YouTube results claiming the #2 and #3 ranks in Google search for “how to tie a tie”
Some mind boggling YouTube Stats to get you in the mood:
– 800 million unique monthly users
– 4 billion+ videos are viewed every day
– The amount of video uploaded to YouTube in one month exceeds the amount of video that the 3 largest US television networks created in the past 60 years
Getting views isn’t always as easy as it is for Psy or Maru the cat. There is no question that if you’re a business on YouTube, you need to focus some SEO efforts on your videos in order to reach your target consumer. Here’s where to start:
1. Create Engaging Videos
If people consistently leave your video without finishing it, your ranking will drop. This is the most obvious indicator for YouTube that your video isn’t relevant. Ensure that your video is truly interesting to limit the bounces, and when in doubt, err on the shorter side.
2. Title and Description
Be specific and descriptive in both your title and your description. Include the keyword that you want to rank for, and ensure that the most important part of your description doesn’t get cut off by the dreaded ellipses in search results. This means engaging your audience with the first 30 characters of your description.
3. Tags
Tags help the search engine understand the subject/context of your content, figure out what videos are relevant, and determine if yours is related to other videos. Perform a search for the keyword that you would like to rank for, and then use the same tags that the top results have used. Supplement these with any variations of your keywords that haven’t yet been included.
4. File Name
Don’t miss out on an opportunity to tell YouTube that your video is relevant. Instead of leaving your video file at its default name before uploading it (movie343543.avi), ensure that you’ve named it based on your keywords.
5. Closed Captioning
Thanks, YouTube, for another opportunity to show what our content is all about! The closed captioning feature allows you to upload your video’s script, which is automatically synced to your clip using magic. YouTube crawls the closed captioning text when ranking results, so the additional keyword theme can boost your rankings. If two videos are similar in the title, description, and tags, the video with closed captioning will always be ranked higher.
