Video SEO isn’t just for search engines, it is necessary to building a following on video sharing sites like YouTube. The trick for successful video SEO research for YouTube is using everything that the site gives you, and then making sure you let other people know how to help you as well. Here are a few tips that you may not have thought of that can help you to get more traffic to your videos and to show up more in video search queries on sites like YouTube.
The YouTube keyword tool for video SEO
Just like with the Google Adwords tool, YouTube has a keyword tool that enables you to see the search volume on YouTube for specific terms and queries. The YouTube keyword tool will not only help you to find different keywords that can help to drive traffic to your site, but it can also assist you in finding traffic for terms that you didn’t think of. If your video is about blue widgets, and you demonstrate how to use a blue widget, what upgrades and other products can make a blue widget work better or even other options for blue widgets, go to the YouTube keyword tool and do a general search for blue widget.
How to Use the YouTube video keyword suggestion tool
Now look at all of the results. Think about the content inside of your video and all of the questions people may have about blue widgets. By looking at the keywords in front of you, you can find a nice balance of phrases and know if there is an actual search volume for them. You can then take these phrases and incorporate them into your video descriptions, tags and other areas to help with showing YouTube the content relevance for your video. By adding modifiers like “video”, “guide”, “reviews”, “scam” or “how to” into your query, you can now find people looking for information that could be in the shopping process, need an upgrade or that could be cross sold a complimentary product. The YouTube keyword tool is an amazing tool for discovering what phrases have traffic inside YouTube and what keywords you can begin to focus on for your video.
Look at competing videos’ keywords & tags on YouTube
One trick you can use in your video SEO research for YouTube is to go after the videos that are already ranking. Type in your query and look for similar videos that are already showing up. Find the ones that have the most plays, comments and likes and then look at their keywords, tags and how they are categorized. By trying to associate your video, using some of the same tags and categories and by having similar content relevance, you may be able to get your video to be the next one that shows up when their video is done playing. By doing this you not only get the traffic they have viewing their videos, but you can build new followers if your video is good, get social interactions like shares, comments and likes if they enjoyed your content. All of these things will help to show YouTube why they should display your video instead of other ones. If someone already has something that gets attention, but you have something better, that is relevant, and also adds value, why not try to gain the association and get some of it’s traffic and followers. You may even get the attention of the other video owner and have them recommend your video as another one on the same topic.
Fill everything out to get your video to rank in YouTube
YouTube and Google are companies that thrive on data. If they give you fields that want more information about your content, give it to them. Don’t just throw in a quick phrase explaining what the video is. Instead provide them with a description that is accurate, has the keywords you researched and that will make the viewers want to read it. Don’t pass up the boxes asking for categories, tags and other fields. These are there to help YouTube know what your video is about and who they should share it with.
By not providing them with all of the information they ask for, you are only hurting yourself. Creating an awesome video is one thing, making sure you properly tell YouTube what it is about, how to categorize it and who to show it to is the next step. Both of these combined with social interactions like video likes, full play throughs and comments will in theory help get your videos to begin to show up more often and help to drive more leads and revenue for your company.
YouTube SEO is a bit different than working to rank in a search engine. The nice part about conducting video SEO research for YouTube is that they provide you with everything you need. It is then up to you to take the time to produce quality videos that people will enjoy, share and to also take the time to do keyword research, fill out all of the fields they ask for and more importantly, write a quality description of the video.
credit: Adam at viewbix