YouTube Optimisation For Beginners

Intro

From Rickrolling through to grumpy cats and everything in between, the video content of YouTube is about as close to infinite in nature as you can imagine. The second biggest search engine in the world (after Google, of course), 4 billion YouTube videos are watched daily, for a total of 6 billion hours a month globally. With such an enormous and lucrative audience, isn’t it time you discovered how to create and optimise video content that can get you in front of it?

YouTube optimisation can seem daunting at first, but in reality there are a number of relatively straightforward ways to make your content that little bit more visible that could translate into hundreds - perhaps even thousands - of extra views, and the opportunity to better connect with new and existing customers and grow your business.

Here at SEOMG! we have been helping clients optimise their YouTube content since our inception, and wanted to pass on a little bit of wisdom to you, dear readers.

So let’s get straight into it.

Keyword Research

YouTube, just like Google, is a search engine, meaning that your potential customers will be using keywords within YouTube to search for topics, products and services in your field. And just like you can optimise your web pages for search, so too can you optimise video content for search.

This all starts with effective keyword research, in order to identify the phrases and questions your target audience are using to find products and services like yours. There are a few simple ways to conduct keyword research for YouTube.

Ahrefs YouTube Keyword Tool

This tool lets you see accurate search volume numbers for any keyword in 170 countries. You can also see how many times on average a search query results in a click on a video. If the number is low, this indicates that searchers are not satisfied with the search results - a potential avenue for you to create something better!

(Image source: Ahrefs YouTube Keyword Tool)

Search bar suggestions in YouTube

Enter any word related to your chosen subject area into YouTube’s search bar and you’ll be shown a whole list of related phrases. These are all popular searches that will be great additions to your keyword list and can be used within video titles, descriptions and tags to become visible for them.

(Image source: YouTube search bar)

Google Keyword Planner

Get your keywords straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, with the Google Keyword Planner. A lot of YouTube users arrive there having performed a Google search, so it makes sense to get a list of which queries are popular within the search engine and try to optimise your videos to rank well in both Google and YouTube search results.

(Image source: Google Keyword Planner)

Once you have a nice big list of potential keywords and phrases, use a tool like SEMRUSH to assess which keywords yield video results, with its handy SERP features filtering tool illustrated below.

(Image source: SEMRUSH keyword magic tool)

Now that you’ve got a nice list of keywords and understand what popular phrases searchers are using to find videos like yours, let’s cover how to apply those to your content.

Titles & Descriptions

Video titles should be at least five words long, and no longer than 70 characters in length. This allows you to include target keywords but retain a short and catchy title that will implore searchers to click. Target keywords should be placed as close to the start of the title as possible. Notice how the example below employs the keyword in the first sentence (in this case, ‘house renovation’)

(Image source: Youtube / Jack Smith)

Video descriptions can be up to 5000 characters in length, but ensure that the key message is outlined at the very start. The optimal word count is 300-350 words, shown in studies to contribute towards the best average video rankings.

If a video is associated with a particular page on your website then include a link to that page within the description. These links should be positioned after the first paragraph and helps with discovery and awareness of your site.

Additionally, consider including a brand related hashtag within the description. This will increase engagement from users wanting to find more of your videos.

Tagging

There are several different types of tag that should be included on all videos. When combined, they will widen the net for searchers of related videos.

Specific tag: One word that describes the specific topic of the video. For example, ‘property’.

Compound tag: The title of the video is the compound tag, so enter this here. If the title is quite long, enter the most descriptive element of the title, for example 'House Renovation Tour - Before and After’.

Generic tag: This refers to the category of the video. For example, ‘news’, ‘review’, ‘vlog’, ‘interview’ etc. This will generate several suggested tags, so click on some of these to add them after your manually entered generic tag.

Misspelled tag: Think of common misspellings related to the particular video in question (e.g.: ‘rennovation’ or ‘prperty’) and enter a few of these as tags. This will ensure that searchers who misspell the topic or title of a video in the search bar have more chance of finding one of your videos.

The YouTube Tag Extractor Tool is particularly useful for looking at competitor videos that rank well to see which tags they are utilising. Simply enter the video’s URL in the search bar and hit that ‘Extract Tags’ button!

(Image source: YouTube Tag Extractor Tool)

Thumbnails

You should create your own thumbnail - don’t use YouTube’s auto-generated ones. Although YouTube can generate a thumbnail for you by pulling a still from a video, this more often than not inhibits your video’s potential. By creating a custom thumbnail, you can automatically elevate the professional look of your channel and send a clearer message to people browsing as to what your video is about.

There are lots of free and easy-to-use tools out there that can be used to create custom thumbnails, for example Canva, as it has templates available and ready to use.

(Image source: Canva YouTube Thumbnail Generator)

Playlists

Organising your videos into playlists creates clear categorisation on your channel, which helps users navigate around and find the things they are looking for a little bit more easily. Playlists are also great for YouTube optimisation as they appear in search results for popular keywords. Additionally, playlists are good for keeping viewers hooked on your content, as it increases the likelihood that users will stay on your channel for multiple views of different content.

(Image source: YouTube / Soccer AM)

To sum up

So there we have it - a crash course in YouTube optimisation. It takes time to create great video content, and become visible for it, but the processes involved are one of the more straightforward methods in the world of SEO.

Find out more about SEOMG!