﻿In this video, I'm going to show you how to do YouTube SEO to rank your videos
#1 in YouTube search.
And we've used this exact process to rank #1 for all of the most coveted
keywords in our niche like… "SEO," "search engine optimization,"
"keyword research," "link building," "technical SEO," "content marketing," "internet marketing,"
"online marketing," and the list goes on.
And beyond warm and fuzzy feelings, our YouTube search rankings resulted
in nearly 1.3 million views last year.
Now, you might be thinking, "why is YouTube SEO important when the most views come
from suggested and browse features?"
Well, there are 3 absolutely critical reasons why I think you should have a YouTube SEO
strategy especially if you're trying to get that initial traction to your videos.
#1. Suggested and browse views usually require you to have an existing subscriber
base and an existing library of relevant videos.
#2. Search views are super consistent.
And consistent views lead to consistent subscribers, assuming you're delivering
on the title of your video – more on this later.
And #3. Search views have high average view durations – at least how-tos, tutorials,
and tips videos.
In fact, in 2021, we had over 101,000 hours of watch time to our tutorials
from YouTube search.
To put that into perspective, that means in 2021, our videos got over 11 years of
continuous watch time from YouTube search.
Bananas!
Alright, enough of the flexing.
Let's get straight into the YouTube SEO tips and processes that are going to help you rank
your videos #1.
The first step is to do YouTube keyword research.
To get started, you'll need to generate a list of keyword ideas.
And there are a few places you can look.
The first is YouTube autosuggest.
Just start typing in your keyword and you'll see a list of queries that other
YouTube users are searching for.
Jot down some that interest you because at this stage, we're just brainstorming.
Now, because YouTube doesn't show you any search volume data, you can throw them into
Google Trends, make sure you have the search mode set to YouTube search,
and you'll get a general idea of search popularity on YouTube.
And just so you know, Google Trends doesn't show you absolute search volumes.
They show relative popularity instead.
So in this case, over the past year or so, "makeup tutorial for beginners" was more
popular than "makeup transformation," and both of these keywords were more popular
than "makeup routines."
Another way you can find keyword ideas is to use a tool like TubeBuddy, vidIQ, or
Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer.
Here's how they work starting with TubeBuddy.
After you've installed their Chrome Extension, just click on this icon,
and then go to Keyword Explorer.
Next, search for a seed keyword, which is just a broad keyword related to your niche,
like "makeup."
And right away, they'll give you some scoring metrics, the number of videos
in the search results and the estimated monthly search volume.
Hit the Video Topics tab to see more keyword ideas.
Now, personally, I don't trust their search volume estimations because I've compared
a bunch of keywords that our channel's videos have consistently ranked for, and
TubeBuddy's estimations were quite a bit off.
More on this in a bit.
Now, if you're going to use this tool, then I'd focus just on the video topics tab
to come up with some keyword ideas.
The second YouTube keyword research tool is vidIQ.
To get started, login to your vidIQ account and hit Keywords in the menu.
Then just like last time, type in a seed keyword and run the search.
And you'll see significantly more keyword ideas than the other two tools I mentioned.
Again, I don't trust their search volume estimations for the same reason as TubeBuddy, but you should
be able to find some interesting topics worth creating videos on,
if topic generation is your goal.
Finally, is Ahrefs Keywords Explorer.
Just select YouTube as the search engine, enter your seed keyword, and run the search.
And right away, you'll see the search volume for your target country, the estimated number
of clicks to videos, and the global search volume broken down by country.
And as far as I know, Ahrefs is the only tool that shows you country specific
YouTube search data.
Now, to see keyword ideas, just go to the matching terms report and in this case,
you'll see well over 300,000 unique keyword ideas with plenty of filters to play around with
seeing as this keyword list is exponentially. larger than all other tools combined.
Alright, so we need to address the elephant in the room because I've made some pretty
bold claims on these tool's search volume estimations.
I actually pulled our view data from YouTube studio for 14 random keywords we had
consistently ranked #1 for in January.
Then I pulled search volume estimations from each tool and compared them to actual views
to calculate a rough CTR for each tool.
And here are the results.
Now, conventional wisdom tells me that the true clickthrough rate for a top-ranking
video would generally be around 15-18%, so it's clear right off the bat that TubeBuddy
almost always drastically overestimates search volumes.
In fact, their search volume figures suggest that on average, a top-ranking video only gets 0.2%
of clicks with a median of 0.05% clickthrough rate – and no, this is not a computing error.
VidIQ was slightly better but still, their volumes are drastically overestimated too.
On average, their search volumes suggest a 0.63% average CTR to top-ranking videos
for our keywords.
And the median was at 0.53%.
And it's worth noting that the spread between their average and median
CTRs was the closest of the 3 tools.
As for Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer, our search volumes suggest that the keywords had
an average CTR of 37.09% and a median CTR of 12.42%.
