With just a camera, you can reach millions of people on YouTube. Moreover, thanks to the content you produce, it is possible to earn money as well as express yourself. So, do you do YouTube SEO work on the videos you upload?
If not, you are missing a large part of your potential audience. By reading the article we prepared as 101Akademi, you can get basic information about the subject and learn some tips that will take your channel to the top.
What is YouTube SEO?
YouTube SEO is the optimization of the channel and content on the channel to increase video visibility. It covers many areas such as keywords, hashtags, video tag and video title.
If an effective and correct work is carried out, the videos of the shared channel reach more people in search results. Video viewing times increase significantly and the number of subscribers of the channel rises faster than normal.
In short, YouTube SEO is the process of making videos more attractive for viewers, from the video title to the small images to be used. The works carried out within this framework are generally as follows;
- Video Title
- Video Description
- Video Quality and length
- Small Images
- Keywords
- Tags
- Categories
- Connections
- Advanced Settings
How to do YouTube SEO?
Answering questions such as “How to do YouTube SEO?” and “What should be done to increase the number of views?” is especially important for individual channel owners to achieve success. In addition, companies operating in the field of e-commerce should definitely do SEO work in order to increase their sales figures through YouTube.
As we mentioned in the article, YouTube SEO covers many different areas. It is very important to make the necessary SEO optimizations for each video. If we explain these briefly;
Keywords
Keywords are very important not only for YouTube but also for all other SEO activities. Because these keywords are mostly used when doing research on any subject.
In determining keywords, various SEO tools are used. Some of these are simple and free tools that everyone can benefit from, while others are designed entirely for YouTube. For example, Google Trends is a service that anyone can easily access and find the right keywords. YouTube content producers can take advantage of Google Trends as follows;
Channel owners click on the “YouTube Search” bar and type the core keyword of the video they want to upload. The YouTube Autocomplete feature then completes the relevant words and lists alternative search results. This list shows users’ search trends. Since the data is taken directly from Google, it is extremely reliable.
Apart from Google Trends, there are other paid tools designed for YouTube SEO optimization. Content creators can use them to track channel statistics apart from SEO. However, it can provide access to a lot of information such as analysis of competing channels producing similar content, specific data for each video, subscribers and watch time.
File Name
YouTube cannot understand what the uploaded video is about and who it is addressed to. Therefore, in the early stages, it is necessary to give YouTube some clues about the video. The best way to do this is to include keywords in the file name.
Video Title
The video title should be carefully chosen both to increase visibility and to get YouTube users to watch the video. A good video title should include keywords and words that will attract viewers’ attention.
On YouTube, the number of characters that can be used for the title, including spaces, is limited to 100. However, even though the limit is 100 characters, some viewers can only see a certain part of it. For example, if a long title is preferred, a viewer using a mobile application will see the title as “What is YouTube SEO and YouTube N……”. For this reason, the words that explain the video and arouse curiosity in the audience should be given in the first 60-70 characters.
In order to get more clicks, expressions that are not related to the video content or misleading users should not be used in the title. In such a case, the reliability of the channel will be negatively affected, so even if the number of views increases in the first videos, the number of views and subscribers will decrease in subsequent content.
Video Meta Description
As mentioned in the article, YouTube cannot detect the content of the uploaded video. Therefore, content creators need to help YouTube get an idea about the video. Video descriptions or “Video Meta Description” is one of the best data that can be used for this.
By selecting the right keywords and descriptions, videos will rank higher in YouTube searches. The title, description and tags should be compatible to get higher efficiency from the optimization process.
YouTube allows a maximum of 500 characters for video descriptions, including spaces. However, users do not have to fill this limit completely. In fact, the ideal range is to write a description of 150-250 characters.
One of the points to be considered when preparing a Video Meta Description is to include keywords in the first part of the text. Videos prepared in this way are listed much higher than similar content when searched by users.
After writing the keywords at the beginning of the description, spending at least 2-3 more times in the rest of the section also ensures that the video is listed at the top.
One of the common mistakes when preparing a YouTube video description is overusing keywords. Although it is thought that such a description will make the video rank higher, this is not true. In fact, if YouTube perceives the action as spam, it may even rank the video lower than it should be.
Tags
Another important issue for YouTube SEO optimization is tags. The purpose of using tags is to help YouTube detect video content and help searchers find the most accurate content.
You can add hashtags both in the YouTube Studio panel and in the video description section. You need to pay attention to some points when using Hashtags in both sections. These are
- Using too many hashtags; using too many tags makes it difficult for the video to reach the audience. Because the YouTube algorithm brings the most relevant videos to searchers. Therefore, using too many tags in video content makes the video worthless for YouTube. In fact, almost all tags are ignored.
- Word choice; it is not right to use harassment, hate speech, swearing, insults and slang in tags. When you use tags that contain such words, your video may be automatically age-restricted and deleted completely.
Thumbnail
It is more important that the videos you prepare are clicked and watched than reaching users. Even if you do all the above-mentioned actions correctly and get to the top, they will mean nothing if your video is not watched. Therefore, you need to make your video more attractive to viewers by using various tools. One of these tools is thumbnails.
You can custom design the thumbnails you will use, or you can use a frame that stands out in your video. However, if you are uploading videos to YouTube to make money, it will be more beneficial to design thumbnails specific to your channel, consisting of images and text that will attract the attention of viewers. When designing the image, make sure that the text on it can be easily read on mobile devices.
Apart from the YouTube SEO techniques we have included in the article, playlists, subtitles, language and advanced settings are also part of the optimization process. When all these are taken into consideration and quality content is produced, it is not at all unlikely that a YouTube channel will be successful. If you are interested in this article about YouTube SEO, you can visit our website for much more and contact us for your questions.
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