What is YouTube SEO and 21 Tips To Rank Higher

SEO strategies for YouTube are increasingly employed by brands. After all, who wouldn’t want to be at the top of the search results for the largest video platform on the web?

YouTube is an internet phenomenon. Created in 2005, it won over so many users that it caught the attention of Google. It did not take long for it to be bought by the search engine company in 2006 and become a giant.

The platform played an essential role in transforming videos into one of the main content formats, both for consumption and Digital Marketing.

Thanks to it, videos have become accessible: today any person—or brand—can publish and watch a multitude of audiovisual content on the web.

And, with such a multitude of videos on the platform, YouTube was forced to organize all this content in its search engine.

To have a good experience on the platform, users should be able to easily find videos of interest. Therefore, the platform created an algorithm capable of ranking the best content for each search.

Because of that, channels today have a challenge: whoever wants more visibility, must adopt strategies to optimize the videos so that they appear in a better position.

We call these strategies YouTube SEO. And that’s what we’re going to talk about in this article. Keep reading to learn everything about this subject!

What is YouTube SEO?

Before you learn what YouTube SEO is, it is important to take a few steps back and understand what SEO is.

Search Engine Optimization is the set of strategies for optimizing the user experience that aims to improve a page’s positioning on search engines.

It encompasses programming, design, content production and the relationship with other sites, so that search engines consider that page is the best result for what the user is looking for.

Of course, when it comes to SEO, what you want is to reach the top positions of Google Search. After all, this internet giant dominates over 90% of searches worldwide.

Bing, Yahoo!, and Baidu are the other search engines that keep the rest of that share.

Google has a mission: “to organize the world’s information so that it is universally accessible and useful for everyone”. In other words, when crawling, indexing, and ranking web content, the search engine wants users to find the best results for their searches.

For this, Google has developed an intelligent algorithm that is capable of identifying the pages that offer a good experience. It also eliminates those that use spam, plagiarism, or other malicious practices from the results.

That said, let’s now understand what YouTube SEO is.

Search engines exist in many other places on the internet. When you access a website, for example, there is usually a search feature there, which finds internal content. On social media sites, there is also an internal search engine.

This also happens on YouTube, which offers its own search system so that users can easily find the channels and videos they are looking for.

And the platform has a lot of weight among internet searchers: this 2017 study showed that YouTube had a higher number of searches than Yahoo! and Bing, for example.

Does SEO Really Work for YouTube?

YouTube is a platform that’s hard to put in a single category, so it’s understandable that some people might be unsure if traditional SEO really matters there.

On one hand, YouTube serves as a vast information hub and a substantial search engine on its own. On the other hand, it’s also a social media platform.

However, YouTube SEO does indeed work. Many companies and brands, like Hootsuite, have witnessed significant improvements in their content rankings by using both traditional methods like keyword research, as well as platform-specific tactics such as creating chapters and using captions.

How does YouTube SEO work?

Youtube was purchased by Google. Therefore, it adopts the same search intelligence as the search engine and has the same purpose: to offer the best search experience to the user.

In this video, YouTube itself gives a brief explanation of how its search algorithm works:

When the user types a search term on YouTube, the platform’s robots scour across all the channels and videos to deliver the best results to the user in order of relevance.

And, to determine which are the best results for each person, the algorithm considers several factors.

User search and browsing histories—just like on Google—are important points for customizing the results page. But, for those who publish content on YouTube, it is important to know that the algorithm also has channel engagement and optimization criteria to rank the results.

For example, a video that correctly fills in the title, tags, and description fields tends to have better placement than one that does not.

A YouTube channel that tends to receive a lot of comments and likes also positions itself better than one that doesn’t have good engagement.

Why does this happen? Because the platform understands that these videos deliver a more valuable experience to the user.

And that’s also what Google’s own algorithm understands. As the search engine and YouTube belong to the same company, there is an integration between the platforms.

So, when someone searches on Google, the search engine also presents a carousel of video content, both from YouTube and other platforms, that is more relevant to that search.

See the example below:

Therefore, the SEO optimizations that you make for YouTube not only apply to the search within the platform but also compete for that space in Google search.

YouTube SEO Guidelines

When you work on your YouTube SEO, don’t think of it as a completely separate entity from your other SEO work. Both YouTube and Google follow similar SEO guidelines for success. That means that the best practices you use for your standard SEO practices can be applied to your YouTube SEO strategy as well.

