YouTube is inarguably the web’s most dominant force in online video.
But did you also know that YouTube is considered the world’s second-largest search engine?
That’s based on the incredibly high level of search volume its internal search function receives, outpacing both Bing and Yahoo combined. This also means that if video plays a significant role in your digital marketing efforts (and it should), then making sure your videos are easily found should, too.
Let’s dig into how to optimize your YouTube videos for search.
1. Target Strong Video Keywords
Whether you’re researching ideas for video topics, or simply looking for the best search terms to use for a video you’ve already created, it’s important to target top performing keywords. Experiment with searching different keywords in Google to see if they generate video results. If they do, then you know there’s strong interest among searchers for that content.
2. Include Your Primary Keyword in Your File Name
YouTube cannot listen to your audio to interpret what your video is about. It can, however, read the content in your file name. Include your primary keyword to make it easier for YouTube to properly identify your video.
3. Optimize Your Video Titles
Video titles are another important element that YouTube uses to determine whether your video is a good match for a user’s search intent. Include your primary keyword somewhere in your video title as well, but make sure it sounds natural. As always, think about readability for people first, and search engines second.
4. Create Strong Video Descriptions
Your video description is another area YouTube and other search engines can scan to better grasp what your video is about. Make sure your description is at least 200
words long to ensure there’s a decent amount of copy to crawl. You may even want to include a full transcript of your video’s audio. This can help your video rank for more long-tail keyword phrases, since your audio is likely to be naturally aligned with the keywords you want driving traffic to your content.
5. Use Accurate Tags
Are you including all the tags you could be on your videos? Are those tags aligned with what users are likely to expect when they search for your video? These are easy details to miss, but getting your tags right can help give your videos a small boost in terms of how easy they are to find.
6. Include a Link Back to Your Website (and Other Social Channels)
If your video gains strong traction, it’s likely many of your viewers will want to follow you elsewhere on the web, too. Be sure to include links to your website, so viewers can find more information about your business, as well as your other social channels.
7. Shoot Long (Enough) Videos
The right length for your video is how long it takes to tell your story or get your point across effectively while still remaining compelling to viewers. However, videos roughly five minutes or longer tend to perform better in search. While it’s important to focus on quality and not stretch out the length of your video simply to hit this target length, this is still a good piece of information to keep in mind.
8. Incorporate Annotation Links to Direct Traffic to Your Website
Have you ever seen a text link pop up in the middle of a video on YouTube? Those are called annotation links. When implemented well, they can be an effective traffic driver for your website. Place them at appropriate moments in your video, and use a compelling call to action to help convert video watchers into potential customers on your site.
Do you have any tips for video SEO you’d like to add? Tell us on Twitter @sundogtweets. And be sure to check out some of our other recent SEO blogs.
