This post will show you EXACTLY HOW to rank YouTube videos.
This is actually the exact method I used to increase my channel’s views to more than 189K per month.
This YouTube SEO tutorial will help you get more subscribers, views, and traffic to your YouTube channel.
Let’s get started…
How I transformed my YouTube channel from “Oh No!” into “Heck Yeah!”
A quick history before we dive into today’s video SEO guide:
My YouTube channel was my first. I had very few views.
Now, my videos rank for competitive keywords like “SEO”:
“Link building”:
I rank even in the top 3 positions for YouTube SEO:
Because I am able to rank my videos, it now has over 189K views every month and 4.4K subscribers.
You can now see that I am an expert in my field. Let’s look at the steps I took to achieve these results.
Step 1: YouTube Keyword Research
YouTube SEO begins with keyword research.
This is exactly how you find the best keywords for your YouTube videos.
Start by creating a list with keywords and ideas.
The first step is to create a large list of keywords.
(In the next step, I’ll help find the best keyword in your list.
YouTube’s Search Suggest is one of my favorite strategies.
You just need to head to YouTube and type in a phrase or word.
YouTube will give you a list of keywords that are related to the words you have typed:
These keywords are great.
Why?
These are the terms people type into YouTube.
It’s not necessary to wonder if these are popular. YouTube will suggest them to you.
You can also visit a video that is popular in your niche and copy the keywords it uses.
Keyword optimization is an important part of YouTube SEO. If a video gets a lot of views, it is likely that the video was optimized around a popular keyword.
This step can be completed by going to another channel within your niche.
Next, sort the videos by “Most Popular”.
These videos will be displayed to show you which ones have received the most views.
Next, select a video from your list. You want to choose a video you are able to create an amazing video with (more details in step #2).
However, the general rule is that if the video fits your niche, it will work.
Next, find out which keywords your video is optimized for. It’s easy.
Take a look at the keywords used in the video’s title, description, and video tags.
VidIQ Chrome extension is recommended to view a video’s tags. It displays the tags of a video right on the page.
Your YouTube traffic source: YouTube search report can help you find great keywords. This report will show you all keywords YouTube users searched for in order to find your videos.
These are often keywords you already know (because your videos were optimized around them).
Sometimes, you might stumble upon a few keywords you didn’t know existed.
Here’s an example of a keyword I found in my Traffic Sources report:
I have never found this keyword using any other strategy. It is a keyword that I am sure people search for on YouTube so it makes a great addition to my list.
The second step is to find the most important keyword in your list
Once you have compiled a list, it is time to select the best keyword.
You should target keywords with low competition.
This is especially important if you don’t have many subscribers.
Your video will be buried in search results if you don’t play by the rules and pursue competitive keywords.
Instead, look for keywords with low competition.
What can you do to check?
All you have to do is:
Google search for your keyword.
Check out the “About results”.
This is the number of YouTube videos about this topic. This number is indicative of how competitive a keyword is. You should target keywords with low “About results”.
(How low can you go?) Each industry is unique. It is impossible to give you an exact number. Focus on keywords with low competition in relation to other videos within your niche.
If I search for “YouTube’s SEO”, there are 15,000,000 results.
This is a lot.
If I were just starting out, I would try some other keywords like “YouTube ranking factor”.
Bingo! This keyword has only 20,900 results.
This keyword is therefore much less competitive.
A bonus tip: Search for your keyword on Google.
Here’s the deal
YouTube is home to the majority of YouTube views.
Don’t stop there. If you also rank your video in Google, it can bring in 2-5x as many views.
How?
Optimizing your videos around keywords with video results in Google is the key.
Google includes videos only in search results for specific keywords.
Google reserves sometimes a large portion of the first page for video results.
Google is more inclined to use video results when searching for these keywords.
Keywords for how-to (“How to make cold brew coffee”)
Reviews (“beats By Dre review”)
Tutorials (Setting Up WordPress)
Anything related to fitness (“Cardio Kickboxing”)
Funny videos (“Cute animal videos”)
What is the point?
Let’s suppose you optimize your video for a keyword without any Google video results. You will only get traffic from YouTube searches.
Optimizing for a video keyword will also bring you targeted traffic directly from Google’s first pages.
The question is:
How can you locate these magic keywords?
You just need to search for the keyword you have used in the previous step.
Check to see if any keywords you searched have YouTube video results.
Simple, right?