Take a look at what the SEO guidelines are for publishing a piece of content like a blog and try to apply that same logic to your video creation. Break things down into segments, and make sure that your videos follow a flow that makes it easy for viewers to understand exactly what you are communicating to them. Not only will this help you create better videos, but it will boost your other SEO efforts.

How YouTube Ranks Videos

YouTube takes several different factors into consideration when ranking videos. It looks for things like the performance of your videos and the popularity of your channel with followers and subscribers. Metrics like the click-through rate, average view durations, likes, and dislikes all play a role in video ranking.

Another factor that YouTube takes into consideration is personalization for each user. If a user watches videos similar to yours, then your video is more likely to end up on their homepage as a recommendation.

Keywords for YouTube Traffic

Your YouTube search bar is just like any other search bar on a search engine like Google. When you type in a word or phrase, that creates a keyword that the YouTube algorithm looks at in order to find the right content for your search. That means that your keywords are essential to getting more traffic to your YouTube videos.

While you might know how important it is to do research and pick the right keywords to use in your video creation, you also want to brainstorm the types of keywords you want your channel to be found for. Don’t just focus on what ranks highest, but think about how you can specialize and find niche keywords that match your brand values and goals.

The Importance of Video Quality on YouTube

No one wants to watch a grainy, low-quality video. If you can’t publish high-quality videos on your YouTube channel, then you won’t get many views and your SEO will decrease as well. Rather than disappointing your audience, you want to take action to make sure your videos are high-quality for viewers.

To begin with, you want to make sure that you are using a high-quality camera for your filming. Investing in a great video camera or renting one when necessary can help. You can also use your phone camera if needed, provided that it produces the right quality of video for your uploads.

You want to make sure that the camera is able to record the video in HD or in 4K resolution. The footage you tape must be in 1080p or higher in order to qualify as a high-definition video and show up on YouTube the way you want it to. You’ll also want to make sure that you have selected the same frame rate on your uploads.

From there, you can upload the video to YouTube in the standard way. If at first, it looks like a lower-quality video, don’t worry. The HD processing will need to be completed before you can see the video in its entirety. Just leave the video as “Unlisted” until you are ready to set it public as an HD video.

21 Top Tactics for YouTube SEO

YouTube SEO is not a cake recipe. Even if you follow all the guidelines, the decision of what results will appear to the user depends on the platform’s algorithm, which is quite complex.

It considers numerous criteria, rules, and calculations to determine ranking, including factors that are independent of your actions—such as user navigation.

However, the more you earn points with the YouTube search algorithm, the more chances you have of reaching the top positions.

So, let’s see some tips for YouTube to favor your channel and your videos in users’ search results.

1. Conduct keyword research first

Keywords are essential in YouTube SEO, as well as for Google. Through them, the platform identifies the video’s subject, indexes the content, and associates it with users’ searches.

For this, they must be added to certain fields—title, tags, and description, for example, as we will see below—when uploading the video file so that YouTube can collect this information and use it in the ranking.

Therefore, you need to know which keywords best identify your videos and, at the same time, have the potential to attract more viewers to your channel.

Now let’s look at some tips for performing quality keyword research with a focus on YouTube SEO. Those can be used to fill in the fields after you record videos, but also to come up with ideas for potential content for your channel.

First, you can use a basic YouTube tool: the search bar autocomplete.

It serves to facilitate user search based on the terms that are usually the most searched on the network.

It can also help creators: you can come up with new keyword ideas that are in high demand on the platform and thus increase the viewing potential of your videos.

Another step in keyword research is to benchmark. Yes, your competitors can help you too!

To do this, visit the channels that are authorities in your niche. If they have a good audience and many views, they probably adopt good SEO practices for YouTube and know how to use keywords.

Then, review what terms they use in their most popular videos.

To do this, when you’re on their channels, go to the Videos tab and select the option to sort by most popular videos.

You can already imagine that one of the main keywords in this video is “strategic narrative”, right? If you want to take a closer look, you can also discover the tags that were used in this video.

However, they are not visible to users. To do this, you must open the source code of the video page (by right-clicking it) and look for “keywords” within it.

In addition, you can also analyze your channel statistics. Within the traffic source analysis are the most used terms to reach your videos. There, you can find inspirations to record new content or include keywords in your uploads.

