We know that YouTube is uncharted territory for many of you. If it isn’t maybe that’s the reason why you haven’t made a mark for yourself.
After years of working in marketing, We know that ranking number one in Google search is very, very difficult. But as for ranking number one on YouTube search? Not so much.
However, there are a lot of misconceptions related to how YouTube’s search algorithm works in reality. That’s the very reason why most don’t succeed with YouTube marketing.
To put you on the right track, I want to share with you a series of actionable strategies that I learned the hard way.
These tips will help you avoid the same issues that I ran into when I was looking for ways to rank effectively on YouTube.
Let’s get some things straight
The most important reason why you want to get first page rankings is that you want to be visible to everyone that will need your product/service.
Google, for example, is the #1 search engine and it provides for almost 12 billion searches a month.
And with over 6 billion hours of video viewed each month, YouTube is a powerful marketing platform that your business needs to utilize.
The key to YouTube marketing is getting videos ranked in both Google and YouTube searches. This creates an automated flow of people finding your videos with valuable keywords related to your business.
The problem is that being found by your potential customers on YouTube isn’t that easy because you have to beat millions of competitors with larger budgets and brighter videos.
Why YouTube?
With over 1 billion active users worldwide, YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world (behind Google). It’s also a massive social network (the world’s 3rd largest social network, behind Facebook and Twitter).
This alone makes YouTube a perfect spot to promote your brand.
But the problem is, you can’t really be on YouTube without a video and even then you won’t rank high in the search engine without a quality marketing video.
Content is key!
You can have a catchy title, an appealing thumbnail, and fully optimize your video with relevant keywords. However, none of these will keep viewers engaged with your video.
In order to increase user engagement, you must create content that is truly authentic and captivating. If you spend more time improving your content, you won’t have to worry about making sure your video ranks.
The better you’re able to entertain, educate, or inform your viewers, the more they’ll engage with you video.
Your viewers will do the work for you by liking, sharing, and commenting on your video.
But keep in mind that YouTube isn’t a shopping website. You can’t make purchases in the platform.
Is Video Length important or Not?
While aggregated clicks are still counted, the amount of engagement on your videos play a huge role just like the likes, dislikes, comments, watch time, shares, and views on other sites. This required YouTubers to create better videos with more engaging content in order to rank higher.
Yes, nowadays, people have an extremely short attention span, but that doesn’t mean that only short videos perform the highest on this platform. Keep it as long as it is interesting.
So whether it’s a minute or half an hour, the only thing that matters is that people are staying tuned.
Although there is no official guidance on how long you should make your videos, I always suggest making your videos at least two minutes in length.
The rationale is simple: the more seconds you can keep a user on your video, the better your video will rank. Therefore, having videos with more length will add to the total seconds users spend on your videos.
But if you’re just stretching your videos for this, you won’t be able to keep a user on your video and they won’t rank well.
Also, one of the most important things is to not compromise the quality of your video for Watch Time. So rather that making a really long video that is clearly rushed, better focus on a shorter video, with better quality and content.
Create a catchy, branded thumbnail
When you’re creating a video, the thumbnail might not seem important. You might be thinking that as long as the content is good, the thumbnail doesn’t really matter. Well, think again!
The thumbnail is the first thing that viewers see when browsing through YouTube. It’s that small image that either grabs their attention or let them scroll by.
Before even reading the title, users will often see the thumbnails first. Because of this, the images you use as thumbnails should be eye-catching and intriguing, in order to drive engagement from users.
The thumbnail is typically the first impression of your video. Essentially it determines whether or not people will click through, so you need something that grabs the eye and communicates what your video is about at a glance.
A high-quality picture that acts as a teaser for the video will not only give context, but it’s also an opportunity for your audience to familiarize themselves with your style.
It’s always important to familiarize your audience with your brand and your content. A good way to do this is to keep your thumbnails consistent with the same style fonts, memorable colors, and strong design.
Do proper keyword research
Just like in anything else when it comes to ranks, keywords are an integral part of the process. If you want to reach your audience, find keywords in your niche that people may be searching for.
When doing keyword research on YouTube, you want to try to find keywords that will drive traffic to your video.
YouTube allows you to include “tags” to help categorize your video by keyword, but it limits the number of tags you can include. You’ll want to look for long-tail keywords that can relate to your video’s topic.
You should also use single-word tags and broad-term tags that relate to your video’s broader topic.
One of the best ways to get tag ideas is to look at the top-ranking YouTube videos that directly compete with your video. However, YouTube hides the video tags, which makes it more difficult to “spy” on your competitors and see their keyword/tag.
Luckily, there are tools that allow you to get lots of insights into what your competitors are doing — including letting you see the tags competitors are using to get their videos to rank high.
Don’t forget to add a link to your website
YouTube provides a platform with a built in audience, but it’s your job to engage that audience and drive them to your website.
Improve your reach potential and your brand authority by associating your website in your channel settings.
There are other creative ways to steer the audience to whatever you are trying to sell them.
