YouTube and SEO


YouTube SEO

Photo by ijustine via Creative Commons

So your dream is to be the new Clare Werbeloff (Chk-Chk Boom girl), you setup your webcam, get dressed up in your Sunday best and belt out a resounding version of Waltzing Matilda. Next, after several playbacks and self admiration, you upload your video to YouTube and wait impatiently for the record deal and the paparazzi to arrive. The only problem is that after one month only 3 people have seen the video and those 3 people are your gran and her cats. You decide to do some investigation and discover that you are approximately the 6814th video in a search for “superstar”.
Today I am going to share some YouTube optimisation tips and techniques so that your video will get more exposure and rank higher for your selected terms so you can follow your dreams of being the next superstar.
Optimising your YouTube video is similar to using SEO to optimise a web page with a few added extras. Two main factors exist when it comes to ranking videos highly in YouTube, these are; number of votes your video has accrued and number of views your video has, so make it good! If you can’t do that, ask all your friends to vote and view your video, share it on your facebook profile, simply put use all the tools at your disposal to get exposure for your video.
There are certain attributes which you can actually assign to the video itself, namely the YouTube Video Title, the YouTube Video description and the YouTube Video keyword tags. What follows are the best practice guidelines for these tags:

• Title-your highest priority keyword should be in the first 3 words of the title, use unique titles for all your videos.
• Description-should contain all of the key points that best describe your video. Be sure to include keywords that you think users might search to find videos like yours. This should include many different phrases that you think your target market would be searching for.
• Keyword tags-make sure your keyword tags are relevant and contain most of the words you used in your title and description, use as many tags as you want, normally there is no penalty for using lots of keyword tags but ensure you avoid keyword stuffing.
There are some extra things you can do, to get the best result from posting your video to YouTube, namely:
• Make your video is 5 minutes or less
• Make sure your YouTube video is named correctly with a keyword rich filename
• Try to create links to your YouTube video with keyword rich anchor text
• Post your videos towards the end of the week, weekends are YouTube’s busiest days
As a bonus Google also shows YouTube videos in its search results and there is a good chance of ranking highly in the SERPS’s if you rank well in YouTube. One of the cornerstones of search engine optimisation is good unique content, the same applies here, if you have fantastic video and implement these suggestions there is a good chance you are well on your way to becoming a YouTube star.

See Bruce's author page for links to connect on social media.

Comments (0)
Filed under: SEO
Still on the hunt for actionable tips and insights? Each of these recent SEO posts is better than the last!

LEAVE A REPLY

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *



Serving North America based in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area
Bruce Clay, Inc. | PO Box 1338 | Moorpark CA, 93020
Voice: 1-805-517-1900 | Toll Free: 1-866-517-1900 | Fax: 1-805-517-1919