In this Mindvalley case study, you can also see the tools that the company recommends to search for keywords:

• Keywords Everywhere: free Google Chrome extension for SEO that shows an estimate of the volume of monthly searches to Google and YouTube search boxes.
• Google Trends: free Google tool that shows search trends (it is possible to show only searches on YouTube) and serves to identify hot topics.
• VidIQ: free Google Chrome extension that adds an information bar to videos on YouTube.

Need an extra hand with your keyword research? You can count on the SEO strategists available on WriterAccess. Start the free trial today and get to work with skilled freelance marketing professionals.

2. Choose keywords with good reach potential

With the tips above, you already have a good list of keywords. So, how do you pick the best ones for your videos?

Of course, you must think: “I will choose the words that are most used in searches!“. Yes: the most popular terms tend to attract more people. However, they have more competition—and such competitors can be big brands and influencers, with whom it is difficult to compete.

So the best choice—especially if you have a small business—is probably the keywords that we call ‘long tail’.

They don’t have such amazing traffic, but they don’t have that much competition either. So, it’s easier to gain a good position. In addition, they often represent bottom-funnel searches—that is, closer to conversion.

But how do you know what long-tail keywords are? They are usually longer—three words or more—and represent a more specific search.

“Content Marketing”, for example, is a top-funnel word. It generates a lot of hits, but the ranking for it is much more competitive.

But you can narrow down that search using the term “Instagram content marketing”, which already filters out competitors. If you choose the term “content marketing Instagram Stories”, the search becomes even more specific and you increase the chances of positioning your video well.

In any case, it is always important to select keywords that are related to the video content. Imagine taking users who search for “content marketing Instagram Stories” to a video that talks about decoration tips.

It does not work. Do you know why?

Because the user will abandon your video with just a few seconds of viewing. This counts as negative points in YouTube’s assessment of video engagement and, consequently, your ranking. It’s like shooting yourself in the foot.

3. Create a good video title

After performing good keyword research, you already have a good selection of terms at hand. So, what do you do with them?

One of the fields where the keyword needs to appear is the title. This is one of the most important factors for YouTube to index and rank the content.

And, for the video to appear in a good position, the title must be as close as possible to the user’s search terms.

For example, in the case of this Rock Content video, the content essentially discusses Brand Building. Therefore, the main keyword of this video is “brand building” and it appears at the beginning of the title.

In addition, a study by Briggsby analyzed the correlation between the positioning of videos in YouTube search results and possible platform ranking factors.

Regarding the titles, they realized that the first places of searches usually use the exact match of the keyword in the video title.

The research has also shown that longer titles tend to perform worse, as the top positions are more objective: the top 20 players have, on average, 47-48 characters in the title—the maximum is 100 characters.

So try to keep your titles more concise and with the exact keyword. These findings are not rules, but they are worth considering.

Also, remember that the video title can be the user’s first contact with your content.

So it needs to describe what viewers are going to watch, but also motivate them to click on your video. Therefore, it is worth a dash of creativity, which can sharpen curiosity.

4. Add tags to the video

Anyone who works with SEO for Google knows that stuffing a page’s code with keywords in the meta tags no longer makes sense. The search engine no longer uses this aspect as a ranking factor since it was widely used as spam.

On YouTube, however, tags are essential for ranking a video. They are among the factors that YouTube considers to identify the subjects of a video and index it correctly, but also to recommend related videos.

And those suggestions are also an important source of traffic for your videos.

In this field, YouTube allows you to use 120 characters. We advise you to use 6 to 8 words, so as not to confuse the algorithm with terms that are detached from its content.

5. Write smart descriptions

The description is another important field that must be filled in when uploading the video. This text should provide information about what the video is about in the most descriptive way possible.

If the title needs to be concise, the description can be longer and more detailed. You have up to 5000 characters for this.

The description is essential for ranking for two reasons. It can be an instrument of persuasion for the user to access the video since its initial portion appears in the search results—so try to keep the main information at the beginning of the text.

With an attractive description, you can increase your video engagement and earn points with YouTube.

The description also serves the platform’s algorithm to identify the video content. Therefore, here you must include keywords that represent the topics covered in the video. Thus, you increase the chances of ranking for these terms.

Take advantage of the description to add more information and engage users in other ways.

