YouTube SEO: 12 Must Have Tips To Rank Your Videos

YouTube is the second biggest search engine on the web and can generate lot of traffic or revenue for your blog.

Many people think its just a source of the video’s but it is much more. It’s a great place to promote your blog and connect with people.

I have started to work actively on the MakeWebWorld YouTube channel 2 months back. From that point onwards, the channel has come from lower 1 digit views per day to almost 1000 views per day.

The revenue has also been increased from few dollars per month to $50 per month. The channel is growing and I am going to keep working on it. If you want to be part of this experiment, you can check my learning guide for YouTube.

In this post we are going to see what things has worked in favor of ranking videos and generating more traffic.

YouTube is like any other search engine where you need to do SEO for ranking your content. You can create videos and promote them to rank and attract readers.

You can use these YouTube SEO tips for your videos which can help in ranking them.

1. Video Title And Tags

YouTube titles is a good place to add your keywords. Your titles should be descriptive and give an idea about the video.

You should treat them as your blog post title. It should be 70 characters long which will make it look good in search results.

This is also important as YouTube Videos also ranks on Google search result.

Tags is another place where you should add related keywords and let Google know about your video.

2. Video Description

YouTube also needs to understand the video content so that it can rank them correctly. They do it from the description text which gives an idea about the content.

You should provide detail descriptions rather than one or two liners. This will tell Google and your Readers more about that video.

I used to put two liner description earlier but it has been changed. Now I am writing at least seven to ten lines and have seen a lot of improvement in terms of video rankings.

3. Closed Caption

YouTube provides an option to enable closed caption, which can provide subtitles on the screen.

You can decide to opt out and does not provide closed captions but its another good place where you can tell Google about your video.

Google uploads an automatic caption file for each video, which can be found in the video manager edit screen.

You can open an automatic conversion for any video and check if Google is able to translate it correctly. I have seen many errors in that file and it need manual correction.

You can correct those captions and save it for use. Once you have corrected it, YouTube will see a new “CC” icon in front of the video.

There are other ways of updating the captions like uploading a file. You can upload a text file and YouTube can sync it correctly with the video.

Closed Captions can play an important part in your YouTube SEO effort.

4. Comments

This is another good place for YouTube SEO. Whenever we talk about SEO for the articles, we talk about comments and the engagement on the articles.

Same is true for the video’s, comments can show the level of engagement on them and help in YouTube SEO.

You should reply to comments and engage with the viewers. It is also a good place to add some keywords and improve rankings.

You should not do keyword stuffing, just for the sake of adding keywords.

5. Don’t be Afraid of Long Videos

One thing which I have heard many times is that your videos should be short and to the point.

I would say it should be to the point but don’t try to make them short. There are times where you can not cover the topic in a short videos.

Also there is a myth that long videos can not keep viewers interested but I have seen a huge increase in watch time on MakeWebWorld YouTube channel after I started to post long videos.

If you are creating a long video, just spend some more time on editing and make it crisp and clear.

Also watch time and average view time is one of the factors for the success of YouTube channel.

6. Backlinks

Like any other SEO engines, back links are important on YouTube also.

Your activities like embedding it on other site or sharing it on the social networks will create the back links for your videos.

You should try to promote it in as many ways as you can.

7. Video Sitemap

Video Sitemap is a good way to let google know about the embeds on your site. It can also improve the way your posts looks in search result.

People on Google search results can also play those videos and it can improve the rankings on the YouTube also.

The more embed links you have for your videos, the higher it going to rank in YouTube.

8. Schema.org markup for Video

Schema Markups are a good way to tell google about your content. Structured data is an important part of current web pages and gives lot of details to search engines.

One of the prime reason of using Genesis Framework on MakeWebWorld is that it is fully compatible for Schema’s Markup.

They have a markup for the embedded videos also, which should be used if you are using videos on your blogs.

[box]If you are Genesis Framework, Check how you can enable the Schema Markup for Your Videos.[/box]

This can also give extra exposure to your YouTube videos.

This is not only good for your YouTube SEO but its also good for your blog. You can improve click through rate on the search results for your blog also.

You Can check on Google for more details on Video Markup.

9. Authoritative Channel – Subscriber Count

People come to your videos and from there they can reach to your channel. Your channel look more authoritative with number of subscribers and engagement on the video.

I have found that if you start asking people to take action, they do that. I have started asking people to subscribe to MakeWebWorld YouTube channel for more tips and tricks.

This has dramatically increased the number of people subscribing the channel. I have got almost 450 subscribers in less then two months.

Other thing which you need to do is checking the subscriber report in YouTube Analytics.

You should check which videos are bringing more subscribers and try to create more content simile to that.

10. Social Signals

Social Signals are important in any content marketing strategy.

You should promote your video on the social channels like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.

YouTube has integrated social approach with the video upload screen, you should use it for sharing your newly uploaded videos.

Google+ communities is another good place for sharing your videos and create some talks.

11. Playlists on YouTube

Playlist is a good feature on YouTube where you can combine related videos and create a good experience for your viewers.

Google loves playlists as it gives more information to their users and an continues playback option.

It also gives an idea about your videos to Google, which can be used to rank them.

You do not have to show your playlist, you can just create them and Google will recognize and start ranking them.

12. Channel Page Layout

Channel Page Layout is a good place to showcase your work, which can attract more readers and subscribers.

Your logo and title image gets displayed at many place, so you need to make sure it is updated correctly.

[box]Here is my list of activities which you should do after creating a YouTube channel[/box]

You can use Annotation to display the subscribe now message on your videos, people can subscribe or come to your channel from your videos.

You can have different categories on your channel page which can help users to decide on which videos to view.

These are few of the YouTube SEO tips which has helped me in ranking my videos and it should help you too.

Is there anything I have missed in this post or anything you are using which is working? Share with us in comments.