If you want more people to see your YouTube videos, then knowing how to rank higher on YouTube should be your go-to. Because if people can’t find you, they can’t watch your videos or subscribe to your channel, and this will be detrimental to your YouTube search ranking.
You see, every single YouTuber started their YouTube channel with 0 views and 0 subscribers, I mean Every single one of them. However, none of them wanted to remain at that grade level, hence the effort they put in that allowed some of them to accumulate millions of views.
The effort that was put in by these video creators definitely differed, this is why you would see some YouTube videos gather thousands to millions of views on a particular subject while another video about the same subject can barely reach about ten viewers.
The answer is not elusive or mysterious. The answer is simple, knowing how to rank higher on YouTube.
If you want people to see your videos, then you need to optimize your videos. This is especially important now with new creators joining the platform frequently.
And in this article, I will show you how to rank higher on YouTube in a few hours. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
How To Rank Higher On YouTube
To get your channel and videos to get the high numbers that YouTube is looking for, you need to optimize your content so people click through and play.
This isn’t just about the videos that you create and upload on your channel. Your video keywords, title, description and tags, also matter as well.
It’s a lot to consider if you’re trying to get your YouTube channel to rank higher and to be on the front page of a YouTube search. Below are some ways to rank higher on YouTube.
Use Strong Keywords
I’m sure you’re familiar with how important keywords are. Keywords will help you rank higher on search engines like Google and YouTube, allowing your videos to be discovered through online searches.
Attempting to rank for a phrase with really low traffic is a mistake that I see a lot of people do. Choosing the right keywords is definitely the difference between ranking higher and lower on SERP.
While you can do a lot of things with the YouTube platform, it, however, can’t search the content within your video to find keywords for you, so you may need to add them yourself.
If you need help choosing the best keywords, you could make use of the YouTube Keyword Tool, or Google keyword planner to find out which ones don’t have low competition but higher search volume.
Making use of the right keywords will help YouTube determine if your content is relevant, and also, they help your audience know what your video is about.
Here are a few places that you should ensure to make use of the right keywords.
Include Keywords in Your Title
Ensure that your video title should tell viewers exactly what they should expect to see in your video.
Is your title too long? People lose interest and ignore you. Is your title too short? People don’t know if it’s what they’re looking for and they ignore you.
Honestly, this is harder than it sounds. In simpler terms, ensure to add keywords to your video title. Notably, your video title should have about 120 characters. This is enough to tell people what they’re about watching, but not so much to give it all away.
Include keywords in your description
When writing your YouTube video description, ensure to weave in your vital keywords naturally, not as much as it can be noticed. As long as the description flows and isn’t forced, it is fine.
Doing this is a good way to get your YouTube to rank higher, however, if you overuse your keywords in a spammy way in your description, you’ll only end up hurting your chances of climbing up YouTube’s SERPs.
Note: While writing your video description, be sure to include a link to your website or blog. This is for Google ranking purposes, a YouTube link to your website is considered a backlink. And this could help your aim at a higher ranking.
Publish a High-Retention Video
So, here is the thing. If you want your YouTube videos to rank, then you need to do all you can to keep people watching.
The amount of your video that people watch is known as Audience Retention. And according to YouTube’s records, “Audience Retention” is a HUGE ranking factor.
What this means is that, if your video keeps people on YouTube, YouTube will rank your video higher in the search results.
After all, YouTube, just like every other business wants people to patronize them. Patronage for YouTube is to stay on the platform and then click on ads.
Any content creator who can help them with that goal, they’ll promote your video.
YouTube Video Optimization
To help your YouTube rank higher, you have to ensure that you optimize your video. Here’s how to extract the most SEO value from your video that could help you rank higher.
Say your target keyword
One way to optimize your YouTube video is to say your target keyword in the video. If you’ve probably noticed, YouTube now automatically transcribes your videos. And they are quite accurate.
So if YouTube sees that you mention your target keyword in your video, they’ll “hear” it, and because you’re actually saying the keyword that your video is optimized around, YouTube will better understand that your video is about that term.
