YouTube SEO Guide: How to Get Top Ranking for Your Videos in 2018?

YouTube is said to be the second largest search engine in the world. There are about 1.5 billion logged in every month viewing the videos on mobile. YouTube can be a major source to generate huge traffic if you want to rank your website on top.

You can dominate in the YouTube video search with the help of YouTube SEO.

Why you require SEO for YouTube in the year 2018?

As per a report published in Statista, YouTube was the third popularly known mobile app in the United States as of December, 2016. More than 400 hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube every minute.

These statistics show that there is cut-throat competition on YouTube and you need to stand to get noticed and make your video popular.

Just like Google SEO, YouTube SEO will also help you in getting better ranking and have an edge over the competitors.

How can you find Video Keywords by using YouTube SEO in 2018?

You might be thinking that why you need to find Video Keywords. You need to search video keywords if you want to feature your video in Google search results as well and will help in increasing traffic.

If you search for a keyword ‘how to play pokemon go’, you will get a result of YouTube video in the featured snippet of Google.

If you search for ‘wordpress tutorial’, Google search results feature a YouTube video here also.

The keywords ‘how to play mini militia’ and ‘wordpress tutorial’ are called as video keywords. Video keywords are those keywords which you see on the very first page of Google results.

Generally, Google shows the video search results for the following type of queries:

• How to keywords
• Anything related to exercise
• Tutorials
• Reviews in detail

Significance of finding video keywords

By choosing a right video keyword, you can generate a heavy traffic on your YouTube videos from Google.

If you think video keywords are hard to find then you are absolutely wrong.

The process to find video keywords is quite simple. You just need to find keywords related to your niche that have a minimum of 500 searches and Google will show the results for these keywords.

Optimize your videos by YouTube SEO

Google uses backlinks and other signals to check the quality of the content. However, YouTube does not have many signals that can evaluate the video content quality.

The only way to which YouTube evaluates the video quality is how the viewer interacts with the videos.

If you want to dominate the YouTube ranking, consider the following factors:

1. Meta data

It is essential to optimize the Meta Data for the YouTube videos. Especially those who want their brand to rank top, cannot ignore it. However, the YouTube ranking of videos depends majorly upon the engagement metrics, optimizing the Meta Data adds more value to it.

How you can optimize the Meta Data of your YouTube videos:

i. Video file name

When you are done with the shooting of the video, you should include a keyword in the name of the file. Though it has no effect on the ranking, but also has no harm in doing so.

ii. Video title

You must add a keyword in the title of the video. Just like the web content, you should add the right keyword in the starting of your video title.

iii. Description

The description of the video is essential to help in improving the rank of your video. This also helps in making your video appear on the suggested videos list.

Tips To Optimize The Description Of Your Youtube Videos:

• In the starting of your description, include a keyword
• Make sure the keyword frequency is around 2%.
• To improve the CTR, insert the link to your website
• Share the links on your profiles on social media and let the viewer aware of the content they will get after subscribing to your channel.

2. Use engagement metrics

Engagement metrics play a vital role in boosting the YouTube video ranking. Below mentioned are the key factors to work upon:

• Views

You can increase your views on the video by using the proven ways mentioned below:

✓ Promote your video on the social networking sites
✓ Insert a link to your video in the signature of your email
✓ Add your video to your blog posts.
✓ Mention the link to your video on Quora and other sites for Q&A.

• Shares

This has always been the topic of debate among the experts how social media helps in ranking better. If someone shares your video, this clearly shows they have liked your video. Hence, it can be said that social media optimization helps in better ranking through significant shares.

• Comments

Comments on the video are an important factor for the improvement in YouTube ranking. You must reply to the comments on your people to have the better engagement of people on your post.

• Subscribers after watching

If people subscribe your channel after viewing your video then it gives YouTube a signal that your video is of great quality. Even if the people opt to watch it later, number of subscriptions is strong signal of your video being high-quality.

• Thumbs-up

As we all know, more thumbs-up means your content is informative and is engaging the viewers. The viewer hits the like button when they find something useful.

3. Closed captions and subtitles

Adding closed captions and subtitles to your video significantly increases the views of your video. It helps deaf people to understand your video which means the better experience.

If you do not have any caption file, then you can upload a transcript. By doing so, YouTube will synchronize it with the video automatically.

4. Watch time

Watch time is also a ranking factor as it is not the length of the video. Watch time means the aggregate amount of time your viewers are watching the videos.

There is no shortcut to increase your watch time. You must create videos that are engaging enough to maintain the interest and attention of your viewers.

5. Video quality

The quality of videos definitely matters. It has been analyzed that the HD videos appear significantly more than other SD videos on the first page.

6. Authority of channel

It does not have any direct effect on the YouTube SEO but it plays an important role in getting the top Google rankings indirectly. This is because people like videos from the established and more popular channels than a lesser known YouTube channel. This is why more views are always better and building an authority will give you rewards in long run.

Conclusion:

The Google SEO and YouTube SEO are completely different from each other. You will be required to focus more on the engagement metrics to top the rankings on YouTube. Implement the tips and follow the practices mentioned above that will certainly help you in dominating the rankings on YouTube.

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