YouTube uses:
- Title tag information
- Audience retention
- Keywords in description tag
- Tags
- Video length
- Number of subscribers after watching
- Comments
- Likes and dislikes
1. Write Super-Long Video Descriptions
Remember that YouTube and Google can't watch or listen to your video (yet).
That means that they heavily lean on the text surrounding the video to understand your video's topic. That's why it pains me to see extremely brief video descriptions like this:
But it's also ranking for quite a few long tail keywords, like "infographic seo strategy" (number one), because the keyword-rich description includes words like "infographic" and "seo strategy":
2. Optimize Around "Video Keywords"
Ranking in YouTube is great, but ranking your video in YouTube and Google is even better.
Although Google gives YouTube videos an inherent edge in the SERPs, that's only true for certain keywords.
These keywords are called "Video Keywords" because they tend to have video results on Google's first page.
For example, any keyword that includes "cute cats" will almost always have a few video results:
On the other hand, someone searching for "ankle sprain" wants to read about symptoms and treatments. Google knows this and shows those searchers a block of 10 text articles:
3. Get More Video Views From Online Communities
Online communities like Quora and LinkedIn groups are fantastic places to funnel traffic from.
The thing is, most communities don't take too kindly to someone dropping links to their content all over the place.
But they're usually open to people sharing helpful YouTube videos, like yours!
Because the number and quality of your video views is one of the most important YouTube ranking factors, getting views from targeted communities works wonders.
Just find a question in the community that your video could help answer. Then provide some value and suggest that people watch your video if they want more information:
Online communities like Quora and LinkedIn groups are fantastic places to funnel traffic from.
The thing is, most communities don't take too kindly to someone dropping links to their content all over the place.
But they're usually open to people sharing helpful YouTube videos, like yours!
Because the number and quality of your video views is one of the most important YouTube ranking factors, getting views from targeted communities works wonders.
Just find a question in the community that your video could help answer. Then provide some value and suggest that people watch your video if they want more information:
4. Encourage Subscribing and Linking
Because YouTube's algorithm doesn't use backlinks, it puts A LOT of weight on user experience signals. If people enjoy watching your video, expect it to crush it in YouTube search.
Subscribing and liking are two of the most important user experience signals that YouTube uses.
When someone likes your video enough to subscribe after watching it, it sends a strong message to YouTube that you have a killer video on your hands.
Likes are much less important, but they still count.
You can ramp up both of these user experience signals by asking.
At the end of your video, give people a strong call to action that encourages them to subscribe.
Because YouTube's algorithm doesn't use backlinks, it puts A LOT of weight on user experience signals. If people enjoy watching your video, expect it to crush it in YouTube search.
Subscribing and liking are two of the most important user experience signals that YouTube uses.
When someone likes your video enough to subscribe after watching it, it sends a strong message to YouTube that you have a killer video on your hands.
Likes are much less important, but they still count.
You can ramp up both of these user experience signals by asking.
At the end of your video, give people a strong call to action that encourages them to subscribe.
5. Create Keyword-Rich Playlists
Don't leave your YouTube channel an unorganized mess.
One of the easiest ways to get more YouTube search traffic to your videos is to organize your videos into playlists.
A keyword-rich playlist gives YouTube deeper information about your video's topic. And like we saw with your description, more text-based content=more views.
For example, FitnessBlender, which gets more than 100,000 views on every video, has their channel organized neatly into keyword-rich categories:
Don't leave your YouTube channel an unorganized mess.
One of the easiest ways to get more YouTube search traffic to your videos is to organize your videos into playlists.
A keyword-rich playlist gives YouTube deeper information about your video's topic. And like we saw with your description, more text-based content=more views.
For example, FitnessBlender, which gets more than 100,000 views on every video, has their channel organized neatly into keyword-rich categories:
