The standard advice for getting your videos seen on YouTube is to upload more videos and post them to more platforms at a higher frequency. The catch? It doesn’t work that way. As soon as you start pushing your content too hard, you run the risk of falling behind and being left behind by your competitors. Instead, focus on quality over quantity.
When it comes to how to optimize videos for YouTube search, remember: less is more. Keep it simple and avoid clutter or redundancy. Utilize relevant keywords in your titles, subtitles, hashtags, and keyword in your description to stand out from the crowd. Below are more tips.
Avoid Irrelevant Keywords
One of the most frequent problems people encounter when optimizing their videos for Google is choosing irrelevant keywords. You’re probably already familiar with the many problems that occur when choosing unrankable keywords, so you’ll likely benefit from the strategies presented here. Make sure your keywords are relevant to the topic at hand. Otherwise, your video will end up on Google’s indexed pages and all you’ll have is a bunch of irrelevant links.
If you have a pet topic, for example, choose keywords like “best kitten ever” and “the cutest kitten.” A search for these phrases on YouTube will bring up a plethora of videos about kittens, but only those about the ones with the most popular search term. Incorporate relevant and accurate keywords into the titles and descriptions of your videos to increase the likelihood that users will click on your links from Google.
Create Video Titles That Rank
As you’re optimizing your videos for Google Search, make sure you’re not just focusing on the words and links in your titles, but also on the keywords that appear in your tags and descriptions as well. Video titles are some of the most-visited parts of your YouTube channel. If you’re not using relevant keywords, your video will appear lower in the search results pages, and you’ll have a much harder time getting it to rank well. To make your video titles relevant and detailed, begin with a keyword research document. Conduct keyword searches in your YouTube account and selects the top search keywords that appear in your videos.
Use Specific Language in Your Subtitles
Another issue people encounter when optimizing their videos for Google is using accented words in their subtitles. You may be surprised to learn that people use the English language as their primary language to search for videos on YouTube. In this case, you’ll want to ensure you include the most-visited keywords in your subtitles using the same method you used for your video titles. To include the most-visited keywords in your subtitles, you can either use an online keyword tool or copy and paste the URLs of the most popular search terms into the website or app where you want to embed the keyword data.
Create Video Headers That Help Your Content Get Found
An important part of any online strategy is creating a content strategy that includes your video headers. While the basic idea is the same for both video and blog entries, the format and terminology used for your videos should be different. The main goal of your headers should be to direct people to your content. You can do this by linking to your videos from your other social media accounts, your website, and your email signatures. You can even incorporate your YouTube username or channel name in the headings to further personalize each entry.
Don’t Forget About Video Crawl Test Results
Video crawl is the process by which Google’s bots crawl your page and download the video so they can index it. If your page is getting a lot of traffic, these results will contain valuable information. However, if no one is visiting your site, or the traffic is very low, these results will not help you in any way. To optimize your videos for Google Search, it’s important to pay attention to the results from every video crawl. If a video isn’t ranking, the most important thing you can do is try a different keyword. If that doesn’t work, try another format, or another video. The most important thing you can do for Google is to try different variations of your videos until you find something that works.
Bottom Line
YouTube is a great place to get exposure for your business, but it can be a challenging environment with lots of competition. To take the best advantage of this, it’s important to find ways to optimize your videos for Google, including keyword research, creation of titles and descriptions, and use of relevant and accurate keywords in your titles and descriptions.