Once you have found a Video Keyword it is time to check if there is any search volume. You might not rank for a keyword that gets only 20 searches per month. It’s not worth the effort.
Make sure your target keyword is getting at least 100-1k search results per month on Google (you can find this information by using the Google Keyword Planner).
Why not 100+ searches per day?
You can rank your video on Google and many searchers will click on your video in the results.
This means that you will get more quality traffic to your video and eventually your website.
Here’s an example from real life:
Backlinko being in the SEO niche, I will be searching for video keywords with searches such as “keyword research tips”, how to build backlinks, and “SEO tutorial”.
Bingo! You can find 4 YouTube videos for the keyword SEO tutorial on Google.
That keyword is sure to exceed our minimum of 100 monthly searches.
This would make a great keyword for a video.
Actually, I did.
Talking about creating your video…
Step 2: Publish a high-retention video
Here’s the truth
You must keep people watching if you want your videos to rank.
Audience retention is the number of videos people see.
YouTube also stated that “Audience retention” is an important ranking factor. To quote YouTube:
And this is how it works:
YouTube will rank your video higher if it keeps users on YouTube.
YouTube wants users to keep using the platform, so they click ads. They’ll promote your video if they help you achieve that goal.
The question is:
How do you make a video that engages people?
Also known as “High-Retention Videos”.
These are three simple steps that work great. These 3 steps were difficult for me to master. This video will show you how to create high-retention videos right away.
High-Retention videos don’t require fancy cameras or microphones, as you can see. You don’t need to worry about production value.
You’re fine as long as your video is interesting and valuable.
What is the bottom line?
Your video won’t rank if it isn’t good enough for SEO.
YouTube is not like Google, which uses backlinks and other signals for evaluating the content’s quality. They rely on Audience retention.
YouTube’s algorithm uses Audience Interaction as one of its ranking signals.
Let me now show you 5 important YouTube ranking factors.
Video Comments
YouTube gets a strong signal from comments that someone left a comment. This tells YouTube that they enjoyed the video or at least were interested in it.
In fact, I found a strong correlation between comments and ranking high in search results when I looked at 1.3 million YouTube searches.
Encourage your viewers to comment on the video and to reply to any comments.
After watching a video, click “Subscribe”
Subscribe to your channel if someone watches your video. This is a huge signal that your video is amazing.
How can you get more YouTube subscribers? Ask others to subscribe.
Seriously. I have found that asking my viewers to sign up at the end of my videos increases my monthly subscribers significantly.
How many people have shared your video on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter?
It’s not like people share low-quality videos.
YouTube notices people sharing your video and thinks: “This must have been an amazing piece of content!” They’ll also give you a boost in rankings.
(Also social shares can bring more people from those networks to YouTube…which they like.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
Which result does a person click when they search for your keyword on YouTube?
Your video… or the video of someone else?
YouTube seems to pay a lot of attention to user behavior.
The Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who click on your result. The higher your CTR is, the better.
Also, you want YouTube users to click on your result.
YouTube observes that many people click on your result and decides to “Rank this video higher in search results.”
However, if people don’t pay attention to your results, it will result in your ranking being dropped.
How can you increase your CTR? Make compelling titles and thumbnails.
As an example, my title and thumbnail are clearly different from other results for this keyword.
Thumbs up/Thumbs down
Explanatory
Video Length
Longer videos rank higher than text-based articles on Google.
In YouTube and Google searches, I find that longer videos perform better than shorter videos.
The data backs this up. YouTube SEO: The YouTube ranking factors study I just mentioned also showed that longer videos are more effective than shorter videos.
If you search YouTube for “WordPress”, you will find the first two videos that are more than an hour long.
What length should your video be?
I would not worry about the length of the video too much. Instead, focus on making the best possible video.
You can make your video longer if you feel it is necessary. Your video shouldn’t be too long. People will watch your video if it’s great.
The best thing about all these stats? You can track them all in the YouTube Studio.
This will allow you to see your progress and help you improve your videos.
Okay, you have created your High-Retention Video. Now it is time to upload it and optimize it for SEO.
Step 3: YouTube Video Optimization
Here are some ways to get the best SEO value out of your video.
SAY Your Target Keyword
YouTube automatically transcribes your videos, as you probably have noticed. They’re quite accurate.
YouTube will “hear” if you mention your target keyword within your video. YouTube will also understand your video better if you actually SAY the keyword in your video.
Video Title
Your video title should not exceed 5 words. This will allow you to include your entire keyword without keyword-stuffing.
