On the web, content is king, and video is one of the most consumed. For that reason, learning about YouTube SEO benefits your business.

The quality of the video is undoubtedly one of the most important properties. We all like to watch high-quality content and videos with good resolution and clear audio that allows us to understand what is being transmitted. Relevance, originality, and authority in the content are other important qualities.

In addition to the above attributes, another group of aspects associated with YouTube SEO will help you increase the visibility, reach, and impact of your brand. The data on the growth of preference towards this platform confirm this, as can be seen below.

YouTube: a growing platform that will continue to grow

If you already know strategies to position articles and web pages, why should you also learn SEO YouTube positioning?

First, they are not the same. Second, consider these facts:

YouTube is the second most used social network, with more than 2,000 million active monthly users for January 2020. It is only surpassed by Facebook, with 2,449 million, another platform where video also stands out (Fernández, 2020).

YouTube videos allow you to create an emotional relationship with your viewers ( rapport ), which increases loyalty and the desire to buy your products.

YouTube is the biggest driver of mobile app traffic, with 37% of all shares. Furthermore, it is available in 91 countries and 80 languages .

It is time to take advantage of this trend since digital screens will continue to be the protagonists. So let’s start with the most basic.

What is YouTube SEO?

Search Engine Optimization for YouTube is a set of SEO techniques applied to improve videos’ position in search engine results. In essence, YouTube SEO helps audiovisual content to be more visible and selected.

Taking into account that the web cannot interpret the content of the audiovisual itself, there are four key aspects that you must know so that your videos quickly climb to the top positions:

• Analyze your audience
• Choose suitable keywords or keywords
• Select an SEO optimized title and define other metadata
• Includes tags, thumbnails, and playlists

Let’s get to know each of these aspects in greater detail:

1. Know your audience

To do a good YouTube SEO, you have to know the target audience, their tastes, needs, and expectations. Content style preferences change based on audience or region.

For example, in 2020, YouTube was the platform of choice for new prosumers. Millennials (born between 1983 and 1994) represent 46% of potential consumers. In addition, along with Generation Z (born between 1995 and 2002) frequently use YouTube to learn, watch streaming videos and entertain themselves (ADM, 2015).

2. Incorporate the appropriate keywords into YouTube SEO

The main keyword and the secondary words ( keywords ) are essential to optimize the SEO positioning of the videos. To select them, you have to investigate what words or expressions are used in search engines to consult similar content. Also, analyze which ones your competition uses ( keyword research ) in their YouTube SEO strategy.

3. An impressive and optimized title

The more specific and catchy the title is, the better. Generic titles, for example, “movies,” do not help to properly position your videos. It is not very specific, and the list of results obtained is immensely broad. On the contrary, the title “5 best movies of the decade for children”, for example, helps to better position the video.

The key expression, in this case, could be “films of the decade.” This attracts more targeted traffic and gets more clicks optimally.

Adding subtitles (CC), a description or a video transcript improves YouTube SEO positioning. This is because the keywords are added and repeated in these texts. In addition, they are characteristics that give added value to the audiovisual.

4. Add tags, thumbnails, and lists

When searched by category or topic, tags drive traffic to your video.

Creating custom thumbnails or covers for your videos is better than letting YouTube generate them automatically. Designing a thumbnail with images or a more attractive composition is a good YouTube SEO strategy.

Custom playlists also use tags, thumbnails, keywords, and descriptions to better organize your videos. They improve the experience of your users and are well valued by the YouTube algorithm.

Other YouTube SEO metrics and tools

In addition to the above key aspects, there are other characteristics that are processed in the deep neural network algorithms that evaluate YouTube SEO, measured by metrics such as (Actions Data, nd):

• Click rate (CTR or Click Through Rate ).
• Display time ( Total Watch Time ).
• Retention of time people spends on your site ( engagement ).
• Subscription fee.

The number of people who indicate that they liked the video ( likes ), that they share it on social networks ( shares ) or that they add it to their favorites.

The number of videos viewed on the channel.

YouTube algorithms also analyze records associated with:

• Comments
• Watched videos and searched history
• demographics
• Tools to do YouTube SEO analysis

To determine which are the keywords with the highest search volume, choose the most appropriate title, and know your audience. Among other aspects, you have several applications available.

The following include options specific to YouTube SEO :

• Ahrefs
• semrush
• Google Trends

In addition, the YouTube platform itself has tools such as:

The autocomplete: allows you to determine what are the trends in the titles. It also suggests the most used expressions in searches.

YouTube Analytics reports: to analyze SEO positioning metrics and the behavior of your visitors.

All of these key aspects and metrics are considered by YouTube’s algorithm to rank videos. They are also used to generate recommendation lists, notifications, or suggested videos. This demonstrates why understanding your audience’s search intent is just as important as video quality.

In the end, the goal of YouTube SEO is that the videos are selected for standing out in relevance, engagement, and quality.

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