YouTube has a major advantage over other social platforms: SEARCH. And that’s no surprise seeing as how it’s owned by the top-dog of all-things search, Google.
What’s more, Google and YouTube are the most popular websites on the entire planet 🌎—meaning, there’s an abundance of opportunity for viewers to discover your videos.
But the thing is, there’s a LOT of content (i.e., competition) on YouTube—so ranking on certain keywords or search phrases isn’t without difficulty. That’s why tools like TubeBuddy are so important.
If you go to review your YouTube channel’s analytics, I’ll betcha YouTube Search is a big slice of your “viewership pie.” To find out:
Go to Studio.YouTube.com
Tap “Analytics” on the lefthand sidebar
Select “Reach” listed along the top menu.
Once that section loads, scroll down and review the box titled, “Traffic Source Types.” Chances are, YouTube Search is high on the list—and if it isn’t—well, then, opportunity awaits!
Mechanics of YouTube SEO
From an SEO standpoint, YouTube lists results (i.e., videos) by order of relevance to the user’s search phrase. That means, just like Google, it’s all about keywords—specifically, the keyword(s) in your video’s title. Video tags and descriptions help too, but the primary variable is a video’s title.
So, in terms of getting your video to rank, it’s mission critical to search-optimize your video titles. To do so, you’ll need a tool like TubeBuddy, which, to utilize all the bells-and-whistles, will require a paid membership.
TubeBuddy is a browser extension/plugin that integrates directly within YouTube’s website. It works on Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.
(Looking for more content on building your YouTube Channel, click here.)
To identify your keywords, which, what I mean is, to select the most advantageous phrasing of your video’s title, you’ll use TubeBuddy’s “Keyword Explorer” tool.
For example, enter a keyword (that is, a short phrase) like “Chicago real estate”—which scores a lousy 37 out of 100 in terms of its optimization. If that was your video’s title, it’d most likely end up buried on like page 90 of the search results. In other words, nobody would ever see it!
And it’d be because, with that particular keyword, for instance, though there’s quite a bit of search volume, there are simply too many other videos using the same keyword.
Notwithstanding, if you tap either “YouTube” or “Video Topics” in the “Related Searches” box, you’ll find alternative phrasing choices. For instance, tap the “real estate in Chicago” topic, which is a variation of our keyword, and, just like that, your optimization score shoots up to 66.
Over time, as you upload one optimized video after another, you’ll grow your YouTube channel’s authority, putting you on the path of YouTube Search domination.