Simply uploading your videos on YouTube is not enough. You need to optimize them so that they pop up when people conduct a related search. YouTube is the second-largest search engine on the web, so make sure you get it right.
Here are a few tips that will push your videos upwards.
Closed Captions: Noticed the small button called “CC” on the bottom video bar? Well, closed captions are used by YouTube to find relevant videos. That means if you have unique text strings in the captions file, then your video will be chosen over many others.
With YouTube’s speech recognition technology, all you need to do is upload your audio script and syncing will take place automatically. Videos with CC will surely receive more exposure than ones without.
Video file naming: This is one of those small things that usually go unnoticed. When you upload a file to YouTube, the video file name remains the same as it was on your desktop, e.g. MOV0123.AVI. Even though viewers don’t get to see this, it still makes a difference to YouTube rankings. Make sure you change it by adding the right keywords. It adds a lot of weight to your video.
Creating interesting content: Did you know that YouTube rates videos based on how long a user watches it? This means that videos with similar content will be ranked depending on the average duration that viewers have lingered on a particular video.
If your videos are highly engaging, then you can be rest assured of better rankings. This is a point that most YouTube users are not aware of.
Your channel: A website that has quality content on a particular topic will always generate more traffic than others. The same rule applies to a YouTube channel. If you have a collection of fresh videos for people to view, then every new one you upload will garner a lot of interest. From an SEO perspective, this will help increase views.
Going HD: Standard Definition videos are easier to upload, but quality becomes an issue here. However, many YouTube channels still prefer putting up videos that are not too sharp. This could be detrimental to your YouTube rankings in more ways than one.
First of all, viewers enjoy watching High Definition videos because of the clarity it offers. Besides offering a better viewing experience, HD videos are always higher ranked than SD ones. This is mainly because YouTube considers HD videos to have better content. 1080P videos should be your target.
The description: If you have the audio script of your video, then adding it to the description could help with optimization. A description can be more than 2-3 lines, but it should contain relevant keywords connected with your video.
Adding a URL at the beginning of your description will increase traffic to your other online addresses (such as the official website of your company or the Facebook page). Description Tip: Make sure you include “http://” while adding a URL; this gives you a clickable link in your description.
Tags: Any YouTube SEO expert will stress on the importance of video tags. The video site allows you to add innumerable tags and you can even choose from a few automated options. A good idea is to choose a few YouTube tag suggestions along with some of your own. This gives your video a good boost.
It’s all about exposure on the world’s second largest search engine. 60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute while 4 billion hours are watched every month. This is enough to get you thinking about the perfect SEO moves to make on everybody’s favorite video site.
Ryan Larkin is writing for www.broadbandproviders.com - the leading provider of the best value broadband internet. He writes about the Internet and the latest happenings in Technology.
