SEO Tips for YouTube

Earlier this week we discussed the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - getting your content to the top of search engine results. Today, let’s get into specifics. Your YouTube videos are pretty snazzy, aren’t they? Doesn’t matter if no one’s viewing them! The following tips will help you apply SEO strategy when adding keywords and descriptions to your online videos on YouTube or elsewhere:

The more, the merrier. (Keywords, that is.)
Here at Pixability, we recommend that every video has at least 10 tags (keywords or phrases), and this is even one of the factors that our Online Video Grader analyzes when measuring the effectiveness of your online video strategy. YouTube allows up to 500 characters in the tag field, so that gives you plenty of room to work. (For comparison, Twitter updates contain a maximum of 140 characters.) Remember to keep your tags relevant; 500 characters of nonsense won’t help you.

Keywords...and phrases!
The word “keyword” is misleading; when assigning keywords to your video, don’t limit yourself to single words - you should also use short phrases (2-4 words). Group your phrases in quotation marks; if you just type the words, YouTube will assume each word is a separate tag.

Let’s say, for example, that you own a doggie daycare in Boston, and you’re posting videos on YouTube to advertise your business. Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience: what would you type into a search engine if you were searching for a doggie daycare in Boston? Start with the obvious: “doggie daycare boston." What else? How about: “pet grooming," “pet grooming boston," “pet care," “dog kennel." Don’t forget to include your business name as well.

Try to focus on terms or phrases that aren’t too broad (“dogs”) or too specific (“where can i leave my cocker spaniel in boston when i go on vacation in june.") The market is too competitive for the broad terms - your video won’t stand up to the millions of other sites about dogs - and no one will search for the extremely specific terms. Find a middle ground. Relevance is important, too. Sure, you can grab visitors with keywords that have nothing to do with your business...but that won’t do you (or your visitors) any good. Someone searching for supermodels and finding your doggie daycare video isn’t going to suddenly realize that he needs to find a kennel for his dog.

If you’re running out of space and debating between a couple similar tags, check out Google Trends to compare the popularity of various search terms.

Content is king.
Get others to link back to your content or share it with their friends. No, don’t beg. Those “let’s exchange links!” emails go right into most people’s Spam or Trash folder. Get links by building quality content. Create detailed, well-written descriptions for your videos, and people will be more likely to find your video, stay long enough to watch it, and share it. You might also consider creating a boilerplate paragraph giving an overview of your company to tack onto the end of all of your video descriptions.

Links, links, links.
Make sure your video descriptions contain links directly to your website or to a relevant page within your website. Put the link high up in the description - preferably right at the beginning. When your video appears in search results, only the very beginning of your description shows up, so you’ll get a lot more click-throughs to your site if your link appears there. Make sure your links are correct and active!

Is your YouTube channel on its way to SEO optimization bliss? Find out by using our free Online Video Grader. In seconds, it’ll analyze your website and YouTube channel to evaluate your online video strategy, and you’ll get concrete suggestions for improvement.

Any questions about SEO? Let us know by leaving a comment, and we’ll try to address it in a future post!

Posted by Rachel Blumenthal
Friday, 06 May 2011