This video title is 8 words long. Only 3 of these are my target keywords (“higher Google ranks”):
Power Tip: Just like a blog post, you can get a slight boost in video SEO by including your keyword at the start of the title.
If you wanted to rank for surfing tutorial, you would want to use a title such as Surfing Tutorial: Learn how to ride a wave today.
Description
The description of your video is extremely important.
YouTube and Google can understand your video’s context by looking at the description. The better they understand your video, and the more frequently you will appear in the Suggested Videos sidebar, the higher you rank.
These are the basics of the description.
In the first 25 words, include your keyword
The description should be at least 250 words
Include your keyword 2 to 4 times
Without being spammy, this SEO-optimized description tells Google and YouTube about your video.
Here’s a sample of my description for a video that I optimized around the keyword “Onpage SEO”.
Notice how I included my keyword a few times… but not being spammy? This is what you should do.
Tags
Tags aren’t super important…but they help.
Here are the video tags I use to create my videos.
My exact target keyword is in my first tag (example: Google SEO).
You can also include variations of the word or phrase. (Example: Google search engine optimization)
Finally, I add a few tags that cover other topics to my video (Examples: “Link building”, and “Content marketing”).
Simply put, you need to include keywords in your video description so that YouTube and Google can find them.
Pro Tip: Targeted Tags not only help you rank in your target keyword…
Don’t be afraid of using the same tags as your competitors. It’s actually a YouTube marketing best practice that has worked for years.
If your video tags match the tags of a video someone is watching, there’s a good chance you’ll be featured in the Recommended Video section.
That’s it! You can optimize your video to rank on YouTube.
Now it’s time to move on to the next step, video promotion.
Step 4: Promote your video
We spoke a lot about making videos that increase Audience Retention and use user experience signals. This is crucial.
YouTube can only measure these signals if you have views on your video.
These are some ways to get targeted views for your video.
Mention your video on Quora or other Q&A sites
Quora, forums, and other Q&A websites are among the most visited sites on the internet (in fact, Quora ranks as one of the most visited sites online).
However, if you spam your blog content by going in there, you will be banned. You should link to YouTube videos.
You can get high-quality views from Q&A sites, and not only that, but you also get high-quality views.
In other words, high retention views.
It’s worth thinking about:
Your video will be posted in a place where people are looking for information about a topic. People who watch your video will view a large portion of it to learn more about the topic.
Search for keywords that describe the topic of your video to perform this step. Next, search for a keyword that describes your video’s topic.
If you’re able to answer the question, you should. Last, make sure to link to your video at the end of your answer.
Here’s an example.
Send an email signature with a link to your video
People who email you (like your mom), generally like you.
If you’re anything like me, you receive a lot of emails.
You just created a high-retention pipeline by including a link to the latest video in your email signature.
Use your videos to embed in blog posts
Write a blog post on your site or guest post on another site.
“Where can I embed YouTube videos into this post?”
To illustrate, the Skyscraper Technique was mentioned in this guide. I embedded a video explaining how it worked.
My video received a few hundred high-quality views immediately.
Playlists are a great way to save time
Playlists are a great way to increase your video views. Playlists play all videos in the playlist automatically, which can result in thousands of additional views per month.
Here are the steps to get them set up.
Take a look at your videos. You will need to identify at least 4-5 videos that share a common theme. When I look at my videos on YouTube, I see that there are quite a few videos that focus on the topic of “link building”.
Next, create a playlist with the selected videos.
Add the playlist to your channel page. Continue to rinse and repeat until there are at least three playlists on your channel.
Your channel page is important…
Optimize Your Channel Page
Optimized channels can improve your videos’ ranking in two ways.
YouTube can also rank your channel. Here’s an example.
Second, a great channel page=more subscribers. Indirectly, increasing your subscribers can improve your ranking.
Your channel page should look professional and professional. This is what my channel page looked like when I updated it.
I noticed an increase in subs and views.
Include keywords in the about section of your channel. Here’s an example.
You can see how I use terms such as “white hat SEO”, link building, and “search engine optimizing” in my channel description.
These are the keywords I want YouTube to rank for.
You don’t want keyword stuffing or other shady tactics. You can just naturally add words and phrases you want your videos to rank for.
Here’s what to do next…
Okay, now I hope you found this guide helpful in ranking your YouTube videos.
Now, I would like to hear from your:
How do you rank your YouTube videos?
Please leave a comment below to let me know.
