YouTube SEO – how to optimise your channel to build organic visibility

YouTube boasts over two billion active users per month and has grown into one of the largest search engines in the world. As such, a comprehensive SEO strategy needs to encompass YouTube when looking to grow a product, idea or brand to a wider audience. Our guide below will help you to start this journey and outline the key points to consider along the way.

1. Keyword Research

From an SEO perspective, as you would do for any website, keyword research is essential for optimising YouTube videos. Understanding the keywords and phrases your target audience is searching for can help you create relevant content that ranks well in both YouTube and Google searches. Ultimately, appearing in both will increase organic visibility overall.

Here’s how you can conduct keyword research for YouTube:

• YouTube Search Suggest Feature: provides a list of suggested queries based on search trends once you start typing a main topic or keyword into the search bar, giving an insight into popular keywords related to the content you want to create.
  
  
  

• Google Trends: can be utilised to identify search trends specific to YouTube by filtering the platform to “YouTube Search.” This can help you discover seasonal trends and increasingly popular topics within your specific niche.

(pic from https://keywordtool.io/blog/youtube-trends/ – may need a new screenshot example)

• YouTube Analytics: provides data in the ‘Traffic Source’ section of the YouTube Analytics dashboard where you can review the keywords that viewers search for to access your content, and can identify whether you need to expand your content offering or refine it further.

Optimising your video title, description and tags

The metadata you use for your video, such as the title, description, and tags, plays an essential role in YouTube SEO. These elements provide YouTube with information about the content of your video, which helps the platform determine where to rank it in search results.

Best practices for optimising YouTube video titles for SEO:

• Include your main keyword: Your title should be relevant and descriptive, incorporating your primary keyword naturally. For example, if your video is about “bird food tips,” include the exact phrase in the title, such as “Top 5 Bird Food Tips for Beginners.”
• Keep it concise and engaging: Aim for a title length of 50-60 characters to ensure it displays well across all devices.

Optimising for your target keywords in the video description :

• Use your main keyword in the first 100-150 characters: YouTube only displays the first few lines of your description before viewers have to click “Show More,” so place the most important information, including your main keyword, near the beginning.
• Provide detailed context: Write a comprehensive description (around 200-500 words) that includes related keywords, an overview of your video, and relevant links. This helps both viewers and YouTube’s algorithm understand the video’s purpose.
• Include a call to action (CTA): Encourage viewers to like, subscribe, or watch another video by adding CTAs in the description.

Choosing the right tags relevant to your brand or products: 

• Focus on relevant keywords: Use a mix of broad and specific tags related to your video, whilst avoiding keyword stuffing; tags should be directly relevant to your video content.

Leveraging engagement metrics to boost interaction

YouTube’s algorithm places significant weight on user engagement when determining search rankings. As such, focusing on retaining and increasing user engagement on your videos will mean they’re more likely to be promoted by YouTube’s algorithm in search results and related videos.

Key engagement metrics to focus on for YouTube SEO:

• Watch time: The total amount of time viewers spend watching your videos is a crucial factor, meaning that informative content remains key to getting viewers to watch videos until the end. To encourage this, save your most valuable content towards the end of the video (such as saving the best tip until last), thus ensuring viewers are incentivised to watch until the end.
• Likes, comments, and shares: Encourage viewers to interact with your video by liking, commenting, and sharing it. You can prompt engagement by asking questions throughout the video, prompting viewers to answer them in the comments and sparking further discussion.
• Subscription rates: Include an eye-catching CTA asking viewers to subscribe at the end of your video, with subscriptions immediately following the video being viewed showing YouTube the value of that content. The CTA can be as creative as you’d like, utilising graphics that capture the attention of viewers.
• YouTube’s Community tab: (available to channels with over 500 subscribers) allows you to interact with your audience through polls, updates, and discussions, further boosting engagement.

Video thumbnails and closed captions to increase CTR

A well-designed thumbnail and the use of closed captions can significantly improve your video’s performance on YouTube, influencing both SEO and viewer engagement.

Optimising your YouTube video thumbnails for SEO:

• Create custom thumbnails: a high-quality, custom thumbnail can make your video stand out in search results and suggested videos. Use clear images, bold text, and vibrant colours to create a thumbnail that accurately represents the video’s content.
• Consistent branding: use a consistent style for your thumbnails to ensure ease of brand recognition amongst your target audience, and give your channel a professional appearance.
• Use closed captions and transcripts: make your content accessible to a wider audience, including non-native speakers and people with hearing impairments. You can either upload your own captions or use YouTube’s automatic captions feature and then edit them for accuracy.
  

Optimising your videos for YouTube SEO is essential to growing your channel and reaching a broader audience. By conducting keyword research and tailoring your video metadata, you can ensure that you create content with your intended audience in mind. In addition, focusing on user engagement, and enhancing your visuals and accessibility, gives you the best chance to increase your video’s visibility across YouTube as a platform. Implement these strategies consistently to see long-term success and channel growth. Contact us today to find out more about the SEO services we offer here.