In the text, you can include calls to action (CTAs), such as an invitation to subscribe to the channel or download some content on your website, preferably with shortened links.

Another idea is to use timestamps to direct the viewer to certain prominent parts of the video, especially in longer content.

It is also possible to add hashtags in the text, which generate links for users to find new videos about that term. But don’t overdo it: if you have more than 15 hashtags in the video description, YouTube ignores them all.

6. Edit the file name

Did you know that YouTube SEO techniques begin even before you upload your video? This is because you already need to include the content’s main keyword in the file name.

Instead of uploading the video with a name full of codes and numbers (e.g. VID_94800805.mp4), which is incomprehensible to YouTube, use a descriptive name with the keyword (e.g., how-to-do-youtube-seo.mp4).

Thus, the platform can identify what the video is about right in the name of the file.

7. Create transcriptions and captions for the videos

YouTube’s algorithm is not able to read images and videos—only text and code.

Therefore, one of the strategies you can adopt so that it understands what your content is about is to create transcriptions and captions.

Transcription is the transformation into the text that the video talks about. You can do this manually on your own or use the YouTube tool that facilitates this work.

By adding timestamps to the transcript, you can also turn it into captions.

They are employed so that users can follow the video even if they cannot activate the audio and work as an accessibility tool for people with hearing impairment.

In addition to captions, you can also put the transcript text in the video description to give viewers more information about the video.

8. Make longer videos 

The Briggsby study—which we mentioned earlier—also came to two findings about the relationship between the ranking and the length of the videos:

• videos with less than 2 minutes tend to be poorly positioned;
• the average duration of the first 5 positions is 11min 44s.

So it’s worth starting to invest in longer videos, which are about 10 minutes long.

They probably meet the expectations of those looking for more complete and in-depth content. On the other hand, videos less than 2 minutes long tend to be more superficial.

We’re not saying that you should stick to those numbers, okay? These findings serve only to provide guidance.

However, it is worth mentioning: relevance is better than the video’s length. So, if you invest in quality content, don’t worry so much about the length of the video.

9. Increase CTR in search results

CTR (Click-Through Rate) represents the rate with which users click on your video among the available search results.

To YouTube, having a high click-through rate means that your video was relevant to that keyword that the user searched for. For this reason, CTR is also an important ranking factor.

But of course, you cannot directly influence that rate. What you can do is increase the chances that users will click on your video.

For this, the excerpt that appears in the search results must be attractive and relevant to the search.

So let’s review everything you can edit in this summary:

• the title, which must include the main keyword;
• the beginning of the description, which must be persuasive in its first words;
• the video thumbnail, which should be attractive and bring some additional information to the other elements.

Thus, the chances of the user clicking on your video increase.

10. Increase audience engagement

In analogy to SEO for Google, we can say that the tips we’ve given so far refer to on-page SEO—that is, everything that is within the reach of the publisher himself.

On the other side of these strategies is off-page SEO, which includes factors that are not under the control of the site. In the case of Google, it mainly refers to link building, that is, the relationships with other sites and the links you receive from them.

In the case of YouTube, link building is not among the ranking factors. As much as a video is linked on other sites, the algorithm does not have this data to rank it, although it helps to generate more views.

On the video platform, in contrast, it can be said that off-page SEO refers to audience engagement.

After all, receiving comments and likes or increasing video viewing times are not under the control of the channel, which can only encourage users to interact more. And that has great weight for the algorithm!

So always encourage your viewers to interact in some way with your video:

• Like (the famous line “give us a thumbs up!”);
• Comment;
• Subscribe to the channel;
• Share the video.

All of these factors weigh heavily on YouTube’s rankings, as they indicate whether your video met (or exceeded) users’ expectations.

As for comments, it is worth mentioning: one of the best ways to encourage comments is to answer them! Thus, users feel valued and come back more often to comment.

In addition, it is also important to adopt strategies to keep the user engaged with the video until the end. This is an important factor for Google to assess whether you are offering something that really interests the audience.

Otherwise, the audience would quickly abandon the video, which has a negative impact on the ranking. You can, for example, promise a bonus to anyone who watches the video until the end.

11. Promote the channel and videos

We’ve already given you tips on how to increase audience interaction with your videos. However, to get to that point, you need to bring this audience to your channel first!

By optimizing the title, description and tags of your videos, you will already increase visibility within YouTube itself.

