How to optimize your YouTube videos for SEO.
Optimizing your YouTube videos will get you more views now and over the long-haul. Here’s how:
1. What are the best keywords for your YouTube video?
We like recommending a free keyword research tool like Ubersuggest.io to help you find keyword opportunities. Which keywords are best? Pick a keyword that aligns with your video, has reasonable search volume, and ideally, not that many related pages.
While Ubersuggest.io is going to show you data for web searches, a little intuition can help you identify which terms are probably also valid in the search space. Ex., the top searched snowboard trick on Google Search, is probably near the top of snowboard trick terms in YouTube Search, too.
2. SEO for YouTube closed captions
YouTube is looking at your closed caption text. It will automatically try to generate a closed caption track for the hearing impaired. You can go into the closed caption text and refine it yourself.
So, make sure your closed caption track contains all the keywords you’d like associated with your video.
3. SEO for YouTube video tags and categories
Most people don’t navigate by tags and categories. They just type in a search. But tags and categories are important to getting your video found.
4. SEO for YouTube video titles
In YouTube video titles, I like to lead with a keyword. Based on some simple tests, I still think Google Search and YouTube Search care a lot more about the first words in a search term than the ending words. If nothing else, the first terms will pre-populate the suggested terms that pop-up when you start typing.
Then, you have to make your YouTube Title more interesting than the other ones. All the data shows that questions get more clicks in ads, but what about YouTube titles? Well, turns out
And then you have to fit your video into a category. Here’s a simple structure:
[Specific Keyword] + [Intriguing Description] – [Category Keyword]
So, that might end up looking something like this:
Freestyle snowboard tricks gone wrong – Snowboarding
This is a flexible science, and there are many videos that get tons of views via YouTube search without following my structure. I’m just saying that if you follow this structure, you’re starting off on the right foot.
5. SEO for YouTube video descriptions
There are two things I’m going for with a YouTube video: Getting my video found, and increasing my website/blog’s search ranking and page authority. So, I lead with my URL, then repeat some words from the title, then begin to add some secondary keyword terms. Now, I don’t recommend stuffing keywords. Everything should feel natural and helpful to the viewer. So, I structure a YouTube video description like this:
[Website URL] – [Specific Keyword] + [Intriguing Description] – [Category Keyword]
So, that might end up looking something like this:
Freestyle snowboard tricks gone wrong – Snowboarding
Have questions? Leave a comment.
We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment or email me at: hello@seolos.com
Follow these SEO expert tips to maximize your YouTube SEO score. Help your YouTube videos get found in organic search for more views.
Optimizing your YouTube captions, tags, titles, and descriptions