10 Quick YouTube SEO Tips To Increase Your Videos Rankings

Are you the one who wants to know how to rank YouTube videos? I am damn sure that you must know that when it comes to rankings, SEO plays a vital role! 

Perhaps you must be well aware that YouTube is a massive platform for receiving a large number of videos that are uploaded on a daily basis. In fact, every day, almost 3.7 million new videos are uploaded to YouTube.

So, to make sure that your Youtube videos don’t get lost in the sea of videos, and rank well to get more views…

This blog is going to take you through the best YouTube SEO tips that would undoubtedly help you with SEO on YouTube videos and develop an effective YouTube SEO strategy to rank your videos higher.

Let’s begin:

What Is YouTube Video Optimization

Herein, a few questions arise, such as how to rank YouTube videos, how to do SEO on YouTube videos, and how YouTube ranks videos.

When it comes to search engine optimization, YouTube and Google both work similarly. This means that the practices you develop for Google ranking can also be used for YouTube SEO.

And just like Google, YouTube also ranks the content that best answers the search query asked by the viewers. And this takes us to the main topic, which is: what is YouTube video optimization?

The answer is simple: the process of optimizing your YouTube channel and video content to improve its rankings on YouTube is known as “YouTube video optimization.”

With this in mind, let me now tell you how to implement some quick YouTube SEO tips so that you can implement SEO on YouTube videos and make them rank higher.

Read More: Youtube SEO For Beginners: Rank Your Videos On YouTube

YouTube SEO Tips To Increase Rankings Of Your Videos 

These YouTube SEO tips would not only improve your rankings but may also help you get more views, followers, and likes on your videos. So let’s go through them one by one.

Conduct Keyword Research To Find The Best Suitable Keywords

Before starting with anything, the one thing you must do is find the best keywords for your video content. For that, you have to conduct keyword research. 

As you may be aware, the market is becoming increasingly competitive, and everyone wants to be at the top. You have to spend quality time researching the best keywords. 

Identifying the keywords that satisfy the search queries as well as perfectly describe your video would, at the same time, bring more views and people to your YouTube channel.

To find the best keywords, you can simply take the help of the YouTube search engine; plus, you can also go for some tools.

Here’s how you can do so:

With SEO tools, you can get a bunch of keywords, but remember to select the ones with higher search volume and lower difficulty.

Some of the tools best used for keyword research are Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs Keyword Explorer.

Identify The Keywords That Ranks For Your Videos

Next up on the list of Youtube SEO tips, you have to filter your list of keywords pinpointed during the keyword research.

Of course, it is not that you would include every keyword in your video’s content in a hope that your video might quickly rank for one of them…

However, some keywords have a higher search volume but are also more competitive to rank for.

Therefore, the best thing to do is, go for finding the elaborated terms for the keywords: ‘Long-tailed keywords”

Though these keywords don’t have much search volume, but they are easy to rank for. As a result, they are viable options for gaining rankings.

Let me make it simple for you with an easy example,

For instance, the search volume for the keyword “makeup tutorials” may be higher than that for “easy eye makeup tutorials for beginners,” but the competition for ranking on the shorter keyword would also be very high. So, targeting the long one can easily make you rank higher than the short one.

Dedicate A Video Title Including The Keyword

Dedicating a title to your video is a very crucial part of YouTube SEO, and this is where you have to include your target keyword. 

Why? Because whenever we search for any video on YouTube, the first thing that comes up is the title of that video. That is what makes the user click on the video and watch it.

Plus, having a well-optimized title would also help search engines like YouTube index your video easily and quickly.

Also, it is important to understand the intent of the audience. The most common ones are commercial, informational, transactional, and navigational.

For your video to appear in search results, it is crucial to match the intent of your audience.

Here’s an example, of how I used this on my YouTube channel.

Looking at the first YouTube video, the title is “The best free website builder in 2023,” and coming to the next video, you must be able to see the title with an informational intent, which is, “How to use retargeting campaigns, how to write a meta title for SEO.”

Additionally, when using an exact title match and keywords, try to use shorter titles. The maximum length is 100 characters, but it is found that the top-ranking video’s title has an average of 45 to 50 characters.

Optimize Video Descriptions

Another crucial element for YouTube SEO that needs to be filled out when uploading the video is the description. In this text, the topic of the video should be described in as much detail as possible.

As with the title, the descriptions also have certain limits. The description can be more in-depth and extended; therefore, the character count is around 5000.

You can increase the number of people who watch your video and earn YouTube points by writing a compelling description.

The description also plays a role in the ranking of your YouTube videos. In accordance with YouTube’s advice, start your description off with a couple of phrases that contain your most relevant keywords.