However, you must have several other marketing channels that can be used to promote videos outside of YouTube and increase your views.

Let’s list some tips for doing this:

• embed the videos in your blog posts that have related topics;
• create corporate videos and product demonstrations to post on your website;
• advertise your videos using email marketing and signature;
• distribute the videos on social media;
• respond to messages and comments from users with videos;
• participate in groups, forums, and Q&A sites (like Quora), and respond to users with videos from your channel.

While performing any of these actions, remember an essential word: relevance. Recommend videos only in contexts where they are relevant, that add value to the user.

There’s no point in pushing the bar, okay? This will only result in frustration for the user, who will access your video and then abandon it because it was not what they were looking for.

12. Create custom thumbnails for your videos

Have you ever chosen something to watch on YouTube (or any other streaming video platform) based solely on the appeal of the preview image? 

If so, then you’re already familiar with how important the right thumbnail can be.

Your thumbnail is quite literally the first thing a user sees when they stumble across your video listing, and it can make or break someone’s decision to click on it or not. 

Great thumbnails can drastically increase your traffic and watch times, leading to higher search rankings not only on YouTube but also across search engines.

So choose your thumbnails with care. 

Naturally, you can go with one of the automatic options YouTube selects for you once your video is done uploading. However, these will still only be out-of-context stills from the video itself and likely won’t be very effective at snagging the attention of busy users. 

Plus, everyone does this, so you run the risk of your video getting lost in the shuffle.

It’s much better to create and upload your custom thumbnails, which is an option for you if your account is verified. 

Be creative. Choose something that accurately illustrates the topic of your video and will help it stand out from everything else. You’ll love what it does for your results.

13. Take advantage of end screens and YouTube cards

If you want your audience to do something specific as a result of watching your video, it’s important not to leave anything up to chance. 

Tell them directly via a clear call-to-action (CTA). It not only ensures your viewers will complete the correct action instead of missing the shot, but it also helps ease decision fatigue.

Of course, you can (and should) integrate verbal CTAs into your content, but you should also use the built-in features YouTube includes, like YouTube cards and end screens.

YouTube cards are preformatted visual notifications set up to appear in the upper-right corner of your video. 

The cards are interactive and encourage users to explore other videos, links, playlists, and more. 

You can add up to five of them per video, so take advantage of this to prompt viewers to complete desired CTAs.

Finally, end screens appear once the viewer has completed the video, and they’re best used to let people know what you want them to do next. 

Use end screens to ask users to subscribe to your channel, check out your other videos, visit your website, and so forth.

Using interactive features like these helps boost view times, improve engagement, grow your subscriber list, and raise the search rankings of your videos, so use them wisely.

14. Categorize your video

As with optimizing for Google and other search engines, the more you can tell YouTube about your content, the better it can do at recommending your videos to the right people. That said, using categories properly is a big part of learning how to get more views on YouTube.

YouTube’s categories help organize millions of videos on the site into big, broad groups with common topics—like gaming, music, sports, animals, and so on.

Choosing the right one gives YouTube crucial information as to what your content is actually about, which is great for your YouTube SEO strategy. Don’t choose a less appropriate category simply because it’s more popular. Accuracy is a much better bet in the long run.

15. Create a playlist for related videos

Around 62 percent of regular YouTube users say they go to the site daily. And about 37 percent of millennial adults like to binge-watch videos there. The easier you can make it for them to binge-watch your content, the better it is for your YouTube SEO quotient.

When it makes sense, organize your uploads into themed playlists to take the guesswork out of both finding and watching the great content that a viewer came to your channel to see. Optimize your playlists with strategic keyword use in the titles, descriptions, and throughout your videos.

Take care not to make your playlist themes too broad. For example, avoid catch-all “how-to” playlists that may include videos that have little to do with one another—for example, workout tutorials plus cooking and fashion tutorials. A good playlist features only videos with a cohesive common theme.

16. Collaborate with influencers

Influencer marketing can be a really powerful approach when it comes to figuring out how to rank higher on YouTube. And with billions of users to its credit, YouTube is filled with talented, popular social media influencers who could potentially be a perfect fit for your brand.

Influencers bring loyal, highly engaged audiences to the table—audiences who implicitly trust any recommendations they receive from personalities they trust. These viewers could easily become your loyal fans as well. Plus, partnering with the right influencers and collaborators lends your brand valuable credibility.

