YouTube Video SEO – How to Rank Well In Google
YouTube is severely under-utilized by small businesses. When people think of local SEO, they think of the traditional methods like backlinks, page rank, onsite optimization, etc. (all of which are very important). But somewhere along the way, YouTube video SEO gets ignored. Don’t make that mistake.
If you’ve never thought about using YouTube video SEO as part of your strategy, then you should start. YouTube videos, if optimized properly, tend to rank well in Google, which means that you have another weapon to increase your rankings. We’ll discuss some ways that you can optimize your videos so that they do well in the SERPS.
Incorporate your keywords in the title, description, and tags.
You need to know what keywords you’re going to target if you’re going to be successful with YouTube video SEO. Start thinking of longtail keywords and do research into how competitive they are. There are several good keyword researching tools, and some are better than others.
The Google Keyword Planner, for example, can be good, but it can also be wildly inaccurate. The tool has been known to inaccurately show the number of people using a search term. It may be a good idea to use a few different tools and sources to get the best idea of the traffic for a keyword.
Beyond that, one of the best things you can do is manually enter the search and review the quality and quantity of results. If there are thousands or millions of results, and there are authoritative sites on the first 3 pages, then you should discard that keyword. Some things to remember:
- Once you have a keyword, you can weave it into the title, description, and tags with the keyword to properly accomplish YouTube Video SEO.
- Don’t overstuff the description with your keywords, as it will be unnatural. Your tags can be multi-phase or single-word.
- Keyword placement for YouTube video SEO purposes is very easy and straightforward. If you don’t overdo it, you won’t get penalized for over-optimization.
- You should also optimize your YouTube channel with these keywords. Provide a website URL, and link to your social media profiles.
Geotag your videos
In the Advanced settings within the video manager, enter your address into the search field, and then Google will convert the address into longitude and latitude coordinates. Geotagging your video may help to make it more relevant to people in your local area. It is actually even something you are able to search for in Google.
Upload Caption Files
Google & YouTube’s connection with each other means Google wants YouTube content to be prioritized in search. A way that you can take advantage of this is by uploading captions of your video.
This is good for getting your video to rank highly both on Google and YouTube since the text of the video is a ranking factor on both sites.
Include the NAP (name, address, and phone number) in the description of the video, in frames near the end of the video, and in the actual audio of the video. Google’s algorithm can detect text within the video; YouTube also converts audio into text transcripts. Make sure that your NAP is consistent with any other listing that you have on the web. Be sure to include your website URL as well.
Embed Your Videos Often
The number of embeds will add to the popularity of the video. If you can embed the video on your site or blog, and see if you can embed it in other online sites and communities, like forums.
Share the video extensively
There are several reasons why it makes sense for you to actively promote and share your videos. Here are a few:
- The more views that you have, the more popular the video will be. The more popular the video, the more likely that it will be seen. The jury’s out on whether or not a high quantity of views will impact that video’s ranking, but it cannot hurt.
- If the video is being linked to and embedded on various social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.), it will help your video in rankings.
It’s always a good thing for people to see your video. Those views can convert into leads, which is what we’re after.
Following the tips listed in this post will help you to really benefits from Youtube. Start marketing your business on Youtube today, so that you can experience the benefits tomorrow.
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