Introduction
Due to many factors, traditional marketing has been losing its effectiveness, making video marketing an integral part of any brand’s marketing efforts. In this in-depth Youtube SEO guide, we’ll take a close look at all the key concepts, important terms, marketing tips, and tools you need to become a YouTube video marketing expert, regardless of your background or existing skill set.
Keyword Research
If you want to rank your video then the first thing you need to do is search for relevant keywords. Ranking on High traffic keywords is one of the major factors that can help your channel grow tremendously. If you’re going to find a keyword, then make sure to find a long tail keyword because there is always a low competition on long tail keywords.
While free tools like Google Adwords will also never disappoint you. Your approach should be to find keywords with high traffic and low Keyword difficulty. Find them and make a video on a topic related to these keywords and watch the magic of ranking your video on youtube. Include keywords in the following areas to increase your opportunity at ranking for them:
- Title
- Thumbnails
- Description
- Transcripts
- Translations
- Tags
- Links
- Call to action
Duration Separation According To Topic
YouTube video chapters, or timestamps, break up videos into sections and provide an individual preview for each of them. When a user clicks on a timestamp, they are immediately taken to the part of the video that timestamp is linked to. They allow users to quickly and easily skim videos for the information they’re looking for without having to watch the entire video. Uploaded YouTube videos are longer than ever before, and keeping viewers engaged from start to finish can be challenging. Especially in today’s fast-paced environment where many of us aren’t willing, or simply don’t have the time to sit through a 10 to 20 minute video. Adding chapters to your YouTube videos provides users the option to skip to relevant parts.
What is Video Metadata?
Video metadata is an important part of SEO for YouTube channels. It helps search engines and app algorithms show your videos to relevant audiences. This video metadata refers to the text within the video file that tells the algorithm what the video is about.
While most search engines use video metadata to offer video results and recommendations, YouTube takes it further. It combines video metadata with other viewership data to determine which videos to show next and when to show certain videos as ‘top results’ for specific users.
How Can I Optimise Video Metadata?
A well-optimised video can effectively rank on the first page of a Google search query, ensuring that many people view, engage with, and share the video. Here’s how you can start optimising video metadata to take your video’s success to the next level –
Video Title
Video Titles must be enhanced with relevant keywords, accurate, and reflect the viewer’s interest. Use tools like YouTube Autocomplete and Google’s Keyword Planner to discover the most popular and relevant keywords.
Video Description
Video descriptions introduce your video and offer insights on its contents to viewers and search web bots alike. An accurate, to-the-point and detailed video description helps generate interest and intrigue and may persuade potential viewers to watch, engage with or share your video.
Captions
Videos display closed captions by referring to an accompanying caption file, which contains text of speech and sounds with corresponding timestamps.
Captions come in many different caption file formats. The following common formats are compatible with YouTube, although some features such as styling or placement may be lost:
- SRT (.srt)
- SBV (.sbv or .sub)
- WebVTT (.vtt)
- TTML ( .ttml)
- Cheetah (.cap or .asc)
Video Tags
In simple terms, video tags allow users and web bots to understand which categories your video falls into, helping them classify your video accurately. This helps YouTube’s AutoPlay feature recommend and queue videos appropriately. However, remember that YouTube’s AutoPlay feature will ensure that the next video shares at least one tag with the current video on the playlist.
Video Quality
While YouTube search engine optimization is very important, it’s equally important to ensure high video quality and content quality. Make sure that each video you make has valuable and relevant information. It should also offer your viewers value, ensuring that they save or share your content.
Apart from the quality of content, you should also ensure that your videos have excellent audio and video quality. Invest in a good webcam or camera, as well as a high-quality mic that can add to the overall video quality. Use subtitles, translated captions, and relevant thumbnails to ensure that audiences remember and retain your content.
Watch Time
Watch time is an important metric for YouTube Video SEO and analytics since it tells you how much time viewers have spent viewing your content. The higher the watch time, the more engaging your video is, as per YouTube’s algorithm. Videos, playlists and channels with high watch times have better rankings on search results.
To boost watch time for your channel, make sure you audit your content to understand what content and video lengths work best. Additionally, you can create playlists with similar videos to keep views engaged for longer with your content.
Audience Retention
Audience retention refers to the percentage of viewers to abandon your video before it ends. This is an important metric for YouTube video ranking. It helps the algorithm understand if your content can hold the viewer’s attention for long. The algorithm rewards videos with greater audience retention as it makes your content valuable and engaging.
To improve audience retention, determine a suitable point into your video where you can add a relevant CTA, fun fact, or any other interesting content piece that will reel viewers back in.
Click-Through Rate
High click-through rates mean that your video was compelling enough for viewers to watch them after seeing it on the homepage. Well-optimized metadata, relevant keywords, and attractive thumbnails are responsible for high click-through rates.
To improve YouTube click-through rates, make sure you create compelling custom thumbnails. Don’t settle for free-frame thumbnails that the platforms picks from your video. Additionally, stay away from clickbait titles and descriptions as audiences may be put off and may stop trusting you.
Subscriber Growth
Subscriber growth shows you how many subscribers were gained (or lost) in a given period. High subscriber growth indicates valuable, engaging content that has converted viewers into a part of your YouTube community. It shows the algorithm that your content is interesting and worth subscribing to your channel for.
The best way to boost subscriber growth is to remind users to click on the ‘Subscribe’ button to get exclusive access to your content. Improving this metric will also help you boost performance on YouTube over time.
Traffic Sources Report
The Traffic Sources Report helps you understand how viewers are finding and discovering your content. Located on the ‘Reach’ tab of YouTube Analytics, the traffic sources report gives you important insights into which platforms or sites bring in the most views.
By aligning your YouTube video SEO strategy and keyword information, you can adjust your video marketing efforts to be more efficient. For example, if your videos aren’t getting viewers via social media, tweak your strategy to boost viewership from those platforms. Additionally, suppose a large part of viewership belongs to a particular industry or age group. In that case, you can consider creating videos around their interests to boost growth, user retention, and engagement rates.
YouTube Analytics
YouTube Analytics is one of the best analysis tools you can use to track your channel’s performance. This tool helps you understand how your views engage with your content.
It not only shows you the overall channel’s performance metrics, but it also has insightful data on specific playlists and videos. YouTube Analytics also gives you invaluable data related to watching habits, demographics, click-through rates, impressions and traffic sources.
Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is an amazing tool that allows you to find the most valuable, relevant and appropriate keywords for your videos. You can access it from the Google Ads dashboard, and you don’t have to run ads to use this feature. Google Keyword Planner also helps you get search volumes and forecasts so that you can plan your video titles, descriptions and other metadata insightfully
Once your video goes live, make sure to use all necessary platforms and channels to promote it and build viewership. And lastly, optimise and track your channel’s progress, tweaking your strategy wherever required.
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