And the reason for the huge spread is because of an outlier in a small
dataset where we had an estimated CTR of 346% which is obviously not true.
Bottomline: no keyword research tool is perfect, so it's important you use the search volumes for
what they are – estimations.
And I won't go deeper into YouTube keyword research because we have a full tutorial on
that which I'll link up in the description.
Alright, next up, you need to choose a topic you want to go after.
And you should have a brainstormed keyword list from the last step.
Now, what you'll want to do is search for the keyword in YouTube search
while you're in private browsing mode.
Then look for two things in the top 3 videos.
#1. Try and identify the format of the video – in this case, we have 3 step-by-step tutorials,
so you'll want to create a video with the same format.
And #2. Scope out your competitors.
Now generally speaking, you'll want to look at the size of the channel and their topical authority.
So for the query, "makeup tutorial for beginners," you'll see that the top 3
channels all have over a million subscribers.
Now, this doesn't mean you can't compete, but if your channel has 100 subscribers,
it'll be a David and Goliath story if you can outrank them.
As for topical authority, just dig through their channels to see if most of their content
is on the same topic.
In this case, all 3 channels are mostly about makeup or a mix of makeup,
beauty and fashion.
So again, if you're a small channel, I wouldn't try and compete for this
keyword at this point.
Instead, I'd just rinse and repeat these steps until you find a topic
that's more realistic to rank for.
Alright, so after you've chosen a topic to create a video around, it's time to move
on to the next step which is to create a high-performing video.
And by high-performing, I'm referring to a video that will have high retention,
high average view duration, and high CTR.
A big ask but let me show you how to do that.
For educational type content, which is kind of the bread and butter of YouTube SEO,
you'll want to script your content.
Reason being, people's attention spans are short.
And if you're going off on tangents, you're going to lose the high retention and high
average view durations.
Now, as for the structure of your script, let's keep things simple and talk about
them as they come – the intro, the body, and then the outro.
For the intro, you'll want to keep it short and sweet and grab the attention of your viewers.
You want to give them a reason to keep watching.
For example, in this video's intro, I showed you that we rank #1 for the most coveted
keywords in our niche and showed you proof of our traffic.
That's probably something that a viewer searching for a YouTube SEO
tutorial would want to learn too.
As for the actual body of your content, this is where you need to deliver on your
title and intro.
And there are two things you should master: the technical aspects and the engagement factors.
Let's talk about the technical stuff first.
Throughout your video, you'll want to say your target keyword and related entities
to your topic.
In fact, Google has officially said that they extract audio from the video file
to understand what words are being spoken.
And that's probably why all of your videos, at least in English, are automatically transcribed
when you upload a video.
Now, much of this should come naturally because they'll need to be mentioned in
a comprehensive tutorial.
So, there's no need to stuff in a bunch of related keywords just for the sake of it.
Now, in that same statement from Google, they said they extract visual information
such as objects, animations or motions.
And this means that you should show matching visuals on your screen to your
spoken words if applicable.
For example, if you're making a video on making a perfect cup of coffee and you
might say: "Heat your kettle to 185 degrees Fahrenheit," and show a matching visual.
Now, if you're in a niche like ours where it's harder to show visuals that match
the words being spoken, then use text screens like this, or screencasts.
As for the engagement aspects, this is quite easy because you'll be scripting your content.
This allows you to add hooks throughout your video to keep your audience engaged.
For example, you might say "Check this out" or briefly mention an interesting point and
follow it up with "More on this later."
It helps retain people's attention if they're truly interested in what you have to say.
Another thing you can do is ask for engagement metrics like likes, comments, and shares.
For example, I might ask you: "If you want to see a video on getting more suggested views,
then let me know in the comments."
And for people who genuinely want to know how to do this, they might
actually leave a comment.
Alright, the final part of your script is the outro.
Just like the intro, you want to keep it short because people will click away
if they know the video is coming to an end.
Another thing worth doing is recommending other related videos towards the end of
your content.
And if people click and watch these videos, then your videos are creating
longer session watch times which is what YouTube wants at the end of the day.
Alright, after you've finished scripting your content, you'll record your video,
edit it and then we're on to the next step which is to optimize your video for YouTube.
So there are 7 things you'll need to do to optimize your videos.
And these include your video file name, your video title, tags, description, thumbnail,
closed captions, and cards and end screens.
It sounds like a lot, but some of these take no longer than five seconds.
So, first, you'll want to change your video filename to your target keyword.
So this video's file is called youtube-seo.mp4.
Easy.
Second, is the title.
And there are a few things you'll want to do here.
#1. include your target keyword in it, which you can see we've done in our video's title;
#2. Try and keep your title under 60 characters to avoid truncation;
and #3. Create a title that'll complement your thumbnail.
And we'll get to the thumbnail in a bit.
The third thing is to fill in your tags.
Now, personally, I don't really think tags do that much for YouTube SEO, but it
only takes a few minutes to do so here's how we do it at Ahrefs.
