YouTube SEO: How to Rank Your Videos #1

In seven and a half months, we focused ourefforts on YouTube SEO and ranked our videos for some of the most competitive keywordsin our industry. SEO, Ecommerce SEO, local SEO, SEO tips, andthe list goes on. This led to an almost 400% increase in YouTubesearch traffic and growing. Our channel isn't huge. (youtube channel) Our industry isn't exactly "exciting" either. (longer videos|) And compared to our top YouTube competitors,our subscriber count is microscopic. But that's what I love about YouTube. Anyone and everyone has the opportunity toentertain, engage, and rank their videos fast. So in this video, I'm going to show you (search term) exactlyhow to rank YouTube videos, from start to finish. Stay tuned. [music] What's up creators?

Now there's a lot to video SEO, so rather thantrying to dip into every single traffic source in YouTube analytics, I'll be focusing on rankingin YouTube search and sprinkle a few tips to rank your videos on Google too. Let's get started. First, what is YouTube SEO? (videos show) It's the process of optimizing your videos,playlists, and channel to rank high in YouTube's organic search results for a given searchquery. YouTube explains their discovery and searchranking algorithm in two sentences. "Videos are ranked based on a variety of factorsincluding how well the title, description, and video content match the viewer's query." So there are three important points here. First, keywords matter in your title and description. Second, you need to match the search intent fora viewer's query. And third, you need to drive engagement fora query in order to rank on YouTube. But of all these things, the key point toeffective video SEO is creating high-engagement videos.

YouTube SEO: How to Rank Your Videos #1

Now there's a lot to video SEO, so rather thantrying to dip into every single traffic source in YouTube analytics, I'll be focusing on rankingin YouTube.

Rank on google:

So if you can't engage your audience, yourchances of ranking your YouTube videos for a meaningful keyword will be slim to none. So the first step is to do YouTube keywordresearch. (links to your video) Unlike traditional Google search engine optimization,YouTube doesn't have an official keyword research tool. And a lot of these third party tools are just pumpingout arbitrary numbers from Google Keyword Planner. But there are ways you can get estimated searchvolumes. The first is to use YouTube suggest pairedwith Google Trends. Just type a keyword into the search bar, andyou'll see a list of relevant queries that contain your keyword. You can also add a star before or after yourtarget keyword, which will act as a "wildcard." Now, since we don't have an official toolto see search volumes, we can throw a few of YouTube suggestions into Google Trends.

But remember,(watching your video) Google Trends uses "relativepopularity" to compare keywords. So take these estimates with a grain of salt. The second way to get keyword volumes is touse Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer. (video description) Recently, we've released our latest version ofKeywords Explorer, which includes search volumes and metrics for search engines like Google,YouTube, Bing, Amazon, Baidu, and more. Just select YouTube as the search engine andenter a keyword or a list of keywords. Right away, you'll see country-specific searchvolumes, clicks data, global search volumes, and have access to five keyword idea reports. You can also enter a list of up to 10,000keywords you want to analyze.

How to Rank Your Videos

The best way to get a list of keywords isto use TubeBuddy or (user experience) VidIQ's Chrome extension. Just run a search in YouTube, and look tothe right sidebar. You'll see VidIQ's "Related Queries," or TubeBuddy's"Most Used Tags" sections. Just choose all relevant keywords you wantto analyze, click the Copy button, and paste your list into Keywords Explorer. We'll then show you all keywords that haveYouTube search volume according to our database. Now, search volumes are great and all, butthe power of Keywords Explorer is in generating new keyword ideas. Let's say you want to start a channel on makeuptutorials. Just type "makeup" into Keywords Explorer. And I'll also include a couple common variationslike make-up and make up.

Then go to the Phrase match report, whichlists all keywords in our database that contain your seed keywords. And you'll see over 202,000 keyword ideas! Let's narrow in on some more focused topics. So I'll click on the "include" dropdown andtype in a list of related keywords like eye, face, halloween, wedding, and bridal. Finally, choose the "Any word" tab, whichwill show us all keywords that contain any of these keywords. And we have over 17,000 relevant topics tocreate videos on. Bottom line: there is no shortage of greatkeyword ideas. We have an in-depth video on YouTube keywordresearch, so I'll leave a link to it in the description.

Now, YouTube search is great and all, butwhy not maximize your views by ranking your videos on Google too? Don't think it's that important? Think again. Google search is one of our top external trafficsources and sent us over 7,400 views in the past 28 days. Also, a study done by GetSTAT shows that VideoSERP features increased by around 75% in 2017 for their sample list of keywords. Now in 2019, it's tough to browse Google formore than ten minutes without seeing a video result. There are a few ways to find videos that getsearch traffic from Google.

The first is to search for your target keyword. If you see a video carousel or another videoSERP feature, then you have an opportunity to rank in that position too. Pay attention to video length and titles toget an idea of what Google wants to show. The second way is to use Content Explorer,which lets you search for any word or phrase and get all relevant pages with their SEOand social metrics. To find YouTube videos that are ranking inGoogle, I'll search for: site:youtube.com inurl:watch title:unboxing,assuming that's the topic I wanted to search for. Then, I'll sort the result by search trafficand you can immediately see the estimated amount of Google search traffic these videosget each month, as well as the titles, descriptions, and social stats.

YouTube SEO:

Once you find a video that interests you,click on the Details button, and then the Organic keywords tab where you can see allof the keywords and the ranking position for the video on Google. Looking into both Google and YouTube searchlets you double-dip your traffic sources and get more views to your videos. Alright, step 2 is to identify search intent.Search intent (or keyword intent) refers to the reason why a user searches for a queryin a search engine. Now, search engines are usually good at doingthis for you.

Just search for the keyword (social signals) you want to rankfor in YouTube and analyze the content and angle of the top 3 results. For example, if you want to teach people howto make a website, then you would probably give them a step-by-step tutorial. YouTube agrees. But what if you want to rank for "NintendoSwitch games?" YouTube will tell you that people want tosee a "listicle-type" video. Now, let's say that you're a florist and youwant to rank for "viola." Bad idea. All of the results show that someone searchingfor this term wants to know about the instrument. Not the plant or the actress. Let's move on to step 3, which is the mostimportant.

And that's to satisfy search intent with ahigh-retention video. YouTube says that their goals are to helpviewers find the videos they want to watch and maximize long-term viewer engagement andsatisfaction. And if you're matching the reason for a user'squery, then your chance of having higher watch times for the video increases. Here are the exact steps we take (social media) to createhigh-retention videos. First and foremost, plan your videos beforeyou create them. If you're creating how-to videos, the lastthing you want to do is stumble over your words or show sloppy demonstrations. Proper planning helps keep your ideas on pointand gives you the advantage of intentionally including keywords within your video, whichpeople believe YouTube uses in their ranking algorithm.