Content Marketing With Driver Studio

There's no better way to turn viewers into buyers than with video marketing. A video combining imagery, text, and audio effectively conveys a great deal of information. Yes, it is a skill that must be mastered, but when done right, it’s unbeatable.

Are you looking for help creating videos that are perfect for your business? Do you wish to leverage professional expertise to boost your YouTube channel growth and reach more viewers?

Whether you need engaging video, interesting kid-friendly content, or ways to reach young audiences on a COPPA-compliant network, you can count on ِDriver Studios for help.

In addition to content strategy and analytical reporting, our team helps you reach your target market by creating, planning, and promoting engaging content to achieve greater results. You can connect your brand to millions of viewers by using our custom YouTube channel growth and optimization plan designed to boost SEO, visibility, and channel traffic.

YouTube Channel Growth - A Final Word 

YouTube ranks videos based on a number of factors, including video quality, video title and thumbnail relevance, subtitles and descriptions, and channel keywords that match the searcher's intent. 

As you read, text-based marketing complements video marketing well. So do infographics, illustrations, gifs, and all the tools available. However, if we had to place a bet on which marketing budget will yield the best results, video would win. 

In 2023, the video format continues to be popular, making your YouTube channel growth one of your most important marketing tools. YouTube is currently only behind Google (the site's owner) in terms of global traffic, and now is the best time to invest in your YouTube channel growth. 

GET STARTEd