- If you're posting on YouTube,
the goal is to get views, and lots of 'em.
But it could be hard to stand out amongst the other
3.7 million videos that were uploaded today.
As content floods YouTube, optimizing yours
for new customer discoverability is crucial.
So in this video, I'm gonna reveal
proven YouTube SEO strategies
that propelled our channel to success.
What's up?
It's Jamal from HubSpot.
So how can you rank on YouTube?
It's important to understand two things:
keyword research and optimizing your video
for the platform using these target keywords.
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.
That's why doing your research ahead of time
and identifying which keywords to use is so important,
as YouTube has a separate set of best practices
that video creators need to learn, adopt,
and implement to determine how it will recommend your videos
and where they'll rank in the search results.
I would dare say that YouTube keyword research
is so important that it's absolutely the cornerstone
of your success when creating a great YouTube channel.
So let's dive in.
The first step in finding the right keywords
for your video content is to find
a YouTube optimization tool that can help you generate
keyword ideas to get your videos ranked and viewed.
If you're new to YouTube
or not familiar with SEO tools,
YouTube's auto complete feature can be the best free
keyword research tool for YouTube
and is a great place to start.
Autocomplete is a quick and easy way
to get ideas around what people are searching for
and how it relates to your topic.
Not only will these suggestions provide
some insight around popular search queries,
but they'll also give you a quick overview
of what your competitors are doing,
which of these videos have a large amount of traffic,
and which keywords they're using.
Add an asterisk in front of your keyword,
and it will show different variations
of searches that contain those keywords.
Take note of the ones that make the most sense
for your content and target audience.
And speaking of competitors,
video marketing is a competitive game.
To win it, you need to know what you're up against.
That's where competitive analysis comes into play.
So let's move on to Google Trends.
Using Google Trends for YouTube
shows you how popular a topic is
relative to other topics on the web,
and trend data is typically available within hours
and sometimes even minutes.
To use Google Trends, click on the Explore tab,
then switch from the default
web search category to YouTube search.
Scroll down to related topics and queries
to find out what channels are currently popular
and what people are searching for.
You can also set the category to match
your channel theme in the category tab.
For this search, we'll choose Beauty & Fitness.
Start by looking at the overall trend of your keywords.
It looks like interest in working out routines
is holding steady, with seasonal spikes
around the start of the summer and the new year.
This data is particularly helpful
if you work in an industry where seasonality is a factor.
For example, the New Year's approaching.
You wanna know which of your products
or services to prioritize promoting online.
By using the comparison feature in Google Trends,
you can compare search interests for your topics
to learn about which query is more popular with users.
To do so, after you've added one topic,
simply click +Compare and type in your second topic.
By comparing keywords for products or services you offer,
you can get a quick and helpful picture
of which offerings are in greater demand
and likely to have an effect
on your sales volume in the short term.
This would be a good time
to search the related topics and queries on YouTube
to brainstorm ideas for your videos
and do additional research to see what kinds of videos
these popular channels end up posting.
Just remember, similar to YouTube's auto complete feature,
Google Trends measures keyword popularity
rather than keyword search volume.
Therefore, it's best to validate trend data
With keyword research tools,
like Google Keyword Planner.
All you need is a Google Ads account to use it.
This free tool can help you discover relevant keywords
that people are searching for on Google
and get ideas for the keywords that you should target
in your video optimization efforts.
It provides data in the monthly search volume
of specific keywords which can help you prioritize
the most popular and relevant keywords to target.
It also allows you to filter your keyword results
by geographic location, language, and other parameters,
so you can further hone in on your audience.
Go to ads.google.com, click Start Now,
and sign in with your Google account.
Next, click the Switch to Expert Mode link down here.
Now, create an account without a campaign
and confirm your info.
To open Google Keyword Planner,
click Tools & Settings in the top right corner,
and then from the dropdown menu,
select Keyword Planner listed under Planning.
There are two ways to create your keyword plan.
If you wanna see search volumes
and metrics for an existing list of keywords,
click Get Search Volume and Forecast.
Otherwise, click Discover New Keywords
to find new keyword ideas.
Enter up to 10 words or phrases related
to your products or services, or start with a website.
Click Get Results.
You'll see a list of keywords related to what you enter.
You can now edit your list with filters and categories
to help you find those that make the most sense
for your SEO strategy.
Now, Google Keyword Planner is a helpful tool
for SEO research, but no single option
is gonna be the be-all, end-all of content planning.
You want to supplement your efforts
with other research tools that capture additional data
to get a well-rounded view
of the keywords you should target for your videos.
Luckily, there are some good ones out there.
TubeBuddy and VidIQ are popular SEO tools
that give YouTube video creators access
to a number of capabilities, including keyword research.
They provide far greater insight into the YouTube algorithm
than the basic YouTube Studio program.
Both TubeBuddy and VidIQ provide a multitude of features
that assist with keyword research and tag management,
including recommending and ranking tags for you to use
when you upload a video.
Identifying the tags used on public videos,
so you can see which tags work
for other successful creators,
showing you where a video ranks for all its tags,
tracking for all your videos and your competitors,
and their ranking across both YouTube and Google searches.
Here's how they work, starting with TubeBuddy.
TubeBuddy helps you easily optimize your YouTube videos
by providing key analytics on tags and titles,
so you can improve the searchability of your content.
