Video marketing is a fundamental part of marketing for many brands. It’s a format users love because it conveys a sense of connectedness, explains concepts, and tells stories in a very effective way.
But for your video marketing to work, you need your videos to be visible on Google. To help you out, we have compiled our recommendations for how to rank YouTube videos on Google. Let's dive in!
Similar to web pages, positioning a YouTube video starts with choosing the right keywords and creating content around them. To find the keywords you are most interested in, we recommend these tools:
Once you have your list of keywords, it's a good idea to take a look at the videos that rank best on Google and YouTube for those searches. Take note of the length, structure, title, description, and other key elements, and try to incorporate them into your own.
There's no way around it: in the end, ranking depends largely on the quality of your content. For your YouTube video to rank better, you need to take care of many different aspects: the script, the lighting, the presenter's attitude, and more. Incorporate elements to keep the viewer's attention throughout the video and keep them hooked, and remember that long content generally ranks better.
If you are going to use a voiceover in your video, remember that YouTube creates subtitles automatically and then uses them to determine the content of the video. So be sure to include the keywords as part of your script. And speaking of captions, remember that Google's transcription is far from perfect, so give them a good once-over before posting.
The thumbnail image of YouTube videos is essential to attract the attention of users and generate clicks. And the better the Click Through Rate or CTR of a video, the better it will rank. In fact, 90% of the most viewed YouTube videos have custom thumbnails.
To improve your thumbnails and make them even more appealing to viewers, take note of these tips:
Positioning is a long-term bet. Rather than focusing on optimizing a single video, think about creating a channel and publishing content frequently, so that you gain authority on YouTube. This way, the content you publish will be more likely to rank.
The file name is the typical small detail that is often overlooked but, as with the names of the images on a website, everything counts. The name of your video should be descriptive, contain at least the main keyword, and separate the different terms with a hyphen.
In video marketing, first impressions count. The title of your video is useful for users to decide whether they are interested in it or not.
Your video title should contain the main keyword, clearly explain what the video is about and appeal to your target audience. If it’s appropriate for the content of the video, keep in mind that titles such as "How to get..." or "Guide to..." help generate a high CTR, which boosts SEO rankings.
The video tags are closely related to the keywords you have previously researched. Focus on including the ones that are most related to the content of your video, have a good number of searches, and do not attract too much competition.
Take note of these recommendations:
YouTube videos are displayed in Google's SERP with a series of "key moments," designed to allow users to quickly jump to a specific point in the video.
To improve the chances of Google showing your video with key moments, add timestamps to your video description. Each content mark should be on its own line, with an explanation of the content following.
If your video is particularly relevant to a specific country, add geolocation to specify which geographic area you want to target. This will improve the positioning of the video at a local level.
The work of positioning a YouTube video does not end with the upload. To get more views, promote it on other channels such as your newsletter, your branded social media channels, or the most popular articles on your blog.
Videos with a high number of reactions and comments are more likely to rank.
You can encourage interactions from the video creation itself, for example, by encouraging viewers to answer a question in the comments, inviting them to ask you questions, or creating a contest.
To improve engagement, it’s also key to keep in mind that YouTube is not only a platform for uploading videos, but also a social network. Therefore, you must network with others in your industry through comments, collaborations, and more. Everyone will win!
Similarly to websites, external links from good quality sites contribute positively to the positioning of a video. Therefore, the launch of your video should be accompanied by a link-building strategy to get other sites to include links to your video or embed it in their pages.
After publishing your video, you should measure how it’s ranking in SERPs and compare the results between different videos over time to get best practices.
Please note that Google SERP results usually take 2 to 3 weeks to update.
To find out how much traffic Google is bringing to your YouTube channel, open YouTube Studio Stats and follow these steps: