YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, after Google, which is also its parent company. Eight out of every ten video search results are YouTube videos, and the platform is always growing. Every minute, more than 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. How can you make sure you don’t get lost in the sea of videos? Your best bet is to use best practices for video SEO to optimize great videos for search. You can make a good YouTube SEO agency SEO plan with these tips.
1. Add a transcript to your video description
The best way to show your transcript on YouTube is in the video description. The description field can hold up to 5,000 characters, which is usually enough for a transcript of a 10-minute video with a lot of dialogue. If your transcript is too long or you want to include other important information in the description, like a call to action, you can add a shortened version with a link to the full version on a separate web page.
Even though Backlink’s research didn’t find a link between descriptions optimized for a certain keyword and rankings for that keyword, Backlink still recommends using keyword-rich descriptions because they can help your video rank for related terms and show up as a “suggested video.” Transcripts can also make people more interested by making content easy to read quickly.
Use video transcripts as a quick way to market your content.
Video is a great way for brands to reach out, but marketers often don’t realize that transcripts can do so much more. Through video transcripts and other content, videos can be used as a starting point for making new content and doing targeted inbound marketing.
Consider using a video transcript to improve SEO by making content that is useful and worth sharing. Some uses for video transcripts include:
1. Blogs
2. Info graphics
3. Whitepapers
4. Lists of facts
5. Web site text
2. Provide subtitles in more than one language
Just like English captions let more people watch your videos, translations let you reach even more people and improve your YouTube SEO. YouTube has a huge global reach. Only 16.4% of YouTube’s traffic comes from the U.S., and more than 2 billion logged-in users watch YouTube every month all over the world.
Foreign language subtitles let people who don’t speak English as their first language watch your videos. Search engines will also index your translated caption files and include your video in search results for those languages. This can be very important for your YouTube SEO strategy, since there is less competition for keywords that aren’t English.
Make sure to always check that your translations are correct, and if you want to be sure that your subtitles are of high quality, you might want to use a vendor.
3. Write a title, description, and tags that use keywords.
Once you have a good keyword, you need to make sure that all of the text that goes with your video is optimized for that keyword.
For example, if you make videos about how to put on makeup, make sure “makeup tutorial” is in the title, description, and tags.
Keep in mind that search engines have gotten smarter about keyword-stuffing, which is the practise of using too many keywords and different versions of keywords to try to trick the system. Don’t worry about that. Write for people, not robots, or you might get in trouble.
Once you’ve done keyword research and chosen your keywords, put them in the following places in a natural way:
1. Fits 100 characters but cuts off at 70, so your most important information and keyword should be near the beginning. Use words like “how-to,” “advice,” “tips,” and “numbered lists” to get people to click. “7 Tips to Raise Video Subscription Rates,” for example.
2. Fits 5,000 characters, but depending on your device, it cuts off at around 120 characters. More than half of customers are swayed by product videos, so it’s important for e-commerce sites to have a link to the product. Don’t forget the http://, or the link won’t work.
3. Tags: About 500 characters are allowed, but don’t go overboard. Use double quotes (“) around phrases so that your video is an exact match for a long-tail keyword phrase. For example, instead of putting “makeup” and “tutorial” in the tags for your video, put “makeup tutorial” in the tags. Think like a user and add tags in the order of how important they are.
The YouTube Creator Academy has a list of tips for writing descriptions that people can find:
1. Don’t just list keywords; use natural language to describe what your video is about.
2. Start your description with the keywords that are most important.
3. Find the one or two words that best describe your video and put them in the title and description.
4. Use Google Ads Keyword Planner and Google Trends to find popular keywords and words that are similar to them. By using these terms, you can get more traffic from search engines.
5. Avoid using words that have nothing to do with your video in the description. This can make it hard to understand and may be against YouTube’s rules.
6. If you want to put your video on sites other than YouTube, make sure to change the keyword phrases a little bit. You don’t want to compete against yourself across different sites.YouTube SEO
7. Lastly, use terms that are honest and relevant. Trying to ride trending topics that have nothing to do with your video will only hurt your score in the long run.
