It seems a bit weird to think of YouTube as a search engine, but it is exactly what it is. It is a search engine for videos. The entire website is driven by a search bar. It is similar to Google’s video search results. YouTube has its own SEO best practices as it is its own search engine. In this article, we present how to hack YouTube SEO by explaining top tactics for gaining top results.
Find video keywords
YouTube keywords are different from the ones that appear on search engines like Google or Bing. For instance, there are so many videos on YouTube that start with “how to.” It is recommended that you use Google to look for different keywords in your niche. After that, see if any keywords bring up video results. For instance, if you search for “how to bake a cake,” you will see a ton of video results, and so many will be from YouTube.
Optimize your video title
Like you always optimize your headlines for written content, similarly, you have to do for your YouTube videos as well. Include your focus keyword in your video title, and also it should be able to solve a problem. The user should immediately know what benefits they will get. The titles should be absolutely clear.
Optimize your tags
YouTube provides an amazing feature of tagging. It helps you in entering relevant keywords and that allows your videos to get more number of views. Use tags that are super relevant to your topic. It gives you the best opportunity for using keywords that are related to your main keyword. Using ten to twelve keywords is enough. Don’t overdo them.
Tell people to comment
Getting more and more comments on your videos tells YouTube that your videos are popular. Like Google, YouTube also gives priority to the content that is popular. Comments are one of the parameters that are used by YouTube to decide what people like the most. To get a discussion started, it’s good to end your video with a question.
Encourage people to subscribe
Subscribing is very important on YouTube. It is one of the factors that YouTube algorithms use for ranking videos. Liking and commenting on a video is a one-time action. On the other hand, subscribing means that subscribers will see your content regularly. For YouTube, this is a crucial factor that shows the amount of value you create. Almost all YouTubers asl audience to like, comment, and subscribe all at once. However, if you want to focus on one of these metrics, then prioritise encouraging subscriptions.
Step up the production value
Like in any SEO method, there is a huge quality component to YouTube SEO as well. SEO is essentially user optimization. Therefore, you should know how to increase the quality of your videos that in turn will boost search performance. It’s true that not everyone can afford a pro-level studio setup, but that doesn’t mean that you have to compromise on video quality. We all have smartphones now that are capable of recording videos that are quite good to begin with. Your iPhone and Android devices are pretty much all you require. There are small changes and investments that you can make in order to increase the video quality.
First, get a tripod for your phone. It will add stability to your videos. Second, add a backdrop. Draping your bedsheet on a bookshelf is a good idea. Third, throw some light on it. A few lamps or lights trained directly on the subject of the video are enough.