First, understand that you don’t have to be capable of incentivizing a Kardashian to partner with your brand to benefit from influencer marketing. Nano and micro-influencers can be just as beneficial. Smaller influencers are also more likely to have room for a new sponsor on their roster, and it’s more affordable to compensate them.

Second, choose your future influencers with care. For the best results, ensure that there’s a good amount of overlap between your audience and theirs. The idea is to reach new people who are already interested in products like yours.

And look into the influencer’s reputation as well. Keep in mind that this is someone who will be speaking for and representing your brand, so their choices could reflect on you. Controversy isn’t always a bad thing when it comes to digital marketing, but it’s always something to be approached with care.

17. Optimize channel art and logo

Like thumbnails and title cards, a great logo and channel visuals may not directly affect YouTube SEO, but they’re incredibly helpful all the same. A strong brand identity can be just as beneficial on YouTube as it can anywhere else online, and powerful visuals are a big part of that.

Awesome channel artwork or an interesting logo can mean the difference between piquing someone’s interest and getting lost in a massive sea of content that grows larger every day. Distinctive visuals also help people recognize you again on future visits and become more familiar with your brand each time you cross paths.

In fact, brand assets like logos and custom graphics can tell people a lot about your brand at a glance. Choose colors, compositions, and designs that fit your brand identity and support the impression that you want to make on your audience. They should be consistent with other brand assets you use elsewhere online.

Make your YouTube channel unique and appealing by customizing as many of the visual elements as you can. Include a custom cover image, avatar, and in-content elements like end cards and chapter markers.

Also, quality matters. So, while it’s fine to design your own visual assets, only do so if you have the technical skill and know-how. Otherwise, you’re better off outsourcing the job to a freelance designer with the skill and experience needed to capture the desired vibe.

18. Host live Q&A sessions

Today’s consumers want and expect to connect with brands on a personal, intimate level, and live Q&A sessions are a great way to do that. Among other benefits, live Q&As:

• Produce high engagement rates
• Boost overall watch times
• Drive likes, subscribes, and other interactions
• Help audiences feel valued and heard

Q&As also strike a terrific balance between intimate, personalized brand-to-customer interaction and group experiences that allow users to interact with a larger community. In late 2022, YouTube introduced its own Live Q&A feature to the mix, making it easier than ever to host productive, organized live streams.

Use this feature during your own live streams to ensure the best possible experience for everyone. It allows you to start a session by pinning a prompt to the top of the live chat to help viewers submit their questions efficiently.

You can then sequentially pin individual questions to let your audience know which question you’re responding to at any given moment. This not only streamlines the experience for people who stay for the whole chat but also makes it easy for newcomers to jump in and immediately get the gist of what’s going on.

19. Aim to create high-retention videos

As any experienced marketer will tell you, dwell time is incredibly important for SEO. 

The longer a person spends on a particular page or website, the more valuable it will look to algorithms and the higher it will ultimately rank. 

A version of this rule applies on YouTube, as well.

Audience retention is a metric that refers to how much of your video a viewer actually watches before moving on to something else, and it’s a huge deal when it comes to YouTube SEO. 

That’s not just a theory, either. YouTube has explicitly said that it’s a significant ranking factor, so you’ll naturally want to keep your retention rates as close to 100 percent as you can.

Thankfully, you don’t need an expensive camera or flawless production skills to create good high-retention videos. 

Instead, just focus on making great videos that are concise, engaging, and deliver plenty of value. 

Split your videos into bite-sized chapters that make it easier for viewers to digest your content.

 Keep introductions brief and dive right into the meat of your topic to snag viewer attention right away.

20. Raise your production value as much as possible

Whether you’re talking about YouTube SEO or not, good optimization is largely about quality, so anything you can do to raise the production value of your content will give you a considerable boost. 

Naturally, snazzy production value won’t ever trump good content, but it’s still worth noting that YouTube users do respond to sleek, well-made videos.

And no, you don’t need an expensive video set-up to succeed here—just a smartphone or other device capable of recording video, which you likely already have. 

Then add a few inexpensive upgrades, like a tripod and an affordable standalone microphone. Those two things alone will go a long way toward helping your videos look and sound professional.

You’ll also want to pay close attention to your background. Choose or create one that won’t distract the user from the video itself. 

