8 Ways to Optimize a YouTube Video for Search Engines
YouTube is the most popular free video hosting network and the second largest search engine in the world; Google, the largest search engine, owns YouTube, and the two are so closely integrated that YouTube videos often show up in search results before a relevant website for certain keywords. With more than 800 million unique visits and more than four billion hours of video watched each month, it can be difficult to get your video in front of your target market. To ensure your videos appear in search engine results for relevant keywords, you need to optimize them properly using the steps below.
1. Keyword Research
Before you optimize anything, make sure you do your research and find out what keywords you want to be found for, and what keywords your target audience is searching for. Using Google’s Keyword Tool and Google Trends, you can see which keywords are most often searched by your consumers. If you have a product or service video, you will want to optimize it using a list of keywords developed from using these tools to make sure you have optimal exposure to the right audience. You’ll want to find broad match terms and exact match terms; for example, if your video is about professional photography in Raleigh, you’ll want to find all photography-related keywords associated with the Raleigh location, whether they are specific derivatives (“Raleigh photos” or “Raleigh photographer”) or broad phrases that are often associated with photography in the surrounding areas (“professional pictures in Apex” or “corporate portraits in Cary”). Once you have this list of about 10-15 relevant keywords, separate them out into primary and secondary keywords, with the primary keywords being the most relevant to your video.
2. Keywords in the Video File Name
Before you even upload your video to YouTube, make sure you save your video file with your primary keywords in the name of the file itself. (for example, Professional_Raleigh_Photographer.MOV). YouTube and Google crawl these original file names much like they crawl the code in the back end of a website. Once you’ve saved your video with the primary keywords in the file name, then you can upload it to YouTube and begin your optimization.
3. Video Title Optimization
Make sure your video title is no longer than 70 characters to ensure the entire video title shows up in search results. If you want your title to be longer, make sure your primary keywords are placed within the first 70 characters. The title of your video should be descriptive of the content within the video, and not mislead the viewer. This can lead to downvotes, higher bounce rates, and ultimately search engine penalization. You also want your title to be compelling enough to convince users to click and watch it!
4. Video Description Optimization
Only the first 160 characters of your description will show up in search engine results. Make sure you have a link to your website, contact information, primary keywords, and – if you have enough room – a brief call to action in the introductory section of your video’s description. Once you have your 160-character description nailed down, you can include whatever text you want in the rest of the video description. Best practice is to give either a summary of the video content, or provide a text transcription of the dialogue within the video, followed by a brief explanation of your company. Make sure this part of the description is filled with your secondary keywords for boosted SEO strength.
5. Choose a Category
Once you have optimized your title and description, YouTube gives you the option to categorize your video. This enables you to associate your video with other videos like it, increasing your odds for being found as a “suggested video” result when another video is being watched. The categories you can choose from are as follows:
Autos & Vehicles
Comedy
Education
Entertainment
Film & Animation
Gaming
How-to & Style
Music
News & Politics
Nonprofits & Activism
People & Blogs
Pets & Animals
Science & Technology
Sports
Travel & Events
If your video does not fall into one of these categories, your best bet is to put it into “People & Blogs” or “Entertainment.”
6. Upload captions.
To help Google and YouTube better understand what your video is about, you can upload a transcript of your video as a caption file. This can also be helpful if your target audience is hard of hearing, or maybe doesn’t have the sound turned up on their computer. The automated captions generated by YouTube are often garbled and inaccurate – it’s always better to upload your own captions.
7. Use annotations.
YouTube video annotations are a great way to make your video more interactive. Add background information, calls to action, brief definitions or explanations, and links to other videos or video playlists to make your video more engaging. By linking your video to other videos in a series, you create a stronger connection and improve your relevancy for particular key words and phrases. Additionally, if your viewers know to look for links to related videos within your videos, you will gain a more engaged audience over time. Make sure your annotations are visible for at least 5 seconds to ensure optimal visibility.
8. Create playlists.
While one perfectly-optimized video may get you the views you are hoping for, think of what an entire playlist of videos centered around a particular keyword or phrase can do! The more video content you have focusing on a particular subject, the more relevant your YouTube channel will appear to the search engines. This is very similar to optimizing your website for specific keywords. More fresh content = more relevancy = boosted search engine rankings. Once you’ve got your keyword strategy, you can apply some of your secondary keywords to other videos in your playlist to broaden your keyword focus and maybe pull in a few more views you didn’t capture before. Make sure all of these videos are located in a central playlist – which also contains your primary keywords within the playlist title – and that all are linked with annotations.
Once your YouTube channel and videos have been optimized, your next step is to share, share, share! Push your video content out through active social networks, your website, blogs, and emails. Get your video in front of people you already know, who may be willing to share your video with people they know. Your YouTube videos can stay at the top of the search engine results pages for weeks at a time, if there is constant engagement combined with proper video optimization. For more information on how to optimize your YouTube videos, contact the experts at In Focus Studios.
