YouTube is a powerful platform for creators to share their content with the world, but in order to be successful you need to optimize it for search and discovery.
In this blog I cover everything from keywords to playlists, hashtags, and customized thumbnails.
Whether you’re just starting out or are looking to grow your existing channel, these 15 tips will increase your chances for more views, subscribers and longer watch time. Enjoy!
Top 15 Ways to Improve YouTube SEO:
- 1) Think Like Your Potential Search User
- 2) Be Selective About Your Keywords>
- 3) Put Your Keyword in the Video Title
- 4) Optimize Your Video Description
- 5) Add Hashtags
- 6) Tag Your Videos with Keywords
- 7) Upload a Custom Thumbnail Image for Your Video
- 8) Add Subtitles and Captions to Your Video
- 9) Use Cards and End Screens to Increase Viewership Across Your Channel
- 10) Put Your Video into a Specific Category
- 11) Create Keyword Optimized Playlists
- 12) Leave a Pinned Comment on Your Own Video
- 13) Edit Your File Name
- 14) Encourage Audience Engagement
- 15) Promote the Channel and Videos on Social Media
1) Think Like Your Potential Search User
The easiest way to make sure you are optimizing your videos to be found in search is to put yourself in the shoes of your intended audience. What phrase would they use to search for videos related to your subject? If they wanted to watch video reviews of a favorite show, they might search for “video review the flight attendant season two” or they might do a broad search for “review of flight attendant”. You want to make sure that you have key words and phrases that will match those potential search terms. There are many places you can put key words and phrases, including in the headline, video description and key words on the back end.
2) Be Selective About Your Keywords
Be smart about picking your keywords. With a highly competitive market, choosing something far too broad will get you lost in a sea of choices. You want to research your keywords and pick ones that can get you volume without too much competition. The best plan is a mix of broad and narrow terms. With more niche terms, your audience is smaller and more highly focused. You are more likely to get seen by the target audience with these smaller volume keywords. You do still stand a chance to get noticed for the larger keywords, but you will most likely get lost in the massive amount of results pages. Pick a few small, medium, and large volume keywords and use them all within your channel to get the best results.
3) Put Your Keyword in the Video Title
Again, you want to put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes. What are they searching for? Do they want to learn how to do something? Your video title might look something like “How to jumpstart a car with jumper cables”. Do they want to find information on a particular kind of product? That video title might look like “Reviewing the Keurig 2.0 Coffee Maker”. Perhaps they want to read a review of the finale of a TV series to get better context after watching it. That video title might look like “Succession Season 4 Finale Review: The Fate of the Roy Family”. When searching videos, people will see the title and possibly a thumbnail, but they will make a judgement call based on the title alone, so you want that title to be as clear and close to their potential search terms as possible.
4) Optimize Your Video Description
While YouTube gives you 5,000 characters for your video description, it recommends only using 200 and front-loading any keywords or CTAs in the first few sentences. The reason for this is that YT only shows the first 200 characters and then puts the rest behind a “read more” button. If your description is not compelling enough for the viewer to click more, then you probably shouldn’t use the space past those 200 characters. On the other hand, the video description is a prime piece of real estate if done correctly. People don’t want to read a book, but if you have paragraphs broken up with links, hashtags, and helpful information, it will only help you get better traction with search results AND with YouTube correctly categorizing your videos and putting them into the “suggested videos” area.
You also get 1,000 characters for your general channel description and all the same info applies. Put your best stuff in the first 200 characters, but don’t be afraid to fill out the full character limit with your keywords. It’s just one more area that you can be found for keyword search.
5) Add Hashtags
Adding hashtags to your video descriptions will do a few things for you. One, it will put the first three hashtags above your video title in the listing, and two, it will increase searchability if someone is doing a search using hashtags. You can add hashtags anywhere in your description and it will take the first three. I recommend limiting the number of hashtags you use to 3-5 to avoid being spam checked by YouTube. I also recommend adding them at the end of the description on their own line to look cleaner and to be more easily findable.
6) Tag Your Videos with Keywords
Tags are a great way for people to find your videos and also serve to help YouTube categorize your videos and group them with similar videos. You don’t want to use any tags that are perhaps popular, but not relevant to your video because you can and will most likely get penalized by YouTube. Like in the video descriptions, you want to front load with your best tags. You get 500 characters to add keywords, but you really want those first few keywords to be the most important and most accurate tags. With that much space however, you can add in a mix of more broad terms as well as longer phrases like “how to cook salmon”.
