YouTube is the world's largest video-streaming platform and offers a wide range of videos for everyone to enjoy. Users of all ages find YouTube to be one of the most user-friendly platforms, and its diversity is truly spectacular.
Music video fans, gaming buffs, and people who are into how-to guides or unboxing videos, product videos, free or paid YouTube movies, or movie reviews; are all loyal subscribers of millions of YouTube channels.
This provides brands with an incredible opportunity to reach viewers around the globe. You must, however, utilize YouTube video optimization services if you want your video to rank higher and be featured on YouTube.
Before continuing to talk about how you can benefit from this platform, it is important to look at some data and facts in order to gain a better understanding of the platform.
What does all this data mean to you as a business? If you count on video marketing as one of the tools to promote your business, by all means, you need to be on YouTube. However, given the overwhelming number of videos distributed on the platform, there is no chance of success if you have no strategy to optimize your video for SEO and better rankings.
The good news is that Google, a data-driven mega-company, bought YouTube in 2006. So with every video and every channel on YouTube, comes up-to-date and accurate metrics and statistics you can implement to perform better and work smarter with the platform.
There are many contributing factors to the success or failure of a YouTube video. The main deciding element is the video optimization metrics that can make or break your success. In today's article, we look at some of the best tips and tricks to thrive on this platform with YouTube video optimization services.
It is not enough to only create content on YouTube. Even if you make the best content in the world, you still need to show YouTube how to rank it. If you don’t improve your SEO or refuse to use YouTube video optimization services, your videos are bound to get lost in the ocean of video content created daily by millions of users.
Here are the best YouTube video optimization guidelines you want to know. Feel free to check our collection of YouTube Channel Growth Tips on our website.
The first step is to do keyword research for your videos; that is, to make sure your videos are found when users search for keywords. Popular websites for keyword searching include:
After you find and list your best matches for keywords, you can place them in the following positions:
Your job is not over with the keywords. You need more clues to show YouTube how to rank and categorize your video. YouTube recommends you use your tags to inform viewers about your video topic. In addition, this lets YouTube know what you are going to talk about in your video.
Why would you want to do this? Because by doing so, YouTube puts your video side by side with similar videos, making your content more visible. If you want to take advantage of irrelevant but popular tags in your video, YouTube might find your content spam or scam and punish you for that. Therefore, choose and use your tags wisely and carefully.
The video description space on YouTube offers another chance for YouTube video optimization. Here also you have limitations for only 5000 characters, but it is enough to explain even the longest videos. Your video descriptions can include a call-to-action (CTA) or link to download more materials or your other social media links.
According to Baclinko’s research, there is no relation between using keywords in video descriptions and YouTube rankings. But as a general rule, it is a good idea to use some of your keywords in the descriptions; because they can still rank in the “suggested video” category.
You can use hashtags in the video description, but be careful not to go to extremes because YouTube might target you as a spammer and flag your video. Use two or three hashtags; ones that are accurate and relevant to your video description.
What you should know about search engines is that they crawl text and don’t understand videos. That said, YouTube provides automatic captions for your videos. But whenever it substitutes parts that the engines cannot understand with the auto-captions, it is the start of problems for your videos.
YouTube auto-captions are 70% accurate, and sometimes they may create incomprehensible captions. Google considers this “automatically generated gibberish” as spam. Therefore, you lose search engine ranks on your channel.
Closed captions can be created by providing an SRT file for your video. Your content will be ranked more accurately and fairly now that search engines understand it better. If you don’t have transcripts of your video ready for use, the quickest solution is to send your video to websites that can transcribe your video files into text in a professional manner.
Video transcription platforms also transcribe videos into text using automated machines and while they’re not 100% error-free, they do most of the job for you efficiently.
The process of creating and syncing captions with your videos has two benefits:
Your video thumbnails are not direct ranking factors for your video, but who wouldn’t want to click on a well-designed thumbnail? Thumbnails and your video titles tell viewers what your video is all about. Try to have a visual representation of your target keywords. Some YouTubers with millions of followers hire designers for their YouTube videos because they understand its huge impact on clicks and viewers.
YouTube creates auto-generated thumbnails if you don’t create them yourself and they limit your options, to say the least. There are free apps like Canva that you can use to create professional-looking thumbnails in a few clicks. Also, you need to be verified to upload a custom thumbnail image. You can verify your account on YouTube easily by following the instructions YouTube provides you.
What is the first thing you pay attention to when you search for videos on YouTube? You read the titles and glance at the thumbnails, which determines whether you watch the video or not. As mentioned before, it is a good idea to add your target keywords to your titles. Here are some more guidelines that help you write compelling titles:
While watching videos on YouTube, you may have seen a little white circle with the letter ”i” inside of it that appears on the top corner of the video. YouTube calls these info cards, elements to make your video interactive. You can add up to 5 cards to a video and use them in multiple ways.
End screens are the information you show your viewers when your video ends. You can add up to four elements with an aspect ratio of 16:9 to your videos, and they can have the same information as info cards but in a visual format.
You can add end screens to 5-20 seconds toward the end of your video. End screens can ask for a call to action, such as asking users to subscribe to your channel or watch more videos. This results in an increase in your viewership and engagement.
YouTube users come from different parts of the world. However, out of over 2 billion users who choose YouTube for watching videos, only 16.4% are from the US.
Many users do not speak English but want to enjoy the videos. If you provide the transcription of your videos in other languages you gain viewers from other countries, and the search engines also rank your videos with your translated captions in the search results of the selected languages.
This can be a game changer for your video optimization strategy since there is less competition, and you have better chances of ranking higher in non-English keywords.
How can you translate your subtitles into other languages? YouTube provides an auto-translation feature for your videos. We mentioned that they have 70% accuracy. In order to ensure that your translations are accurate, you can use third-party websites for subtitle translation that provide free or paid services.
You need to access the “Advanced Settings” of your videos and choose a category. This simple step prompts YouTube to categorize your videos into similar and related videos, which results in your videos being shown to a broader audience and generating more clicks and engagement.
YouTube provides you with analytics for tracking and optimizing your results. YouTube offers diversified analytics tools you can implement and benefit from. Some of them include:
It may be best to choose video topics based on the most captivating parts of your video. Additionally, watching your video during sheer dips of engagement will tell you what might be boring your viewers, which allows you to discard those elements from current and future videos.
Choosing the right video promotion strategy is often the difference between success and failure. However, producing content and adhering to a strategy will not guarantee success in today's highly competitive environment. You need to know how to optimize your videos and then how to continue to engage viewers in order to subscribe and watch more of your content.
Promoting your videos and YouTube channel online doesn’t have to come with so much work.
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Every month, you'll receive a comprehensive executive summary and analytics report about your channel growth and total views. Our approach is unique and based on years of research and data derives from our experiences with more than fifty established brands.
Contact Us, and with the help of our team, you can make sure to effectively reach millions of your target audience and achieve greater results.
Now more than ever, businesses are looking to YouTube to consume, retain, and distribute video content since it is the most engaging content format. Naturally, YouTube continues to grow its audience and is currently the most favored platform for watching videos online.
We hope these 10 guidelines will come in handy the next time you plan on optimizing your video content for YouTube. As a final tip, don't underestimate how powerful this platform can be for your brand. If done correctly and professionally, YouTube video optimization services can make your videos go viral and reach millions of people.