Our first tag is almost always our target keyword.
Then we add a few more related keywords.
Then we'll continue to go broader.
Both Tubebuddy and VidIQ are great for generating tags.
They show you suggestions in YouTube studio and you can also research your competitors
tags by visiting one of their videos.
The fourth thing is the description.
Here, you'll want to write a brief summary on what you'll talk about in the video.
And while I doubt this is a big ranking factor, we include some of the tagged keywords if
it makes sense in context.
Another thing worth doing is to add timecodes to different parts of your video.
And this helps with video SEO so you can capture key moment in Google search.
We have full video on doing video SEO, so I'll link that up in the description.
The fifth optimization tip is for the thumbnail.
Now, because this video isn't about how to make a good thumbnail for YouTube,
I'm going to leave with two high-level tips to create great thumbnails.
Tip #1. Your thumbnail should complement your title.
And these two things alone will play the greatest role in your click through rate,
which is insanely important to get views from any organic YouTube traffic source.
For example, this video is titled "How to speed up your WordPress website."
And our thumbnail in my opinion, perfectly complements the title with a before and
after picture of our website's speed and a little fun with me at my night job as the Flash.
The second tip is to try and draw curiosity with a few words in your thumbnail.
For example, we created a video on how accurate Google Keyword Planner is and the thumbnail text
text says: "Is keyword planner accurate?"
For those that are interested, they'll have to click it to find out.
The sixth optimization you should make is to add closed captions.
These are files that you can upload to YouTube to caption the audio in your video.
And we do this for all of our videos because as I already mentioned, YouTube uses the words
we speak to understand the video's content.
Plus, for non-native speakers, it's helpful to better understand the content as reading is
sometimes easier than listening.
This can help to improve your average view duration metric too.
YouTube has a built in tool for adding closed captions, and because you've
scripted your content, it's super-easy to do.
And the last YouTube SEO tip for optimizing your video is to add relevant cards and end
screens to your videos.
YouTube wants people to stay on their platform for as long as possible.
And if your content is responsible for fulfilling their objective, then they're
going to promote your video to more people.
For example, I didn't want to expand on video SEO when I was talking about key moments.
So I added a card for those that want to watch and learn more.
As for end screens, it's almost always worth adding relevant videos at the end
of your video.
This creates a better user experience for the engaged viewers that make it
to the end and want more from you.
By successfully executing on these 7 YouTube SEO tips, you've covered all of the essentials to
optimize your videos for YouTube search.
Here's a quick checklist of the tips we just went through, take a screenshot and let's
move on to the last step of our tutorial and that's to promote your video.
Now, the strategy you use will depend on your circumstances.
And you'll likely fall into one of two categories.
Category #1. You have an existing audience outside of YouTube like blog readers, social
followers, email subscribers, and customers.
And if you have all of these things, then promotion is pretty easy.
Start by embedding your video in relevant blog posts, send an email to your subscribers,
and share your video on other social platforms.
We'll touch on a few more tactics in a second because they apply to you
and those that are in category 2.
And these are people who don't have an audience on any platform.
The truth is, it's going to be a grind to rank your videos on YouTube simply
because of the way YouTube's algorithm works.
But all hope is not lost.
There are three promotion tactics you can use to drive views to your video
and grow your channel's authority which will help you in your YouTube SEO efforts.
#1. Share your videos on sites like Reddit and Quora.
Now, rather than just spamming video links, it's best if you provide some value,
seeing as your video will likely be educational to a certain extent.
And again, you'll want to make sure that they're added in relevant subreddits and
answers because the people who click it, actually need to watch it.
#2. Consider running YouTube search ads for your target query.
Basically, you just need to set up an ad campaign and bid on your target query.
And with a budget of $5 to $15 per day, you can actually get quite a significant
number of views for the money.
And even though we're over 300,000 subscribers today, the views are so
cheap that we continue to do it.
On average, we pay around $0.01 per minute watched through search ads.
And there is no other marketing medium that compares from a paid ads perspective.
If you're interested in using this strategy, then I highly recommend watching our full
tutorial on using this YouTube ads technique.
I'll link it up in the description.
And the third tactic is to pay for sponsored newsletters.
Now, we've only done this a couple of times, but we had some decent spikes
in subscribers for a pretty low cost.
The key is finding relevant sponsored newsletters that have your target audience and promoting
a video that will appeal to the majority.
For example, if you have a YouTube channel on toddler parenting, then you might consider
reaching out to sites like Baby Center or The Bump.
And the video you promote, might be one on how to deal with tantrums because it's a common struggle
that parents with toddlers go through.
There are no hidden secrets to YouTube SEO.
You just need to do keyword research, pick a topic, create a high retention video,
do the basics of video optimization using the YouTube SEO tips I showed you earlier,
and then promote it to relevant audiences.
That's it!
Do these things better than the top ranking videos, and I hope you'll be able to dominate
YouTube search for your niche.