Top 13 Ways To Generate More Search Traffic With YouTube SEO

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.

Simple YouTube SEO tips to rank higher in search

You can combine your SEO and video strategy to help supercharge your marketing in a pretty straightforward and simple way.

Doing this will not only improve your video watch time, but also get your customers’ attention, and help you further down the line with things like YouTube remarketing. Here are the top steps to improve your YouTube SEO to drive more traffic and video views.

1. Pick your keywords wisely

SERPs are getting more competitive every month. New competitors, new products, new services—everyone is fighting for the top spots. So, finding ways to diversify yourself and your offering is crucial.

Do your keyword research, and unless you can compete with really competitive terms, pick keywords that can get you volume, but are less competitive.

You can use the same keyword research tools you’d use for PPC or SEO, like

WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool
Google Keyword Planner.
Moz or Semrush.
Google search—search suggest, people also ask, related searches, and more!

2. Use keywords in your video title

Understanding the search intent of your audience is the first step. We know that the most common types of search intent include informational, commercial, navigational, and transactional.

So, matching what your video is about with the intent of your customer is going to be really important for getting your video visible in search results.

Secondly, make sure, you understand WHY you want to create a YouTube video and who the primary audience is. For instance, if you are looking to showcase a product review, then use the product name in the video title and description.

It sounds really simple, but there are so many YouTube channels that miss this step and their videos show up low on Google and YouTube search results.

3. Include the keyword in your video file

Super simple, but YouTube may use this as one of the ranking factors when it comes to showing your video in search results.

If the file name you are uploading has the target keyword in it, your video will have a much better chance of being ranked—and a much better chance of gaining more search volume.

When uploading a new video, you can see the filename. YouTube uses this to make sure the video is relevant, so ensure your file name is updated before you upload it!

4. Optimize your YouTube video description

One of the most important ranking factors for YouTube SEO is making sure you have a solid, optimized video description.

Whenever you change or update any YouTube video element—which includes video descriptions, subtitles and closed captions, and video thumbnails—YouTube will reevaluate the video. This can be good or bad… so it’s important you get it right the first time!

YouTube recommends that you put your most important keywords in the first couple of sentences of your description – and that your description should be no longer than 200 words. Broadly speaking—make your description useful. If it doesn’t help a user—delete it.

This is YouTube’s way of telling me the videos are relevant from the video descriptions.

YouTube has some great resources on the YouTube Creator Studio which is a resource that is always updated with current information. It has a handy list that guides you through the steps to a successful video description:

Include an overview of your video using natural language—not just a stream of keywords.
Insert the most important keywords at the beginning of your description.
Pick 1–2 main words that describe your video and feature them prominently in both your description and title.
Use keyword tools such as Google Trends and the Google Ads Keyword Planner to identify popular keywords and their synonyms. Including these terms can help you to maximize traffic from search.
Omit irrelevant words in your description because it creates a poor viewing experience and may violate Google’s policies.

5. Use video hashtags to drive YouTube search results

Across social media, Youhashtags (#) are now used to help users find content that answers their questions across a range of platforms. You can add hashtags to your YouTube video descriptions and titles to help viewers find your video when they search for a specific hashtag.

Tags specifically help drive search as they make key trends more visible. Once you add a hashtag to the video description, it will be shown above the title of the video and then become hyperlinked.

It’s also important to remember where you include video hashtags here. If you add in a hashtag in the video title, hashtags from descriptions won’t get displayed about the video title.

6. Select a video category

If users are searching for a particular video with advanced options, they can select the search to show videos from selected categories. When uploading your video, it’s important you contextualize your video with categories so you will have a better chance of getting found by a user.

YouTube has a variety of category options to pick from, so you should be able to find a category that suits your YouTube videos. You can select the category options when uploading your video.

7. Customize your thumbnail image

Thumbnails can help or hinder your YouTube videos. They are the first thing that grabs people’s attention when they look at YouTube search results. A strong thumbnail can lead to a higher watch time, which can have a big influence on YouTube ranking.

Create something that grabs people’s attention and stands out from the crowd so that your video gets noticed. For example, these thumbnails are just taken from the video itself and are probably not the most relevant for grabbing the user’s attention.

Creating a custom thumbnail is the best way to see results—showing people what your video is about and how it will benefit them is the real key to success.

8. Add subtitles and closed captions

Using subtitles and closed captions is the final tip for success on YouTube search.

While video subtitles are designed to communicate video dialogue for viewers who can’t understand the video language, closed captions are for viewers who can’t hear the audio.

Both subtitles and closed-caption files contain the text of what is said in the video, like a transcript. The file will also contain time codes for when each bit of text should be displayed through the video, so it can match up with speech or another visual element.

The other benefit of having a transcript for your video is that it can be picked up by broad search engines, just as a blog would.

On the video upload screen, you can select your file and video language. There are a lot of really good guides out there for how to create an SRT file for your 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.

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.

11. 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.

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.

12. 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 along away 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.

13. Keep a close 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 about 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.