- YouTube SEO, three steps to rank number one on YouTube.
I will teach you how to rank number one on YouTube
in three steps and who doesn't want to rank on YouTube?
It's the second largest search engine in the world
right after Google,
and nearly 2.3 billion people access YouTube once a month.
Funny enough, Google also owns YouTube, so technically,
they own the first and second most popular search engine.
That means if you're able to rank a video on YouTube
for keywords that people care about,
it'll be seen by thousands of people
and it'll also rank well on Google over time.
All of that sounds great,
but YouTube is becoming more and more competitive.
Thousands of creators in every niche
are competing for attention
and a lot of them are probably targeting
the same audience as you.
But the good news is
that YouTube is nowhere near as competitive as Google.
And even if you're just starting,
you can rank videos on YouTube.
Back in 2017 when I started my YouTube channel,
things were tough.
I've always been great at writing content,
but it's an entirely different game when it comes to video.
I also knew how to do SEO
and get millions of visitors to my website,
but all that knowledge was hard to use on YouTube
and it didn't translate directly.
So in other words, what worked for Google,
didn't really work for YouTube.
Some of it sure did overlap,
but it was a different algorithm.
So I decided to crack the code
and understand YouTube's algorithm and share it with you.
And in order to do that, I had to create lots of content.
And I mean, lots of content.
I started pushing out videos every single day.
When I started my YouTube channel,
I was doing at least one video a day.
I want to learn a few things,
so I needed data on what worked and what didn't.
A lot of what I learned back then
no longer applies to YouTube in this day and age,
but I found out there are three steps
that you need to take in order to rank on YouTube
that worked back then and still work today
and they're super effective.
The first thing that you need to do
is come up with great topics for videos.
How I found this out?
I used to focus on keywords,
but it's not much about the keywords.
You need to figure out what are the broader topics
that people care about in your audience.
But in order to do that,
you need to explore many different topics
and see which one resonates the most with your audience.
In my case, I focus on marketing.
So there are quite a few things that I could be approaching.
Paid ads, social media, SEO, conversion rate optimization,
and the list goes on and on.
I had to spend quite a bit of time publishing videos
on lots of different marketing topics,
until I was able to find the main areas
that people in my audience were interested in.
Once you found those main topics,
you need to come up with more unique angles
to approach keyword themes inside that topic.
Here's an example.
If you want to talk about Facebook ads,
you don't want to just create a video called Facebook Ads.
I've done videos like Facebook ads versus Google ads.
And I got lots of engagement from that.
So it's not about putting out a video just on Facebook ads.
It's finding angles in that topic
that people are interested watch about.
because a lot of people are like,
"Yeah, Facebook ads or Google ads? Which one's better?"
Well, I'm going to break down both.
And here's how you can map out some initial topics.
Use Ubersuggest keyword ideas report, right?
Go to Ubersuggest, type in a keyword.
It'll give you all these other keywords that are popular
that people are wondering about.
You can also use Google Search Operator.
You can also use a colon command.
Site:quora.com plus the keyword.
Or site:reddit.com plus the keyword.
Now, you can also check out a tool called Answer the Public.
That's a great tool to get you the data as well
and what people are really interested.
Now, I just want to emphasize
that the video title is very important.
It needs to be catchy.
Give the reason for viewers to click
and watch the rest of the video.
Your topics need to be articulated in a way
that's attractive in your titles.
The second step is coming up with a good thumbnail.
Thumbnails will dictate how attractive your video is
and if people want to click through and watch your content.
Alongside your title,
this is where you need to spend time and energy
to try to come up with something
that's compelling for your viewers.
Don't create thumbnails that are just still like this.
If you do that, who's going to want to click?
I wouldn't click.
Heck, I wouldn't click on myself
if I was like that in my own thumbnail.
That's why you got to have crazy emotions like.
And you'll see that in my thumbnails
and that drives clicks.
Here are some tips over time that worked for me.
Give a glimpse of what's going to happen in your thumbnail.
If your video's about increasing traffic,
maybe show a snapshot of your Google analytics
in your thumbnail.
If your video's improving conversions,
show a before and after snapshot of your conversion rates
before and after applying the tips.
Use photos of yourself reacting,
like I just showed you earlier.
If the video has something alarmed to it,
use a photo of yourself that's weird like.
I'm not the best actor, but you get the point.
If the video is good news,
show a photo of yourself reacting positive.
You're like, "Ah."
You get the point,
you just need to be congruent
with the core message of your video.
And also consider using contrasting colors.
Avoid using red
because that's the color of YouTube brand identity.
Use colors that'll draw attention
and make your video stand up
when people see it in the middle of other suggestions
on YouTube search results.
Now for the third step,
it's all about doing SEO optimization.
You want to optimize your title
using the focus keyword that you're targeting.
Optimize your video descriptions with those keywords.
Include the primary and secondary keywords
that you're getting from tools like Ubersuggest
that you all also like to rank for
in the first paragraph of the description.
And pin a comment with engaging question,
so that way it creates more virality from your video
because the comments really help drive views for YouTube.
And ask something that would be relevant to your audience
and relevant to your video's content.
This will invite people to leave more comments
within your video.
For example,
have you tried out any of these three tips
within your own YouTube videos?
If you have, leave a common below
and tell me how it's worked.
If you haven't, let me know and try one of these tips
and I'll help you through it.
Look, the big takeaway is,
there's a lot of YouTube advice out there
that is quite technical and hard to understand,
but this stuff that I just broke down to you
is easy and it works.
It's the fundamentals, use it, you'll like the results.