5 tips to improve your YouTube SEO

What is YouTube SEO?

YouTube SEO is a way to improve the placement of your video in the search results.

Since Google has purchased YouTube it has adopted the same search intelligence as their search engine and has the same purpose: to offer the best search experience to the user.

1. Research Keywords First

Like Google, keywords are essential for YouTube SEO. With keywords, YouTube identifies the video’s subject, indexes the content and associates it with a users’ searches.

This is why they must be added to certain fields – title, tags and description, so YouTube can collect this information and use it in the ranking.

Because of this, you need to know which keywords best identify your videos and, at the same time, have the potential to attract more viewers to your channel.

2. Create a strong video title

After performing your keyword research, you should have a good selection of terms to choose from.

The first field a keyword needs to appear is in the title. This is one of the most important factors for YouTube to index your video and in turn rank your content.

3. Add tags to your video

On YouTube, tags are mandatory for ranking a video. They are a main factor to identify the subject of a video and correctly index it. This also helps YouTube recommend related videos. Those suggestions are an important source of traffic for your videos.

YouTube allows for 120 characters. Try to use 5 to 6 words, so as not to confuse the algorithm with terms that aren’t related to its content.

4. Write concise descriptions

The description field must be filled in when uploading the video. This text should provide information about what the video is about and since the description can be longer it should have more detail. You are allotted 5000 characters for your descriptions.

5. Your videos should be longer

Videos with less than 2 minutes tend to be poorly positioned while the average duration of the first 5 positions is 11min 44s. So it’s worth the extra time to create longer videos which are more than 10 minutes long.

It is worth mentioning that relevance is better than the video’s length. If you invest in quality content, you don’t have to worry as much about the videos length.

Promote your video and channel

This goes without saying, the best way to promote your video and channel is to engage with your audience and promote on other social media platforms.

Need help with your YouTube channels SEO?

Sequel Design has been helping clients for year achieve their SEO goals, contact us today for more information on how we can help you!

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