Written by Aimee on 04.14.2020

Tips to Rank Your YouTube Videos in Search Engines

When people want to watch videos free of charge, the first site they visit is YouTube.

YouTube has around two billion users, and it is localized in more than 100 countries. So, how many hours are watched daily? Around one billion. You read that right, one billion. 

Therefore, as a digital marketer, YouTube is an essential tool.

When creating content for YouTube, you need to ensure that your videos reach your target audience. In order to achieve this, you should produce highly engaging videos, then ensure that you’re putting the effort into SEO optimizing them.

So, how can make sure your YouTube videos rank in search engines?

That’s what we’re now exploring! Read on to discover tips, tricks and advice for a successful and optimized YouTube channel.

Ranking Videos in SERPs

In order to make sure your videos rank on SERPs, some research is required.

Search engines rank videos on a number of factors, particularly how well the title, description and video content match the search intent of the viewer’s query.

Google search will probably be your video’s main source of external traffic, so it is important to maximize the opportunity to rank high on their SERPs and investigate what kind of videos they prioritize.

Keyword Research is Crucial

The first step is to do keyword research using both YouTube and Google trends. Enter your video’s main keyword into YouTube and see what words come up following it as suggestions – these are popular keywords that people actually search for, and this will help you to identify new keyword ideas for your own video.

Look for high ranking videos within your niche and what keywords these are optimized around as well. You can then enter these new keywords into google trends, so you have an idea of where they rank overall.

A good trick can also be to target keywords that do not have a lot of competition around them, i.e. ones that generate fewer results when typed into google.

Trying out a few different variations of your keywords and seeing how many results they bring up can help you to find keywords that are much less competitive, meaning your video has a higher chance of ranking for these keywords.

You are more likely to attract traffic if the keywords that you use, are ones that organically bring up video results on the main SERP.

This is something you can check by typing your keywords into Google and seeing if they bring up a carousel containing thumbnails of videos that relate to this keyword.

Identify Search Intent for Higher Viewer Retention

After researching and selecting your target keywords, you must then look into why users search for these keywords to start with.

Identifying search intent is important as it helps you to understand what content viewers are looking for and whether your content matches this, in order to optimize viewer engagement and therefore rank higher in search engines.

Search for your chosen keywords in YouTube and look at what kind of content comes up for the top few results and see whether your content matches this.

This is a great opportunity to see what kind of content viewers are engaging within your niche.

You are also able to see whether this keyword brings up results that are actually relevant to your own content, rather than being flooded with other results of a different subject that uses the same keywords.

Identifying search intent is important to help ensure that you reach viewers who will engage with, and crucially, who will actually watch your content the whole way through.

YouTube aims to help viewers find the content they actually want to watch in order to minimize the initial drop off of viewers that tends to happen within the first few seconds of a video.

YouTube Results Showing In The SERP’sThis means it rewards videos that engage viewers and keep viewers watching until the end by ranking them higher.

This avoids ‘clickbait’ content that uses attention-grabbing titles for content that bears little relevance to its keywords from ranking high or flooding keywords that it may not be relevant to.

Videos like this may gain more elevated amounts of initial traffic as they attract interest, but often have a low retention rate as viewers realize that the video content does not really match the title and description.

It is absolutely worth ensuring that your video matches the search intent of the audience you are trying to attract to ensure high retention, long term engagement and, ultimately, viewer satisfaction.

This kind of content is what gets ranked high by YouTube and therefore more likely to appear higher on SERPs.

Use Video Descriptions Effectively

The video description on YouTube gives you another chance to increase viewer satisfaction and engagement, as it helps the viewer to know what to expect before they open and play the video.

This again helps to avoid the initial drop off of viewers clicking away as they decide that the content isn’t what they were searching for.

Having a relevant description helps to attract viewers who are more likely to engage and watch till the end.

An Effective Use Of A YouTube DescriptionThe same goes with adding tags to your videos; these really help to categorize your content and make it easier for viewers to find what they are looking for.

The description also gives you another chance to increase traffic to your video, as you can effectively utilize this to include more related keywords so that your video has the chance to appear in other relevant searches.

Analyze the descriptions of other high ranking videos within your niche for ideas of relevant keywords that you can also include in order to appear in search results.

Think of Your Viewer’s Experience

Creating a good user experience for your viewers is another key ingredient in making sure your content has a higher retention rate, thus being more likely to rank high on search engines.

Things like adding closed captions or subtitles, organizing relevant videos into playlists and using end screens that include a subscribe button and suggestions of related content on your YouTube channel help to retain viewers and keep them watching your content.

SEO Optimizing Really Does Increase Traffic

By utilizing these tips alongside iGuestBlog’s effective link building services, for your videos and YouTube channel, you will be able to ensure your videos are optimized for SEO.

Therefore, you will be able to successfully engage and rank your videos, increase traffic, get your channel noticed on SERPs and reach your target audience with ease.

Posted Under: Blog

Tags: Tags: Digital Marketing, Google, SERP, YouTube

Comments are closed.