What is the importance of SEO in YouTube?
If you're a YouTuber, it's important to understand the basics of SEO. What is YouTube SEO, what is the importance of SEO or search engine optimization on YouTube, how to SEO YouTube videos, and how it can help your channel? YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, so ranking your videos high in Google can result in a lot of views.
SEO is important for any website, but it is especially important for YouTube videos. YouTube SEO is one of the most important aspects of a successful channel. If you don't rank your videos on Google, you won't get as many views as you could be getting. And if you don't optimize your videos for search, you won't earn money from them.
In this episode, we will discuss some of the basics of YouTube SEO and how you can start ranking your videos higher.
Listen to the Episode
Atiba de Souza: You know, YouTube channels really don't need to be concerned about SEO if these three things don't matter to you. One, you don't want more people to watch your videos. Two, you don't want to rank your videos in Google. And three, you don't want to earn money from your videos. If you're not interested in any of those things, go ahead and just stop watching this right now because YouTube SEO is not for you. But if those three things do matter to you, stick around because that's our topic today here on Traffic Keys.
Hey, everybody! Welcome. I am your host, Atiba. Welcome to Traffic Keys. And if you're a business owner trying to drive more traffic to your website or your digital properties, and you've started to consider video as an option, then you've probably heard of video SEO by now. And today, specifically, we're going to dive into YouTube SEO. Okay. What it is, how you can master it and stick around for the very, very end, because I've got a tool for you that will make your life so much easier. Fantastic tool. But before we get there, don't forget— do me a favor, hit that like and subscribe button and hit the bell so that you can get notified the next time I do one of these videos to teach you about driving traffic to your digital properties. Okay. So, let's dive right in.
So you want more people to watch your YouTube videos, right? Yep, you probably do. Hey, you probably want your videos to rank in Google, because guess what? YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.
And Google is the first, and Google owns both of them. So, mastering SEO for your YouTube videos also helps you with your Google SEO. It's a double banger, guys. It's a double win. Isn't that awesome? And then, the third thing, you probably want to earn some money, right? So you don't just want people watching it, but you want to earn some money, whether that'd be money from YouTube themselves or by driving traffic to your website and turning those views into actual customers. But now, a lot of times people say, "Okay, I hear that, but w where do I rank? How does this all work? Well, where do I rank?" And there are really three areas, guys. The three areas that you have to be concerned about in terms of where you want to rank your videos.
Okay. Three areas. The first one is YouTube searched. It kind of makes sense. People go to YouTube, and they search for a topic. They put in keywords. They ask questions of YouTube. YouTube, as I said, is the second largest search engine in the world. So you want to make sure that you're optimizing so that you can show up near the top in YouTube for whatever search terms you want your videos to rank for.
That's number one. Number two, in the suggested videos. And this one is the one that gets overlooked a ton. However, this is the one where you can make real hay. Is it because, number one was YouTube search. There's tons of competition inside of YouTube search, right? For whatever your keywords are. There's tons of competition and it's not that easy.
Just, fair warning. It's not that easy. It's not that hard, but it's not that easy either. Right? It takes planning. It takes lots of thought. However, suggested search— now, what is suggested search? Suggested search is when someone does a search and they go watch a video on YouTube. YouTube then suggests what video they should watch next.
So, why is suggested search so powerful? Because number one, you're getting people who you know actually care about your content and actually watch another video about whatever topic you're talking about before they watched your video. So, their intent, their reason for watching the video is that much greater. Their need for whatever it is that you provide is that much greater.
So you're getting higher quality people. Okay. That's number one. The number two, it is a ton easier. It's a ton easier to rank in suggested search than it is in the overall YouTube search. Okay. And there are specific techniques of how you rank in suggested search for your terms. And then, the third area where you want to rank is Google search.
Now, the key here is if you did the first, if you focused on the first two, really really well, then the Google search kind of comes along in the end. It kind of comes along in the end as well. Okay. So, my friends, it's all about the keywords. It is all about the keywords and understanding what are the keywords and the key terms that your video is all about.
Okay. And the way you do that, is one, in the title of your video. The title of your video must be optimized well, in other words, there must be a main keyword that you are targeting and it needs to be in the title of your video. It has to be in the title of your video. Okay. And then number two is the description of your video.
So many of us overlook the description. And here's the truth, the YouTube algorithm reads the first sentence, to two sentences of your YouTube description to figure out what your video is all about. So, if you start your YouTube description with, "Hey guys, how's everybody doing today? I created this brand new video!"
Guess what? You just wasted a ton of really valuable real estate. You need to come in and hit it hard with your keyword and your sub keyword, maybe one or two, in your first sentence or two. Okay. In your first sentence or two, "Want to learn about YouTube SEO?" That's a great first line for this video.
Great first line for this video, because I'm hitting my keyword right off. And so that's what YouTube is looking for so don't waste that real estate. Now, you can put more keywords and you can put more content in the rest of your description, but it carries a lot less weight than what's in the first sentence or two of your description on YouTube.
Okay. On YouTube. Now, the next one is tags, and the jury's kind of out on tags. Some people say tags are really important, some people say tags really suck and they don't help you at all. It goes both ways. And so, because the jury's kind of out, I'm going to tell you to use them. Now, here's the common mistake though that people use when they're tagging their video, they put the tags in the description and they put the tags first.
No, no, no, don't put your tags first. Put your tags down at the bottom. Okay. Put your tags down at the bottom, because again, YouTube is reading that first sentence or two. You want that first sentence or two to be your power statements. So you want to put your tags in your video, but put them at the bottom and use three or four, five max tags.
