Today, I'm gonna show you exactly how to rank your YouTube videos, step-by-step.
I'm gonna show you the seven strategies that have worked best for me.
So let's kick things off with strategy number one,
1. Boost Your Click-Through Rate:
Your click-through rate is the percentage of people that see your video in the search results and click on it.
As it turns out, YouTube pays very close attention to your video's click-through rate, and if lots of people click on your video, YouTube will give your video a rankings boost. In fact, YouTube's own data shows that your click-through rate is key. So how do you increase
your click-through rate without using clickbait? Use brackets and parentheses
in your video title.
Industry studies show that you can get up to a third more click just by adding a bracket to the end of your title. That's because the text in
your brackets give someone a sneak preview of your video which makes them more likely to click.
For example, check out the title of this video from my channel. My original title was just how to rank number one in Google,
but I decided to add this text in brackets which makes my title much more enticing to click on.
This leads us to our second strategy,
2. Increase Engagement Signals:-
Engagement signals are things like comments, shares, likes, and subscribers,
and the more engagement signals your video gets, the higher it'll rank. In fact, a recent industry study found that engagement signals
strongly correlated with rankings in YouTube. And YouTube has even gone on the record, saying that videos are ranked
partially based on engagement.
The question is, how do you get more people to engage with your video?
First, ask your viewers to answer a multiple-choice question.
This is a big one. When I first got started on YouTube, I'd say things like, let me know what you think of
this video in the comments. That's when I realized something, people love giving their
opinions but they hate thinking. And when I ask people to let me know what they think, I was making commenting way too hard.
That's why today I ask people a multiple choice question that's super easy to answer.
Here's an example.
In fact, multiple choice questions like this are one of the main reasons that my videos get
thousands of legit comments.
Next, give people a reason to subscribe to your channel. So instead of something
like, please subscribe,
say, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on my future videos.
And now it's time for
strategy number three,
3. Embed Your Videos:
Justin Briggs recently analyzed 100,000 videos across 75,000 channels, and one of the most interesting things he found was that rankings on YouTube were closely tied to video embeds. In fact, top-ranking videos had an average of 78%
more embeds than average. And the easiest way to do this? Just embed videos on your own website.
For example, I embed my YouTube videos
in almost every post. Now sometimes I use a video as a way for people to learn more about something I'm talking about, And other times I use an embedded video to explain a step or a technique, either way, works. You can also embed videos in press releases, guest posts,
or anywhere else that you publish content.
Let's keep it moving with technique number four.
4. The TSC tag formula:
It's no secret that tags can help your videos rank higher
in the search results. That's the good news, the bad news is
that most people use tags the wrong way. In fact, when I first
got started on YouTube, I'd stuff my videos with tags
like there was no tomorrow, and no matter how many tags I
used, my videos wouldn't rank. Okay, tag 867, what should I write?
And today I know why. As you already know, YouTube uses your tags
to figure out what your video covers, and if you use 100 tags, YouTube's gonna have a really
hard time understanding what your video is actually about.
For example, check out
the tags on this video. Imagine that you're YouTube, based on these tags what would
you say this video is about?
One tag says the video is about blogging but it's also about life lessons, and CSA, whatever that is.
If you're confused, YouTube is confused. And instead of tag stuffing, I recommend something
called the TSC formula.
Here's how it works, first make your first two to three tags your target keyword.
For example, let's say you
wanted to rank your video for the keyword public speaking tips.
You'd want to make your first few tags variations
of that keyword. Next use synonyms of your target keyword. So for a keyword like public speaking tips,
these would be things like how to give a speech and conference speaking.
Finally, use two to three category tags.
These tags describe your video's larger overall topic,
for example, let's say your primary keyword
is how to do a push-up. Well, you'd also wanna use a few broad tags
that describe your video's high-level topic.
In this case, category tags would be things like fitness and workouts.
That's all there is to it.
This leads us to step number five,
5. Rank In The Suggested Video:-
When most people think about ranking in YouTube,
they think about ranking in YouTube search,
but that's not the only place on YouTube where your videos show up.
In fact, for many channels suggested video brings in more views than
YouTube's search engine. The question is, how do you get your video to rank
as a suggested video?
Well, YouTube suggests videos based on two main factors, one, the types of videos
that you recently watched, and the video you're currently watching.
For example, if you just
watched a bunch of videos about cold brew coffee, YouTube is gonna suggest
more cold brew coffee videos.
even if you're watching a cute cat video right now. But, like I said, they also base these suggestions
on the video that you're watching right now. So if you're watching a video about cute cats,
YouTube is gonna suggest more cute animal videos in the sidebar. And this is where the opportunity is.
You see, when you optimize your video with the same keywords
that a popular video uses, you have a good chance of
showing up next to that video in the suggested video area. So if you see a video in your
niche with lots of views, try to use a few of their tags as your synonym and category tags in your video.
And now it's time for strategy number six,
6. Increase Your Watch Time:-
When it comes to YouTube ranking factors, watch time is a big one.
So what is watch time?
Watch time is the total amount of accumulated time that people have spent
watching your video on YouTube, and this is a little bit different than audience retention.
Audience retention is a percentage of a video that people watch,
and watch time is the total minutes that people have watched
since that video first came out. And according to YouTube, watch time can help your
videos get more visibility across the entire
platform, including search. With that, here are two quick strategies
for increasing watch time.
First, I recommend planning, scripting, and outlining your videos.
When I first started making videos, I'd turn on the camera and start talking.
I had a general idea of what I wanted to cover but because I didn't plan
my video ahead of time I was all over the place.
Today I plan out every video ahead of time. That way I don't lose people with a scattered or unfocused video.
Next, you wanna mix things up with every video. There's nothing that
YouTube viewers hate more than a static video that never changes.
So do your best to change up your camera angles, visual styles, add music, anything that keeps your
video fresh and interesting. Let's keep things rolling
here with our last strategy
7. Optimize Your Video Description:-
As you might already know, along with your title and tags,
YouTube uses your description to understand your video's content
and when you write an optimized description
you can find yourself with higher rankings and more views.
With that, here's exactly how to create an SEO-optimized video description.
First, make your description at least 100 words.
Lots of YouTubers treat their description as an afterthought.
Needless to say, a super-short description like this
doesn't give YouTube a lot of information about your video.
And if YouTube doesn't understand your video,
it probably won't rank. Instead, you want to write about 100 words
that outline the content in your video.
For example, my description for this video is 232 words
which give YouTube enough content to understand
what my video is all about. Next, include your target keyword
in the first two to three sentences of your description.
YouTube's algorithm puts more weight on terms that show up
in the first two to three
sentences of your description.
In fact, YouTube recommends that you, quote, but the most important keywords towards the beginning of your description.
For example, my target keyword for this video is link building, and, as you can see, I used that keyword at the beginning of my description.
Finally, you wanna sprinkle
in your target keyword and some related keywords a few times.
Now, this isn't about keyword stuffing or anything like that,
it's just using your keyword a handful of times
to emphasize to YouTube and Google that your video is about that keyword,
and you don't need to use your keyword 100 times to do that.
Three to four times is more than enough.
For example, you can see
that I use my target keyword, link building, four times
in this description.
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