Our YouTube marketing agency believe that video marketing is a helpful element of your business SEO strategy. If, for example, you type ‘How to rank on Google’ into the search engine, a video can show as one of the results. 

How does YouTube help with SEO?

YouTube is part of the Google family, and is owned by the company. As such, video snippets are often shown in relevant search results. A well done, and therefore well ranked, video can help increase exposure not just on the streaming platform itself but in other SERPs. 

When you think of SEO, naturally you think of the biggest search engine, Google! YouTube in itself is a search engine too, so really helpful to rank on. Specifically though, it’s for videos and it does have its own SEO best practice guidelines to follow. YouTube SEO is similar to Google SEO in a few ways. For example, Keywords. When you use YouTube you can optimise your video title to attract people to watch something you want to rank for. That being said, if it isn’t relevant to the content of your actual video, it’s unlikely that people will watch for long which then shows that your content is of little to no interest. In the same way you wouldn’t optimise a blog about baking with the keyword ‘YouTube marketing agency’; you mustn’t do this in video either. So the question begs, 

How do you optimise a YouTube video? 

Keyword research and audience retention are the best ways to optimise your YouTube Video. 

But what does this actually mean?

Keyword Research

Keyword research is similar to what you would do when setting up an on-page SEO strategy for your website. You need to determine what people are looking for and provide information that will answer the queries.  Interestingly, Google is a really good way to go about this. 

Naturally your keywords need to relate to the product you sell or the service you provide. There is no benefit in you ranking for Essex SEO agency if you sell shoes. If you start typing one of your products or services into the Google search bar, they will provide you with numerous suggestions. It’s important to remember that the reason that these have come up are because they are widely searched phrases so try to be specific. If you go with the top search, or a short phrase, the competition will be fierce and it’s easy to get lost in the noise. 

Once you have established your keyword, you will need to create a video pertaining to the subject.  The great thing about YouTube is it can also tell if you verbally speak the keyword in your video content. The platform automatically transcribes your videos so make sure you do drop the phrase in once or twice! 

Additionally, as above, you can optimise your title with the keyword you choose. Much like a blog post, you can get a slight boost by using your key phrase at the front of the title. 

Then you have your video description. This is there to aid both Google and YouTube in understanding the context of the video as a whole. The better that they understand that, the higher your chances of a great ranking are. The basics of this are:

  • Use your key phrase within the first sentence. 
  • Write circa. 250 words within the description
  • Include the key word or phrase between two and four times throughout, dependent on the overall length of your text. (Too much can look like spam)

Finally, you have tags. They aren’t the be all and end all but they help. Your first tag should be the key phrase you are looking to rank for. Next add a few variations on the theme. (again, the Google search bar is valuable for this.)

Our Youtube marketing agency don’t want you to be afraid of using the same keywords and phrases as competitors either. In fact, when it comes to YouTube it’s best practice. When someone shows interest in a video, YouTube will suggest related content. Using the same keywords can help you come up as a suggestion.  

Audience retention

This basically means the length of time someone watches your video for. YouTube has actually been explicit in saying that the time people watch for has a real impact on the resulting ranking you are given. The question is, how do you make a video that keeps people watching?

The bottom line is, if your video is rubbish, it wont rank. Unlike Google who rely on a variety of factors including backlinks, YouTube’s biggest factor is the retention rate and audience interaction. 

The things that can help your video (in no particular order) are:

  • Likes
  • Comments
  • Shares 
  • The length of time it is watched. 
  • Subscribers (after watching )

What can you do to encourage this? 

Produce genuinely interesting content that people will watch all the way through and ask people to engage. We may take the mickey out of the Americanised ‘make sure you like and subscribe’ but the truth is, there is a high correlation of people asking and people doing. Additionally, post your videos on social media. The way the algorithm sees it is people only share content on the likes of Facebook and LinkedIn if they actually like it, so it must be great! Don’t wait for other people to do this for you, pop it on your own profiles too. You can also link to your video in your email signatures and embed it onto your website. By embedding, you increase your watchers, and by adding into your emails, you increase your click throughs. YouTube also allows you to set up a playlist. Separate your services and products into playlists and attribute them each time you post. This can add thousands of views to what you have because the playlists automatically keep playing. 

Contact Us

We hope that this quick overview has been helpful. If you need the help of a YouTube marketing agency, get in touch! We offer both a consultancy and full service agency, so can help as much or as little as you need. Just click here to speak to a member of our team.