When constructing a solid digital marketing plan for your business, YouTube can be a vital platform to master. With a search function that connects over 2.3 billion users to videos they’re looking for and suggests new content relevant to their interests, YouTube has grown quite a bit since its early days.
That’s why marketers are evolving, too. They’re beginning to explore the site’s full potential for lead generation and treating it like the fantastic search engine it’s become. If you’re not harnessing YouTube’s capabilities for search engine optimization (SEO), here are some helpful tips on how to get started:
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1. Do Your Research
Much like any other marketing tool, YouTube videos are most effective at attracting and converting leads if you already have a solid understanding of your target market and their needs. If you’re looking to gain better knowledge of your target market before you begin to upload videos or are simply trying to revamp an older social media strategy, specific tools can help you do so. One of these tools is keyword research. Keyword research is the process of gathering information on your audience’s searching habits. By learning exactly how your audience phrases search terms, you can alter your content keywords to match what’s being searched for, ultimately boosting your YouTube videos’ visibility and ranking.
To begin researching keywords, you should create a list of the top keywords that come to mind when describing your video. After you’ve exhausted your vocabulary, you can enter the list into a keyword research tool that can provide valuable statistics on each keyword in your list as well as helping you find popular alternatives. With this research, you can make sure to use the most effective, low competition, frequently searched words and phrases. Another quick way to find the most popular keywords relevant to your video is with YouTube’s search suggest feature. Type a strong keyword for your video into the search bar and see what kinds of results show up. This method shows you some of the most popular search terms relevant to whatever word is typed in the bar.
2. Pick the Right Title
On most social media sites where video uploading is common, there is no way to title a video because it’s embedded in a post. YouTube, however, is a platform where you get 100 characters to introduce your video. Here are a few tips on choosing the right title for your video:
- Keep it short and simple. A good, SEO-friendly title usually stays within the realm of 60-70 characters or around five words.
- Put your best foot forward. Make sure to put the most crucial information first and end titles with any branding or episode numbers.
- Use your strongest keyword(s) in the title. Don’t just stack your title with keywords that make it read as clunky — just enough to boost your content in the rankings.
3. Describe and Tag It Right
The video description and tags sections are where the brunt of your hard work put into keyword research will pay off. For each video, YouTube allows a description of up to 5,000 characters, though most good descriptions only take around 350 characters. In your YouTube video description, you’ll want to use a heavy number of keywords, finding complementary ones and making sure to include all the different ways your audience may refer to your product or services.
You will also then want to add those keywords as tags. Adding keywords as tags to your video helps YouTube better categorize it while pushing the content out to viewers interested in those or related keywords. Make sure you keep all tags relevant to the topic of your video — jumping on popular hashtags with unrelated videos may work for TikTokers, but the practice is not accepted on YouTube.
4. Catch Their Attention
Your video’s thumbnail is often the first thing a viewer will notice if they weren’t specifically searching for your video by name. Only verified YouTube accounts can upload their images for video thumbnails. If you are verified, you can use your thumbnail to stick out among various techniques. Ensure that your photo is uploaded in high resolution, with a width of 1280p and a height of 720p.
5. Optimize for Google
Although YouTube is a search engine in its own right, Google is still the most commonly used one. Utilizing Google can be a great way to drive traffic to your YouTube channel if you put in the work. If you optimize your video enough, it will show up whenever users search your target or related keywords. When optimizing for Google, the advice really boils down to this: leave no box unfilled. Provide all the information you have for your video (including captions if you can generate them) to maximize your channel’s visibility, increase your click-through rate (CTR), and ultimately create more, higher-quality leads.
