YouTube SEO: Effective Tips to Rank Higher and Get More Views

YouTube SEO: Effective Tips to Rank Higher and Get More Views

Here are some effective tips for YouTube SEO to make sure your videos get ranked, get views, and get subscribers to your channel. As you know YouTube is a very popular video platform and also, a search engine. Many people prefer to watch videos than read-only text.Here are the effective tips you need to know about YouTube SEO.

Identifying your keyword

Adding your keyword to the video title 

Optimizing your video descriptions

Finding the right “tags” for your video

Categorizing your video

Using a custom thumbnail to improve your YouTube SEO

Adding subtitles

Including cards and end screens for viewership

It’s important to understand how the platform’s algorithm “watches” your content and how to upload your videos in the first place.

1. Algorithm and Search

The reason video has become so popular is that it’s more easily digestible and more entertaining than reading long articles. But you need to remember something:

Video-based search engines like YouTube aren’t able to see your video in the same way humans do. There are certain YouTube best practices you can follow.

Find Your Keyword

Just like you would find a keyword for optimizing your blog posts for SEO, you need to have a clear keyword for your video content. This is very important for your video marketing strategy when it comes to how to do SEO for YouTube successfully.

YouTube’s autosuggest: Type in the basic subject of your content and see what comes up. These are suggestions that people are actively searching for on YouTube.

Google Trends’ YouTube Search feature: Google Trends will show you which searches are popular and allow you to check on YouTube’s platform.

Research keywords with the YouTube SEO tool. There are many tools for keyword research on the market, like SEMrush or Ahrefs.

Make sure your keyword is related to your content and can be embedded naturally in your title, subtitles, and video description.

2. Add Your Keyword to Your Video Title

Giving your video a catchy title is essential for getting more people to click on it. While titling your video with a keyword won’t magically rank your video at #1, it certainly helps YouTube’s algorithm get you a bit closer.

3. Optimize Your Video Descriptions

Create thorough descriptions in longer forms (150–250 words)

Include your keyword and related keywords

Add a call-to-action at the endInclude links to your brand or other contentOne important thing to keep in mind is that your first few sentences should be catchy and engaging.

4. Use the Right “Tags” for Your Video

“tags” are a YouTube SEO best practice.

Tags are a great piece of metadata that gives YouTube and Google a bit more information about what your video is about. Tags will help search engines to find and rank your video.As a general rule, your first tag should be your keyword followed by other related terms. stick with 5–10 tags per video.

5. Categorize Your Video

Put your video in a category to help users (and YouTube’s algorithm) find your content more easily:Think about your content and which category it would fit best in.

6. Use a Custom Thumbnail

This is one YouTube SEO strategy that many video uploaders ignore. When you upload your video to YouTube, you’ll be given different options for an auto-generated thumbnail (the photo of your video your users will see in the search results):

It’s very important to upload a custom thumbnail that entices people to click through to your video:more views and more clicks will signal to YouTube’s algorithm that your content is a popular result (which will help you rank higher).

7. Add Subtitles

Adding subtitles to your video it’s very effective to boost your rankings in YouTube’s search results.It allows you to have more emphasis on your keywords in a text-based format. Anytime you can convey your keyword in-text, you’re helping YouTube’s algorithm better understand your content.Second, it helps users who are either hard of hearing, non-native English speakers, or simply can’t watch your video with the sound on.

8. Include End Screens and Cards

Now you have the option to add end screens and cards to your video. Both of these are important parts of your YouTube SEO strategy.You can add end screens which are a way to show your related content to users at the end of your video.There are different elements you can add to the end screen, all of which are designed to get your viewers to click on another one of your videos, subscribe to your channel, or promote a related channel.

Also, you can ask your viewers to participate in a poll which is a great way to increase user engagement.The goal of all of these cards is to interact with your viewers and keep them with your content for as long as possible.The more time they spend on your videos, the more positive signals get sent to YouTube’s algorithm.

Keep in mind that YouTube like the other search engines pretty often update their algorithms and change their parameters. So you need to know what works now and what’s not.