Youtube SEO: Give your videos a ranking boost by optimizing for these On-page factors

Saffron Edge

Dec 10, 2018

5 min read

Are you actively trying to market your services on the second-most traffic website (after Facebook) on the internet with nearly 2 billion monthly active users? If your answer is yes, then this post is just for you! Youtube is, unarguably, the best social media platform out there to showcase your videos and if you still aren’t using it to market your videos, you really are missing out on scoring a lot of engagement and raving fans for your business. And since it’s bought by Google, your videos can secure a prominent place on the web search as well and gain some extra exposure. But a lot of videos gets uploaded and seen on Youtube on a daily basis as it continues to gain popularity worldwide. So, standing out and getting noticed on the platform becomes a bit difficult. Yes, strategizing and selecting high-search keywords to base your videos on surely helps with capturing a lot of attention for your videos. But did you know the Youtube algorithm takes into account certain on-page factors as well to rank videos on the platform? While Google Trendz and Google Keyword Planner can certainly help you with finding the best keywords for your videos to get you on the top, here are some of the prominent on-page factors the Youtube algorithm relies on as well to rank videos on the platform. Before we begin, just make sure that your Youtube channel is as optimized as it can get. Which includes adding a nice description of your channel that summarizes to your audience what your channel is all about, placing your website or blog link in the description itself, adding a nice channel banner, placing your best videos on the homepage of your channel, choosing your target county and targeting the most appropriate keywords for your channel that describe what you do in the best light possible to your audience. The increased views on your videos will only be fruitful if you have a welcoming channel that tells users what you do in an instant and convert them into your loyal subscribers. When you have done all that and have indulged in some promotional efforts for your channel on Social Media and the web, work on optimizing all your videos for the below-ranking factors to get in front of more users on the platform and increase your viewership -

Place keywords in the meta-data
Like Google, the Youtube algorithm also relies heavily on figuring out the relevance of a video with the help of keywords present in its meta-structure. But mind you, the keywords are only as good as getting your video in front of viewers searching for the exact same or related keywords, the algorithm relies heavily on user engagement signals which we’ll get to in a while. When it comes to adding a specific keyword in your video’s meta-structure, you have to add it in your video title, its description and the tag section for them to make a difference for your videos. You’ll have to go as far as adding the keyword in the file name of your Youtube video so that the crawlers can make sense of it right from the beginning.
Take care of the quality of your video
Youtube cares about the user experience your video provides to their users. And If your video is of sub-par quality, forget about getting on the top of Youtube for your targeted keyword.When it comes to Youtube, HD videos will always rank higher than low-quality videos because who’d seriously want to look at a blurry 144p video. Your viewers will abandon your video mid-way in search of a better video and possibly will never see a video uploaded on your channel again.And believe me, you don’t want users doing that, which bring us to the most important on-page ranking factor for ranking videos on Youtube…
Work on generating user engagement and social signals
The way a user interacts with your video is the top-most ranking signal for the Youtube algorithm. That includes a viewer clicking your video, liking it, commenting on it, sharing it with their friends (which creates natural backlinks for the video as well), watching it till the end, the links it acquires over time and the likes. Youtube gives importance to these user engagement and social signals and ranks all their videos according to them. So, it makes sense to promote your videos on your social media profiles and ask people to share, like and comment on it to gain traction on the platform. Now you know why so many Youtube creators ask you explicitly to like, comment and share their videos.Because it gives them the exposure they need to gain traction on the platform.
Upload a catchy thumbnail
In the simplest of words, a thumbnail on Youtube is like the banner image of your blog, but for videos. Along with the title and your channel name, a video thumbnail is what a person sees first about your video. So, optimizing them for the best can matter a lot for your videos when it comes to getting it clicked. Focus on uploading a catchy email that subtly tells what your video is all about so users can quickly figure out what’s in it for them if they click on the video. Because of it’s visual nature, your thumbnails can be the reason why your awesome video is not getting clicked at all or is attracting a lot of attention from viewers.
Consider adding subtitles, closed captions and cards
Since, Youtube crawlers can not view your videos, adding subtitles and closed captions to all your videos help crawlers get a better idea of what your content is about, and they help users too to better grasp your content. Moreover, with the help of cards, you can display your older videos, website links and other types of content to foster clicks for your other videos as well. A great way to get some additional clicks on your videos and increase their rankings.

Use the above mentioned tips to make your videos perform better under the Youtube algorithm and gain a lot of exposure for your Youtube videos and your channel in general. If you know of any other on-page factor that the Youtube algorithms take seriously, do let us know about them in the comments.