Part 2: YouTube SEO: How to Rank Your Videos in YouTube Search?
Let’s continue from last week with the SEO practices followed by YouTube to rank videos on the channel.
1. Tag Videos with Popular Keywords
Why tag videos with popular keywords? When users search with keywords related to your tag, your video will appear in the search results. When adding tags, use YouTube auto suggest or YouTube keyword suggestion tool for popular keywords that are related to your topic. It is an important factor that both the viewers and YouTube need to understand the content of your video.
2. SRT Files for subtitles and Closed Captions
Subtitles and captions help to increase YouTube search optimization as it highlights crucial keywords. To add them, a supported text transcript or timed subtitles file (SRT) has to be uploaded. An SRT file is a plain-text file with important information on subtitles, start and end times codes for the text, etc.
3. Cards and End Screens for More Viewership
What are Cards? According to YouTube Creator Academy, they are “preformatted notifications that appear on desktop and mobile” that helps to promote your brand or other videos. There are five types of cards that can be added to the video. They are Channel, Donation, Fan Funding, Link, and Poll cards. To know more about how to add the cards read here. Cards can be anywhere in the video.
End Screens are also information cards that appear only towards the end of the video. It would resemble a thumbnail with titles and images and entices viewers to see more videos thus increasing viewership. Learn more about how to add end screens here.
4. Comments and Shares
It has been proved that there is a big connection between the number of comments and the rank of the video. When more people engage with the video and leave their comments, it indicates that the content is relevant and useful. As a new channel, make sure to create outstanding content. Then you could ask your viewers to like, share and leave their comments on the channel. You could also ask a relevant question and ask for their replies.
5. Subscription
‘Click the bell icon and subscribe to our channel,’ is one of the most common requests we hear in YouTube videos. Along with the likes and comments, new subscribers also indicate the popularity of your channel and increases your rankings too. YouTube prefers the Call to Action for the subscription to be placed at the very end. So, when someone does subscribe, it shows that they liked your video and wants more of your content.
6. Optimal Video Length
The optimal length of the video is not mentioned or set as a rule in general. Even though the videos at the very top are all lengthy and have high ranks, there are a lot of short videos that have high ranking, likes and shares. Ultimately what matters is how engaging the videos are, so that the viewers stay on till the end. Experiment with videos of various lengths to determine what works best for your channel.
The number of YouTube users in India is expected to increase by 500 million in 2020. Bearing this in mind, it is crucial to optimize your SEO for the videos with a great YouTube plan. Ensure that you have experts to help you with your YouTube channel as it differs from Google SEO. To know more, do get in touch!