Okay. Three is probably the right place to be. Now, the next thing that really affects your SEO is you must get your video transcribed— professionally transcribed. Yes, I know that if you upload your video to YouTube, YouTube can transcribe it for you and they'll put the captions on it for you, but let's be honest.
Have you ever looked at those and realized, they don't know know that— those captions don't know what the person is saying. Yeah, it's a machine doing it and the machine may be 70% correct. You see, when you get it professionally done, number one, YouTube says, okay, this is somebody who cares about their video. They didn't just create a video and stick it up there, that's number one.
And then number two, when you get it professionally done and you upload— what's called the SRT file, when you upload that file with your video, YouTube actually reads the file. And they read, and listen to what your video is all about. Again, another opportunity for you to build in your keywords and use your keywords, like YouTube SEO, because it is hearing you talk about it.
And it's hearing you talk about all the sub points of YouTube SEO. And therefore, it realizes this is what your video is about. So your title, your first two sentences, your SRT, they all match. And it's saying, "This must be a really great video about YouTube SEO!" And then they want to rank you for that or whatever your topic is.
Okay. So it's super important that you get that professionally done. Remember I told you stick to the end, I've got some tools for you. We're going to talk about a tool in the end that will help you, as well. Alright. And then the last thing, and this one doesn't directly affect your rankings, but it does affect your SEO in a very interesting way,
and that's the thumbnail of your video. You see, your thumbnail along with the title of your video, are your attention grabbers. Right. Think about it. How many videos have you watched? Just because the thumbnail grabbed your attention? I know there've been a few that I've been tempted to watch because the thumbnail grabbed my attention.
It's a no, no, no, no. Don't— okay. Depending on what it was, you know what I'm saying? Right. So if you create great thumbnails, people are going to want to click on your video. And when people click on your video, YouTube is also tracking that and they're saying, Hey, lots of people are clicking on this video.
So it must be important. It must be important. So, that can also help your rankings. And then the last thing that I'll leave you with that can help your rankings is that first minute or so of your video. You've got to come out of the gate swinging. You've got to come out of the gate swinging, grab people's attention because YouTube cares about how long someone watches your video as compared to how long the overall video is.
So if you do a 10 minute video and people only watch 10 seconds of it, then YouTube is going to say, that's not quality content. That's not quality content. And so you've got to come out of the gate swinging to grab people's attention to make them want to watch the entire video, and then do things like what I did to you.
Hey, stick around 'til the end, because I'm going to tell you about some tools that will help you make your life easier. I'm giving you incentive to want to watch more of the video. Okay. So those are the different ways that you can optimize. Right. Those are the different ways that you can optimize your video: the title, the description, the tags, the thumbnail, we talked about the captures, the SRT file, and then that first minute or so of your video, got to grab people's attention. And so now, how in the world do I do all of this? How in the world do I know which keywords to use? How in the world do I know what to write in my description? How do I know which tags to use?
Well, we've got some tools that can help you. And I've got those tools linked down below. The first tool I want to tell you about is Tube Buddy, and it is exactly what the name says. It is your YouTube buddy, because what Tube Buddy does is it analyzes your YouTube channel, it analyzes your competition's YouTube channels, then you tell them, "I want to create a video about this topic." And then it goes out and analyzes your competition and says, Hey, in order for your channel to rank for this topic, here's what you should do, here are suggestions for you. For your title, for your description. And then after you write your title and description, it will tell you and give you a score and grade your title and description and tell you, yup. That's a good title. Nope, that's a bad title. Yup, that's a great description. Or no, it's not a good description. So it helps you create those things so that you can rank. Alright, Tube Buddy, absolutely genius. The link is down below.
Click on that link. Go get Tube Buddy, full disclosure, the links down below, those are affiliate links. So when you click on them, it's not going to cost you anything. But, if you decide to use Tube Buddy or this other tool, I'm going to tell you about, I do make a small commission, which helps manage and run this channel.
So, if you could do that for me, that'd be awesome. Anyway, Tube Buddy down below, you absolutely want. That's number one. The second thing, the second thing down below that I have linked for you is Descript. So we talked about creating a professional caption filing, and yes, you can go off and you can pay someone to do that.
There are even services that will do that for you for a fee, per minute. I like Descript.com. And again, it's linked down below. We use Descript for a couple of different reasons. Number one, the scripts is about 80% accurate. When you upload your video, it's about 80% accurate for transcribing a video. So, then you've got to go in and clean up the rest.
No problem. You're going to have to do that anyway. That's number one, but then number two. Descript, when you say, uh, and ums in videos, and we're not going to take those out, but when you trip over words and that type of thing in videos, the script can clean all of that up for you and pull all of those uhs and ums out of your video.
Okay. Descript can clean them all up for you, republish your video so that you have a masterpiece at that point that you can then upload to YouTube along with your SRT file. Descript is absolutely genius in the things that they can do with your video and helping you do some basic video editing before you upload to YouTube. So, those are my two tools. We use these two tools, literally every single day, every day Tube Buddy and Descript. Again, they're linked down below and they will help you to master your YouTube SEO.
Hey, everybody as always, if you have any questions, if you got any comments, if there's anything that you want to know, do me a favor, drop your question down below on this video. Or if you're on the podcast, send me an email at hello@traffickeys.com. I am here to answer your question, be happy to answer your question, whatever they may be, because I want to see you succeed. I want to see you driving traffic to your website. And I want to see you're using video to do it. I want to see you using video to do it because it's never a better time to use video.
The video SEO is wide open. It's so much easier to rank for video than it is any type of SEO. So, start creating your videos, start them now. Alright, everybody I'll talked to you soon. Bye-bye..