7) Upload a Custom Thumbnail Image for Your Video
Beyond the title, the thumbnail is the next most important thing for your viewers to see and understand immediately what the video is about. The more colorful AND simple your design is, the better shot you have of grabbing somebody’s attention and getting them to click into the description. Take the hassle of trying to figure out what a video is about from a single thumbnail image and create your own with simple and short text similar to what is in your headline. You can create pretty good thumbnail templates using Canva or other free graphic design programs.
8) Add Subtitles and Captions to Your Video
Subtitles and captions are yet another way that YouTube categorizes your videos. Subtitles are designed for people who don’t understand the original language of the video while captions are for people who can’t hear the audio. Beyond this, they are also another place where keywords can help get your video noticed in search. There are a few ways to add subtitles and captions. You can either upload an SRT file or manually type captions in under the video management section of your channel. A quick search of the internet will pull up many programs you can use to create these SRT files and upload them to YouTube.
9) Use Cards and End Screens to Increase Viewership Across Your YouTube Channel
Cards can be used throughout your video in up to five places and perform different functions. In this case, your best bet is the card that allows you to link to another video or playlist. You can direct people to other relevant videos or to check out the playlist to see the rest of the videos in the series. This is especially helpful if they came to your channel based on a link to one video and it happens to be part of a longer set of videos. Another good option is sending them to an external website like your business site or page where you have other articles with videos. Cards can keep the viewer engaged longer on your channel and increase viewing time.
End screens are similar to Cards, but are more detailed and only appear at the end of your video. You can also have them do a variety of CTAs like subscribe to your channel, check out other videos, or go to external links and can be used similarly to cards to keep the viewer engaged on your channel.
10) Put Your Video into a Specific Category
It’s pretty simple, but a big indicator to YouTube as to where your video fits into a category with other similar videos. Choosing the best fitting category is crucial because you will be grouped in with other similar channels and videos playlists in whatever category you choose. Your videos will be suggested to audiences who are interested in that category. You could also be penalized if you choose a category that has nothing to do with your video, but is popular. Besides, any viewers who come to your video based on the category and find that it is not correct will probably not come back to your channel and lose trust in you.
11) Create Keyword Optimized Playlists
Playlists are another way for you to engage people and keep them on your page longer. You group videos together by topic and keyword so that when one video is watched, it automatically will go to the next video in the playlist. In order for your videos to be found, you need to make sure the titles of your playlist contain keywords that help people find your content. The more specific and niche you can get, the better. For example, “Bodyweight Only Exercises” will appeal to folks who don’t have dumbbells or weight lifting equipment and want to find exercises they can do at home.
12) Leave a Pinned Comment on Your Own Video
Putting a pinned comment at the top of your video is a great way to increase engagement and show activity on the account. Make sure to leave a comment that furthers the conversation or adds value to your readers. Or, if you get a particularly insightful comment from a user or a question that you can answer, you can pin that instead as it also accomplishes furthering the conversation and/or adding value.
13) Edit Your File Name
Before uploading your video, you’ll want to change the file name and make it clear what the video is about. Make sure to include pertinent keywords. The file name appears on your account and can be seen by anybody, but it also is another way for the YouTube algorithm to characterize and sort your video.
14) Encourage Audience Engagement
You can’t just release your video into the wild and expect it to get found. Nurture its chances by asking a question or interacting with any comments left, especially in the first few hours after publishing.
15) Promote your YouTube Channel and Videos on Social Media
Cross promotion never hurts! Sharing links to your videos on other social platforms will increase the exposure (and likelihood of clicking) to different audiences. Make sure to explicitly make clear in the caption why this particular audience cares or would want to click through to watch the video. Have your YT Channel in your signature and in any blurbs you have at the bottom of blog posts or other website content. The signature is especially important because every time you send someone an email, you have a chance for them to click on your links and check you out.
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What do you think? Have you used any of these techniques for improving your YouTube SEO? Drop a comment below.
Tai Freligh is the Chief Social Media Strategist for Life Happens In Between, a marketing agency based in Huntington Beach, California. LHIB provides consulting services for social media, marketing, branding, and content creation.
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