After you've installed their Chrome extension,
click on the TB menu icon, then Keyword Explorer.
Next, search for seed keywords.
These are words or phrases that your customers
might use to search what you have to offer.
Your overall score here is split up into unweighted,
the overall score for every single YouTube channel,
and weighted, specific to your channel.
Let's stick with weighted.
As the closer your weighted score is to the green,
the greater the chance you have
of ranking high for that keyword and getting views.
Here, under the Score Analysis section
you'll find a breakdown of your search volume, competition,
and optimization strength for your keyword search.
Search volume shows you if your keyword
has way too much competition and if you shouldn't target it,
or if you've got a good chance of competing
against other videos currently ranked in search,
and if you can get your video ranked high
in search for that keyword.
The competition metric lets you know
if there's already a lot of content out there
that your video is competing against
and how high your chances are of competing
against that content.
And optimization strength tells you
if all other videos currently ranked in search
are well-optimized for your keywords.
If the videos are not well-optimized for search,
here's the opportunity you have
to break in and rank for keyword
by properly optimizing your videos.
This is done by having a searchable and compelling title
and having relevant keywords in your title,
description and tags, but more on that in just a bit.
You can also click on the Video Topics tab
to come up with additional keyword ideas.
VidIQ has a similar set of features that assist
with creating SEO friendly titles, descriptions, and tags.
Log into your VidIQ account,
then click on Keywords in the menu.
Like before, you'll type in a seed keyword
and run the search.
Here, you'll see their automated analysis
of scoring metrics, including search volume estimations,
related terms, your VidIQ keyword scores,
related YouTube videos, and general interest over time,
which should be really useful for identifying
whether a keyword or keyword phrase is still trending.
This trending videos feature is a small
but significant difference between TubeBuddy and VidIQ,
specifically for YouTube channels.
What this allows you to do
is see any competing channels top videos
by view velocity or average views per hour.
This information is valuable,
because newly published videos tend to get
the most of their traction in the first 48 hours,
which is when YouTube promotes the video to subscribers.
All in all, most of the functionality between VidIQ
and TubeBuddy is still somewhere
that it mostly comes down to personal preference,
but they cost money if you wanna get
the full use of their features.
Another widely used tool worth mentioning here
is Ahrefs Keyword Explorer.
Ahrefs has the same features
for keywords and tags as other tools we've covered,
but is considered to have the strongest data mining
out of all of them.
It's not a free service, but comes with a robust set
of features to analyze competitor's websites,
on and optimize your own website,
and jump on marketing trends.
If your goal is only YouTube SEO,
the other tools may be better valued.
If the full suite of Ahrefs is useful for your brand,
it's the premier program for SEO.
Now that you've got the relevant terms
and phrases needed to rank your videos on YouTube,
you'll also want to consider your channel's analytics.
Through YouTube's Channel Analytics page,
you can identify top performing videos,
understand audience demographics, analyze traffic sources,
and the keywords people are searching for
to find your content, and monitor engagement metrics
like audience retention and watch time.
Log into your YouTube account
and click on your profile icon in the top right corner.
Select YouTube Studio,
then click on the Analytics icon on the menu.
You could access an overview of your analytics here
or dive into areas like content, audience, and research.
Select Advanced Mode in the upper right corner
if you'd like to see a detailed breakdown
of your channel metrics,
metrics for individual videos, and other analytics.
Whew, okay, so heavy lifting is behind you,
but there's still another crucial step
before checking this off your to-do list,
optimizing your video.
This means including your keywords
in your file name, title, description, and tag.
This title needs to be concise, descriptive,
and attention grabbing, like a headline.
For example, make sure your file name
and video title are the same.
Include keywords from your title
in the first two lines of your description,
and add these keywords in your tags.
YouTube will have a much better understanding of your topic
and will be better able to serve your video
in its search results if you follow these steps.
In addition to keyword research and video optimization,
there are some general best practices you should follow
to improve your chances of ranking highly on YouTube.
These include creating a strong thumbnail,
using contrasting colors and high quality images
that accurately represents your video, title and brand,
and helps with high click-through rates.
According to YouTube, 90% of the best performing videos
have custom thumbnails, like this.
Extending viewer watch time is also an important factor
in YouTube's ranking algorithm.
This boils down to the quality of your content.
Is it engaging enough to capture the viewer's attention
and keep them watching through to the end?
Take a look into your audience retention analytics
in YouTube Studio to see where viewers are dropping off.
Cross-promoting your videos on other social media platforms
to increase your reach and attract more views,
and adding CTAs to encourage viewers
to like, comment, and subscribe to your channel.
On that note, you made it this far into the video.
Might as well hit that Like button
and subscribe to the channel and drop a comment,
letting us know what other topics you want us to cover.
And while you're down there, check out our free download
to discover customizable templates
to create your own YouTube channel art,
like thumbnails and banner images.
We've also included SEO necessities
and a YouTube channel growth strategy
to help you gain more subscribers.
Basically, the better you can target
and tailor your videos for your intended audience,
the more likely your videos will show up
in their YouTube searches,
so you'd better start training your SEO muscle
if you wanna get your share of views and engagement.
Now, if you'll excuse me,
these muscles aren't gonna build themselves.
You know what I'm saying?
Got some heavy lifting in my own too.
Until then, I'll see you next time.
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