Humans have always relied on powerful search engine tools like YouTube in order to find the best content. It has added so much value to our knowledge base from tutorials to tips that it’s safe to say, our society depends on it.
YouTube is the glue that brings together all the missing pieces of information. It was a saving grace throughout my college years when I had no clue how to complete certain assignments. I literally wrote an entire paper based off of the resources and information that I found on YouTube. It is the ultimate information source.
So how can digital marketers use this to their advantage? The answer is simple. You need to show up in the search results for the information that customers, like myself, are searching for. And in order to achieve this you need to have rock solid SEO.
Throughout this blog, I will teach you the best ways to increase your SEO by writing high performing titles, descriptions, and tags.
Research Your Keywords
Researching your keyword for your title, description and tags will provide YouTube an understanding of what your video is all about. Additionally, it’s good to know what your target audience is searching for to better optimize your channel.
A simple way to start your research is to select a keyword that is most related to your video content. You can start by plugging in your main keyword into the YouTube search bar and based on the output you will have a good idea of what your target audience is looking for.
Another researching method is to use keyword search engine tools such as LSIGraph (Latent Semantic Indexing). Their platform generates the best search results around your chosen main keyword. Their metrics will also provide enough information to know if your main keyword is strong enough to boost your SEO on your title, description, and tag for your video. Give it a try!
Consider The Length of Your Title
It should go without saying when it comes to your YouTube title you should always consider its length. The right amount of characters will ensure that your video is ranked highest on YouTube and Google. YouTube is pretty generous when it comes to the length of your title, as they allow you to include up to 100 characters. Though this is nice, I recommend keeping it at roughly 70 characters in order to generate clicks and views. It is also a good idea to include your main keyword at the beginning of your title to optimize your searchability score.
A good tip when forming your title, is to know the best titles with the most views usually start with a “How To…” or Numerical Tips. Here is one for example with over 1 million views. Try it out!
Optimize Your Description
When I started my first YouTube channel, I was glad to see that YouTube allowed you to write descriptions of up to 5,000 characters. Though this is great to get your message across to your audience, there is more to consider than just typing away. Like a preview text in an email, YouTube will show a small snippet of your description. This is where you will want to include your selected keyword(s).
You can provide a more detailed version of your description under your snippet section. If there is a voice over in your video, a great tip is to provide a transcribed version to boost your SEO. According to an article on 3playmedia, “pages with transcripts earned on average 16% more revenue than they did before transcripts were added.” Talk about a great way to optimize your channel.
According to YouTube, you should only include 1-2 keywords that are most relevant to your video in your title and description. They also encourage sharing a URL after the first sentence to drive more traffic to your website.
Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Another great tip; make sure not to repeat keywords too often when writing sentences in your description box. Keyword stuffing can cause your channel to be flagged, as it goes against Google’s quality guidelines. Also, not a good look if you are starting from scratch. Your YouTube description needs to provide enough rich content to increase your rankings on Google.
It’s a good idea to consider adding short links in your description to generate more traffic to your website as well. Your audience can find them when clicking on the “Show More” option under your video.
Use Tags To Enhance Your SEO
YouTube offers a section where you can insert elongated keyword phrases as tags to optimize your video. In this section, you are provided up to 500 characters to include tags that are most relevant to your content. Tags are basically hashtags in front of your keywords or keyword phrases, and they are used to increase your SEO. One of YouTube’s best practices is to ensure that your keywords are as relevant as possible. According to YouTube terms, you can be flagged when using irrelevant tags with your video. So, be laser-focused on what you want is most closely tied to your video content.
In a Nutshell
There is no shortcut to optimizing your videos for YouTube. It is important to stay laser-focused on the keywords you want to include when posting your videos, as it will not only assist in boosting your SEO for the title, description, and tags but also generating organic traffic to your website through your channel and the Google search results. Stay within the Google and YouTube guidelines by keeping your keywords as relevant as possible. Give it a try; your video may be the next big hit on YouTube!
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Article Written by:
Sharon Espinal
Content and Digital Marketing Specialist | Digital Marketing Collective
Connect With Sharon on LinkedIn 