Pay close attention to lighting, as well. Again, you don’t need to be able to afford fancy, top-of-the-line studio lighting. A few nice, bright lights you can train on the subject of the video are enough.

Experiment with a few different production options until you settle on a method that works well for you. Pay attention to any feedback you get on your videos, and use it as a guide for future improvements.

21. Keep an eye on your analytics

The only real way to gauge the success of a YouTube SEO strategy is to monitor your analytics closely. 

It’s the best way to figure out what’s working for your videos and where you could stand to improve.

Thankfully, YouTube comes complete with an excellent built-in analytics function. Here are some essential metrics to know.

Watch Time

The total overall number of minutes users spend with your content.

Impressions CTR

The rate at which people decide to check out your video after first seeing it on their homepage.

Card CTR

Similar to the above, but for YouTube cards included in your content.

Traffic Sources

How and from where users found their way to your content.

Unique Viewers

The estimated number of users who view your content over a specified period.

Subscriber Growth

How your subscriber count has changed as related to location, individual videos, time periods, and so forth.

Collectively, keeping a close watch on metrics like these will give you an excellent idea of what’s resonating with your audience. 

If a specific video does markedly better or worse than average, consider what makes it different and finetune your strategy accordingly.

Great YouTube SEO Tools to Try

Whether you’re looking for a great push in the right direction for your YouTube SEO efforts or just want a way to streamline an existing strategy, the right tools can really help. 

Here are a few to check out.

#1: Canva

If you’re a marketer or a content creator, you may already have heard some buzz about Canva, and with good reason. 

Canva is a fantastic user-friendly design tool that simplifies the process of creating logos, cards, social media graphics, and more.

It also just so happens to have a template, especially for creating YouTube thumbnails. 

Remember, your thumbnail choice is a crucial part of getting those clicks, and Canva makes customizing the perfect one a snap.

#2: VidIQ Vision

There’s nothing like a good Chrome browser extension to make analyzing stats easy. 

VidIQ is one every YouTube content creator and marketer should look into. 

You can use it to analyze any high-performing YouTube video and get to the bottom of why it’s doing so well.

Use VidIQ to check out the tags a video has been optimized for, how quickly it’s gaining traction, its average view time, and more. Then use what you learn to improve your own content with success in mind.

#3: TubeBuddy

How would you like a platform that makes nearly everything about running a YouTube channel easier? 

TubeBuddy is a comprehensive option that does that and then some. 

Think of valuable features like automatic language translators, rank trackers, keyword explorers, and more.

TubeBuddy also helps streamline the process of producing your videos and promoting them once they’re done.

#4: Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

If you’re into great SEO tools, then you may have already added Ahrefs Keyword Explorer to your ongoing strategy.

It’s a fantastic tool that lets you monitor rankings, research keywords, and estimate potential traffic changes for any website.

You can also filter your results for any top search engine, YouTube included. So if you’re not already using Keyword Explorer to boost your YouTube SEO efforts, it’s time to start. 

You’ll be able to discover monthly search volumes attached to specific keywords, clicks received by videos optimized for each keyword, and so much more.

#5: Cyfe

If you’re in the market for a large-scale SEO tool that can help you with lots of things, including your YouTube SEO strategy, then you should definitely give Cyfe a try. 

It’s a complete software suite that lets you track the performance of any platform where you post content, including YouTube.

You can use Cyfe to see at a glance which keywords you’re ranking well for, as well as identify additional keywords to consider. 

You can also use it to analyze your traffic, assess where it’s coming from, and more. 

Put Cyfe to work to improve your YouTube results, and then apply it to other aspects of your content production routine for even better overall results.

Wrap-Up

Now that you’ve read the entire article, let’s remember something we talked about at the beginning: the user experience.

Remember that this is the focus of YouTube and Google, and should be yours too.

Therefore, all the tips we gave in this article have a greater purpose: to improve the experience of internet users. For example, thinking of creative titles and using subtitles aim to make people’s lives easier and add value to the act of watching a video on the web.

Make sure that when you aim for user experience, the algorithm knows how to recognize your optimization efforts.

It’s essential to understand how to implement SEO across different platforms and effectively optimize the content you share.

WriterAccess can help you with that. Take your user experience to new heights by incorporating the power of SEO-driven content creation with WriterAccess.

Begin your journey towards improved search engine rankings and enhanced user experiences by signing up for WriterAccess today. It’s free for 14 days!