How to rank videos on YouTube

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If you use SEO, you should know that SEO on YouTube is very important and whether a video ranks more or less quickly depends on this web positioning technique.

The SEO used for YouTube videos is very similar to the one used for SEO in texts (blogs). In both cases, you need to do a good on-page SEO and an off-page SEO to position a video, as we will see.

1. Keyword Research
Just like with “normal” SEO, the first step for YouTube SEO is keyword research. Start by creating a list of potential keywords and then analyze which ones are the best.

Google keyword research tools, such as SEMRush for example, do not work for YouTube, so to find video keywords you need specific tools for that. I recommend two: Keywordtool.io and VidIQ .

2. Script your video
Now that you have your keywords, it's time to start creating your video. This process should start with writing a script. People on YouTube have very short attention spans, which is why many professional YouTubers (or even vloggers) write their videos line by line.

A tight script ensures that you stay on topic throughout the video and also helps eliminate phrases (such as “hmm,” pauses, and “where was I…”) that cause viewers to lose interest and stop watching the video.

In summary, the video must contain:

Introduction

It's a preview of what's coming next in the video. It also serves to introduce yourself and your brand.

Steps or list of tips

This takes up the majority of the content. In case studies, for example, the story is told step by step, or if it is an explanatory video, it is where the tips or techniques are listed.

Conclusion and CTA

It is highly recommended (almost mandatory) to end the video with several buy democratic donor email database list calls to action: one to subscribe to the channel, another to subscribe to your newsletter and a third to comment on the video they just watched.

3. Produce your video
Video production itself is such a broad topic that it could be a separate post.

Rather than trying to cover everything there is to know about video production, I'll list below some of the content from Wistia's learning center that is quite useful.

The Down and Dirty DIY Lighting Kit

Setting Up a DIY Office Video Studio

Choosing a Background for Your Video

4. Upload and optimize your video
Ok, so we have an amazing video. Now it’s time to upload it and optimize it. Let’s say your keyword was “Inbound Marketing”

First, make sure you actually say the words “Inbound Marketing” in your video. YouTube now automatically transcribes all of its videos (and it’s pretty accurate). There are rumors that YouTube “listens” to your video content in the same way that Google’s crawler indexes the body of a web page. I’m not aware of YouTube confirming this, but it makes sense.

Second, include the keyword in the title of the video. YouTube is admittedly not as sophisticated as Google (it lacks anything like Hummingbird or RankBrain) but just like with a website, YouTube wants to see the keyword there too.

The next step would be to write the video description. The description is a summary of what the video is about. I personally prefer long and detailed descriptions so YouTube will have plenty of content to work with.

And finally, we create the tags for the video. There are some studies on YouTube ranking factors that claim that tags are not as important as they once were, but it is still worth tagging your videos. I recommend a combination of tags that looks like this:

Exact keyword + variations of the same (Inbound Marketing, Inbound Methodology)
Some keywords that describe the “pillar content” to which your video belongs
Some keywords that describe the topics discussed in the video (buyer persona, content marketing, buyer journey…)
From an SEO perspective, this is all that could be done to optimize your video for keywords. The rest is decided by YouTube's algorithms based on the overall quality of your video.

5. Promote your video
Just like a blog post or infographic, YouTube videos need a little nudge to get started. One of the great things about YouTube is that it’s a discovery platform, meaning it actively promotes videos it thinks people will like most on its homepage, the “suggested video” sidebar, and yes, in YouTube search results too.

But YouTube needs to collect a critical mass of data on your video (measuring likes, views, audience retention, and comments) to determine whether people are actually enjoying watching your video.

To promote a video I recommend you follow this process:

Send an email to your subscribers telling them about your video. Don't forget to add links that lead directly to it.
Another option would be to embed the video on your blog and drive traffic there. This certainly works, but it is more effective to redirect users directly to the video on YouTube, since from there they have more direct access to like, comment, or subscribe.
Share the video on your social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn…). This will also boost the organic positioning of the video. A good way to do this would be to publish a preview of the video to “tempt” people to continue watching it.
If your video is ready and optimized, you just need that promotion we talked about to get the ball rolling. However, if you think that promoting it through social media is not a good idea because your audience is not very large, I'll tell you that you are wrong. You don't need a large audience, what we are trying to do is put some eyes on your video to help Google get some data about it.

And there you have it! The process for creating, optimizing, and promoting a successful YouTube video that will rank number one for a high-volume keyword.

And as I always say, we love our job and the challenges even more, so if you need a specialized marketing agency, do not hesitate to contact us .