Since the latest update in Google’s search engine algorithm you have probably noticed a big jump in how many YouTube videos are appearing in Google’s search results. This has brought to the forefront the realization that you can’t just optimize your website anymore. You need to start learning how to optimize YouTube videos for SEO.
Here are 8 tips that I have come up with that can help you get the YouTube optimization process underway. (I tried coming up with 10 but could only get 8.)
1. Key Phrases – The first thing you need to do is know which key phrases you want the video to rank for. Unlike traditional SEO where you can target a handful of key phrases on every page of your website. When you optimize YouTube videos for SEO you will probably only be able to effectively target a couple of key phrases although you are more than welcome to go after more than that.
2. Video File-name – Surprisingly, Google takes into account in a big way what the actual file name is of the video you upload. So for example if you want the video to rank for a phrase like “internet marketing tips” then you should consider naming the actual file internetmarketingtips.mp4 or whatever the file extension is.
3. Video Title – When you upload a video YouTube asks you to give the video a title. It is very important that you use this real estate wisely. Be sure to include the main key phrase you want to video to rank for as well as some secondary phrases as well. So your title might literally say “Internet Marketing Tips from SEO expert Mike Heggeman” or something to that effect.
4. Video Description – The most important thing you can do with a description is to put your website URL right at the very beginning of the description before you write anything else. Be sure to include the full web address including http:// so it will turn into a clickable link when it is published.
As far as the actual description goes, it is a good idea just like in the title to include the key phrases you are trying to optimize the video for but just do it in sentence format. So a good description might look like this: http://www.seoscheduler.com – SEO expert Mike Heggeman shares his most valuable internet marketing tips that helped him make money online.
Don’t get crazy and include a bunch of extra key phrases just the 2-3 you are targeting.
5. Tags – When you choose the tags for the video you need to be consistent with the same phrases you have been targeting with the previous 3 steps. Optimizing YouTube videos is all about consistency in targeting phrases and this step is no different. Choose the words that are your phrases. Feel free to choose some extra phrases in this step.
6. Links – This will probably be the biggest key for you to have your YouTube videos start showing in Google’s search results. You need to go out and get websites to link to your video using the phrases you are trying to get the video to rank for. For example you would want to go to an internet marketing site and get a link pointing to your video on YouTube and the anchor text (clickable text) should be “internet marketing tips”. You would also get links for your secondary phrases but the majority of the links you get need to be targeting your main phrase.
7. Links To Your Links – One of the most underused social media marketing strategies and I could probably safely say SEO strategies as well is to build links to pages that link to you. In other words if you go out and get a link from Site A, in order to make that link more powerful you might go out to site B and have them link back to site A instead of your site so the link from Site A is more powerful.
This same strategy can be implemented with your YouTube video. Go get links that point to your video and then go out and get links that point to those links. The links you get that point to the other links should not have the anchor text be the phrases you want to rank for. They should be related but not the exact phrases.
Did I completely confuse you? I’m confused and I thought it and wrote it.
8. Audio For Your Video – Before I give you tip #8 let me just say that good audio beats out good video all day long. In other words if your video has bad audio, no matter how pretty and professional it looks, people won’t watch. Make sure the audio is as good as it can be.
Now for tip 8. There is a rumor going around that Google is actually scanning the audio of a video for one reason or another and transcribing it. If there is any truth to this claim I would highly recommend that you literally say your key phrases (in form of a sentence obviously) within the first 15 seconds of your video. Be sure to say them clearly so a software program can transcribe them correctly. I’m not saying this is truly what is happening but it is not something I would put past the genius employees at Google.
In conclusion, if you follow these 8 steps you will put yourself ahead of 99% of the YouTube videos that are on the site. It doesn’t mean you will be guaranteed to show in the results but this will definitely give you a much better possibility to dominate the search engines with your YouTube videos.
Now go out and start making your videos.
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Need Help With Your SEO? I can help. I built SEO Scheduler from the ground up and it will guide you step by step to help get your website to the top of Google.