Like this, 

When uploading a video on YouTube for Off-Page SEO, I make sure that the description is optimized, which means that the target keyword is included in the description with the right amount of characters.

And here’s why optimizing the description is a ranking factor…

Moreover, you can insert calls to action (CTAs) in the text, such as requests to download content from your website or subscribe to the channel, preferably with shorter URLs.

Dedicate A Video File Name Including The Keyword

Do you know that before even uploading your videos, these YouTube SEO tips have some importance? The reason is simple: if you want to optimize YouTube videos, you have to include the keyword in the video’s file name.

Having the best-suited keyword in hand, you have to assign a name to your YouTube video file and include that keyword in it.

There’s no need to confuse your viewers by giving a complicated video file name. Instead, dedicate a simple and descriptive name to it.

For example, instead of “VID_94825605.mp4”, you can name it “how-to-start-with-youtube-seo.mp4”, in which the target keyword is “Youtube SEO.”

And here’s how I did this in one of my own videos.

Add Suitable Hashtags To Enhance Your Reach

In this modern era of digital marketing, hashtags play a crucial role in video marketing and increasing the reach of your videos. 

Therefore, this is one of the most popular YouTube SEO tips, and it is highly recommended to add hashtags to your videos to increase the reach of your video and help you get more viewers. 

To make it easier for viewers to find your video when they search for a particular hashtag, you can add hashtags to the descriptions and titles of your YouTube videos.

Include A Compelling & Custom Thumbnail

The click-through rate is significantly affected by the choice of the video thumbnail image. The first thing that the user sees on YouTube is the thumbnail image, and it is the first thing that attracts the viewer to watch your video. 

A compelling thumbnail can result in a longer watch time, which can significantly impact YouTube ranking.

Therefore, if you want your viewers to immediately click on your YouTube videos, you need to create an engaging thumbnail that would compel them to watch your video.

Read More: How To Improve Click-Through Rate

For example, see the below images.

By looking at these thumbnails, would you even click on the video? Nah..! These are not compelling me to click.

Whereas, based on the thumbnails below, I would definitely click on one of the YouTube videos to learn how to increase followers in just 7 days.

So, to rank your YouTube video, you must look for this YouTube SEO tip and have better rankings and more views on your videos.

Choose The Appropriate Category Of Your Video

Sometimes users tend to find their desired videos according to category. When uploading a video, you can find this option by clicking on the “show more” button. 

You should be able to discover a variety of categories for your YouTube videos and select the best-suited one to enhance the capability of your videos to rank better.

Here’s how it looks…

Offer Captions & Subtitles

Similar to the other texts, offering captions and subtitles in your YouTube videos is how you can do SEO on YouTube videos. 

Both closed-caption files and subtitles include the text of what is spoken in the video, similar to a transcript.

Therefore, you must submit a valid text transcript or timed subtitles file, commonly known as an SRT file, in order to add closed captions or subtitles to your video.

SRT files are a result of the software SubRip, which “ripped” text files of the extracted subtitles and timings from video content.

To add captions and subtitles, click the drop-down arrow next to the edit button after locating the video to which you want to add closed captions or subtitles. Next, select “Subtitles/CC.”

Add Youtube End Screens and Add Cards

The final YouTube SEO tip is to include end screens and add cards. See, if you want your viewers to take a quick action right after watching your YouTube SEO videos, you can clearly ask them through CTA buttons. OR,

To begin with, you can simply add YouTube end screens and add cards to your video. When watching videos on YouTube, have you gone through this?

These are what are known as “YouTube Cards,” which you can make up to advertise your business and other videos on your channel that appear on desktop and mobile devices. 

After clicking this icon, your viewers would able to see other videos on your channel. shown in the image below. 

A video can contain up to five cards, and there are six types of cards: 

• Channel Cards– To direct viewers to your other youtube videos or channel.
• Donation Cards– To raise funds for charity or organizations
• Fan Funding Cards– To ask your viewers to support your Youtube SEO channel.
• Link Cards– To refer links to relevant websites, online shops, or fundraising pages can be added.
• Poll Cards– To ask viewers a question and let them vote on a response.
• Video/Playlist Cards– Direct your audience to any other YouTube playlists or videos that are available to the public.

In addition, “End screens,” which display after the video has finished playing, are most effective when used to direct users to the next action.

See, when viewers are about to finish up your video, naturally they have to do something. Perhaps you’d like to watch another video, or heck! Leave your channel. So, to make them stay connected to your YouTube SEO channel, you can add end screens to your videos.