Video Title
Your YouTube video title is quite important. The title of your video should be at least 5 words long. That way, you can include your full keyword without spamming.
Video Description
Your video’s description is as important as your video title. In fact, it is super important. Your video description helps YouTube and Google understand the context of your video.
I mean, if they are going to make your videos rank, they have to know what it is about. And neither YouTube nor Google can watch your videos.
And the better they understand your video, the higher your videos will rank, and the more often you’ll show up in the Suggested Video sidebar.
Here are the basic guidelines for optimizing your videos’ description below:
- Include your keyword in the first 25 words
- Make the description at least 250 words
- Include your keyword 2-4 times
Tags
Well, tags may not be as important as the other factors when it comes to optimizing your video, however, they aren’t insignificant in the picture.
Here’s how I use video tags for my videos:
- My first tag is my exact target keyword (Example: “Google SEO”).
- I also include a few variations of that word or phrase (Example: “Google search engine optimization”)
- Finally, I make a few of my tags other topics that my video covers (Example: “Link building”, “Content marketing”)
Pro Tip: Targeted tags do not only help you rank for your target keyword, they get you to your show up more often as a related video in the sidebar area of YouTube.
Which will in turn translate to your video ranking higher on YouTube. So don’t be afraid to use the same tags that your competitors use because they will cause you to be seen.
In fact, it’s a YouTube marketing best practice that has worked for many years. When your video’s tags match a video that someone’s watching, you have a good chance of showing up in the Suggested Video section.
And that’s all there is to optimize your video to rank in YouTube.
Promote Your Video
Still on how to rank higher on YouTube, promoting your video is one of the right steps to take in this direction.
Earlier, we talked a lot about creating videos that maximize Audience Retention and user experience signals, which is equally important.
However, for YouTube to measure your audience retention signals, you need to get views on your video! This means video promotion has to come into the picture.
Here are some strategies you can use to get targeted views to your video by promoting it.
Share your video on Quora and forums
If you could share your videos on Quora, forums, or other Q&A sites which are some of the most popular sites on the web, you would be able to drive traffic to your YouTube channel.
However, if you go to these Q&A sites, and go to spam your blog content, you’re going to get banned. That’s why if you want to link to YouTube videos, you should make engaging comments and not spammy ones.
The views that you will be getting from posting your video on these sites, which are places where people who are desperate for information on a given topic go, will be massive.
So, when you want to post your link, be sure to post it on a topic that is related to your video, so that the people that watch your video will watch a good chunk of your video to help them learn more about that topic.
When you find a question that seems like a good fit, answer the person’s question as best you can. Finally, link to your video at the end of your answer.
Embed Your Videos in Blog Posts
Another way to promote your videos is by embedding your videos in blog posts. To do this, whenever you write a blog post on your site or as a guest post for another site, always look for the perfect place to insert your link.
Create backlinks
Another way to rank higher on YouTube is to create backlinks. Backlinks are a sort of link building that is a huge ranking factor for any piece of content, video included.
If you are familiar with optimizing the written content, like the content on your blog or website, for Google, then you’ll know that the amount of backlinks you can gather on a post, helps to determine how valuable your content is.
Now, seeing that we know that Google owns YouTube, it is no surprise that YouTube works in this way as well.
To increase the backlinks on your YouTube video, be sure to post the link to your video in as many places as you can, like your website and your blog.
You can also try to ask other websites in your niche for help, by telling them to post the link to your video on their site or write guest posts for them that include the link to your video.
The more backlinks you have, the better your YouTube SEO will be, and also your Google SEO. Ranking higher on Google could also get your video featured on their first page of search results for your focus keyword.
Conclusion
YouTube is a competitive place to share your content because there are many people visiting it on a daily basis.
Sometimes, the competitiveness on YouTube can be off-putting at times, but you need to remember that there are still many ways you can rank higher and improve your YouTube SEO.
So, if you want to how to rank higher on YouTube, feel free to go with the different strategies listed above