Your end screen increases the chance that your audience may take the desired action and would surely generate more leads.

Let me show you how it looks.

You can use these end screens to ask viewers to subscribe to your channel, watch your other videos, and much more.

Use interactive features like these strategically, as they increase watch times, engagement, YouTube subscriber growth, and search rankings for your videos.

Though they seem to be a bit time-consuming, these features have doubled the watch time on the videos over time.

After all, your audience is looking for your videos, and with these SEO tips, you can immensely optimize YouTube videos and increase their reach and rankings as well.

Measure Your Performance

At last, the most important part of YouTube SEO: measuring your performance and analyzing whether the above-listed YouTube SEO tips have worked out or not.

For this, YouTube offers a fantastic built-in analytics feature. Although there are many analytics you must monitor, any YouTuber should be familiar with these metrics.

1. Watch Time

The entire amount of time viewers spend watching your videos is known as “watch time.” More watch time results in better rankings as YouTube boosts videos that have a greater watch time.

2. Impression CTR

It refers to the number of viewers who watch your video after seeing it on their homepage, recommendation area, or trending section. 

3. Youtube Card CTR

Cards, as you are all aware, are preformatted notifications that motivate viewers of your video to take action. Therefore, you can make improvements to your CTAs, timing, duration, and placement by examining the click-through rates.

4. Source of the traffic

Measuring performance tells you how viewers found your videos in the Traffic Sources report, as well as which sources result in the highest levels of engagement. 

5. Growth in the Subscribers

By measuring your performance, you can identify how and why your subscriber count has varied in relation to place, certain videos, and time periods.

With this, you can target new subscribers by using this information to determine which topics are popular with your existing viewers.

Further, to make it easier for you, I’ve got some of the best YouTube SEO tools to perform various tasks. They are listed below.

Tools For Youtube SEO

VidIQ Vision

This is a free Google Chrome extension for YouTubers that can help you optimize YouTube videos and rank them higher in search results. 

It helps you analyze and measure your SEO performance and tells what all improvements are needed which includes how well the tags are optimized and a few metrics such as watch time, CTR, etc.

Plus, the VidIQ tool offers an SEO “score” you may use to produce content that matches (or outperforms) the outcomes you currently see on YouTube.

Ahrefs Keyword Explorer: Keyword Research Tool

As I mentioned in the YouTube SEO tip earlier, Ahrefs is a complete SEO tool that offers you the ability to track a website’s rating and calculate the amount of organic traffic each phrase would bring in.

And one of the main features of this tool is that it provides you with the best keywords that you can include for YouTube video SEO.

It also allows you to filter your keywords based on various metrics such as search volume, clicks, and more.

Canva

Canva is one of the best-known design tools for making various cards, images, logos, and other items. But not just this, it also allows you to create engaging and attractive thumbnails just for your YouTube videos.

As discussed earlier, to promote your content in YouTube search results and encourage visitors to click on your video, thumbnail visuals are essential. And by using Canva’s Thumbnail Creator, you can create compelling thumbnails with the desired dimensions (1280 x 720).  

Tube Buddy

An all-in-one YouTube video optimization platform called TubeBuddy can assist you in organizing the creation, development, and promotion of your YouTube videos.

The features include an automatic language translator, tag suggestion, a ranker tracker for uploaded videos on youtube, and much more…

Read More: 9 Profitable SEO Tools For Youtube Rankings

Conclusion

With this, YouTube SEO tips come to an end. To conclude, the above-listed video ranking tips are of a kind, and you must implement them on your YouTube videos to drive rich results.

Each tip is well-researched and worth trying. So if you want to improve the performance of your videos, first you must go for Youtube SEO, and then you must optimize your videos to rank higher in the search bar.

FAQs

1. How to get more views on my YouTube videos?

To get more and more views on your videos, the first thing is to have higher rankings. If your videos don’t rank, no one would see them. So, to rank higher on YouTube, you have to build a great YouTube SEO strategy, and for that, you must follow the above-listed YouTube SEO tips.

2. How to rank YouTube videos quickly?

One of the finest ways to quickly rank YouTube videos is through YouTube video optimization. As discussed in the above video ranking tips, you have to make your audience watch your videos for a longer time. If people stay on your videos for a long time, then your YouTube videos would get higher rankings.

3. Why is SEO on YouTube videos important?

SEO is the most efficient way to get higher rankings and more views on your YouTube videos. YouTube is a platform where you can share your videos with a huge audience. If your videos are SEO optimized, then they may get higher rankings and get more views. So, if you want to improve the performance of your videos, the first thing you must do is invest in YouTube SEO.