We all know what it feels like to create a video, upload it and then nobody is viewing it! Well in this article we’re going to give you my top three most influential factors in ranking videos to the top of Google and YouTube.
Over the years a lot has really changed when it comes to ranking videos but the basics of video optimization/ video SEO haven’t really changed that much. Now if I take a video of mine, for example, it’s been ranked at the top of Google & YouTube for the term how to rank videos for years already and inside that video we talked about a lot of the basics like the proper title, the proper description, how to find your keywords and all the basic things you need when it comes to optimizing your videos but something happened with that video that allows it to be ranked since four years till now without a lot of work being done. I am here to share the same with you!
We’re going to talk about the three most influential factors that happened to that video and all my other videos that are ranking really well and getting tons of views so let’s start with method number one:
Using Your Keyword in Your Title
Now using the keyword in the title has been around for a really long time. Everyone kind of knows this but it’s something that’s extremely important and you’re gonna have a very difficult time ranking videos if your keyword is not in the title.
YouTube actually tells us that they give the most weight of all the on-page SEO to the title and what keywords are in the title. Now if we look at my video how to rank videos that is the exact keyword that I wanted to rank for video SEO and it’s in the title and we are ranking for it. If I was to change that title to something else like how to get more views I would not rank for how to rank videos. But since I included them in the title, I am positioning my video and giving it the opportunity to rank for those keywords.
Building a Channel of Authority
Let’s move on to method number two which is building a channel of authority. Now this is something I’ve been talking about for years and I cannot stress to you enough how important it is to have a channel of authority when you’re trying to rank videos.
So let me give you a little example here of how this works with websites if Wikipedia created an article all about a new electric car and then you started website in two days later you write an article about the exact same electric car in your website. Your website and your article is not going to rank but Wikipedia is probably going to rank to the top of Google. Why because Google and YouTube are our search engines and they want the absolute best content coming up the top of their search results and they know sites like Wikipedia, CNN and these big authority sites write really good content. Similarly, you have to understand that Google YouTube just want the best videos and best user experience on their website. That’s why they get channels of authority, higher
Similarly, you have to understand that Google YouTube just want the best videos and best user experience on their website. That’s why they get channels of authority, higher ratings and higher rankings and usually faster rankings right off the bat because they know channels of authority typically produce really good content.
The main question here is how do we create a channel of authority.
So the main factors of channel authority are:
- the amount of subscribers
- the age of your channel
- how active you are
- have you built a community around your channel and your videos
When we talk about subscribers it’s basically just social proof. When you have twenty thousand or a hundred thousand subscribers on your channel, it’s a social proof that you have a pretty good channel. But not only that what happens is when you upload a video a lot of your subscribers or a decent amount of your subscribers we can get notified that your videos up.
This leads to:
- instant views
- instant likes
- instant comments around your video
This formulates a community around your video which you will absolutely love. Well, not only do you have the social proof behind your channel that your channel is popular but also to get activity on your video right when you upload it which then shoots it up to the search results.
Now when we look at the age of the channel it doesn’t necessarily mean that since your channels two years old you’re going to outrank someone who has a channel that’s two weeks old. However when you have age behind your channel it typically means that you’re going to have some subscribers, probably you’re going to be active on YouTube, maybe you’ve been cut commenting on other people’s videos all of that stuff goes into the age of the channel.
You also have to understand that YouTube is constantly fighting spam. Nobody for sure knows exactly what YouTube algorithm is so we have to be as accurate as possible.
The third part of channel authority is staying active this means:
- uploading videos consistently
- building more subscribers
- commenting on your videos
- commenting on other people’s videos
You have to understand YouTube is a social platform and that is exactly what they want you to treat it. Now one of the easiest ways to do this is obviously continue uploading content, add value and then respond to comments on those videos and what I like to do is going to my community manager look at all my comments and respond right off the bat.little bonus tip here is that I would recommend you to respond to comments by asking them a question. So if I get 10 comments on a video and give
A little bonus tip here is that I would recommend you to respond to comments by asking them a question. So if I get 10 comments on a video and give response to all of them, I will have 20 comments. But then if I ask those people question they respond back now I have 30 comments and then I respond back to their other comment, now I have 40 comments so what I’ve been able to do is go from 10 comments to 40. Simply by responding to my comment asking questions and being involved and now what I’m doing is building a community around my videos.
Creating Videos Specifically For the Search Term
Now all of this actually boils down to the third and final ranking factor which is creating videos specifically for the search term you’re trying to rank for. One of the reasons why my videos and even my client’s video state ranked for years is because we do exactly this. We look at the term that we want to rank for, we ask ourselves why is somebody searching that term and then we create a video giving them exactly what they want.
So if you look at this term how to rank videos I ask myself why someone searching that and I thought well because they want to learn how to rank videos I created a video of value giving them the exact steps they need to rank videos in Google and YouTube and here’s what started to happen since I already have a channel of authority when I first uploaded this video and went right to the page one or two on YouTube.
But what started to happen when people search “how to rank videos” they would look through all the results they would click on mine they would watch it all the way through. Google and YouTube by looking at this are going to know when people are searching “how to rank videos” landing on this video. They’re watching this video longer than all the other videos. It’s a really good result let’s move it up the search result.
So that’s how it happens. We slowly moved up YouTube search results and then we hit the top of YouTube search results and that continued to happen. It continued to get search how to rank videos they watch my video people liked it, comment on that, watch it the whole way they clicked on my annotations. And then magically it pops up in google and then slowly climbs up google and then the same thing continues to happen for years.
When I have years of people searching how to rank videos landing on my video watching it all the way through clicking on my annotations leaving me a comment hitting the thumbs up button we’re proving to google and YouTube that this is the best video for this search term. When you can create and script your videos around one topic and give people exactly what they want you will then they not only begin to rank higher in the google and YouTube search results but then we started to notice one more thing started to happen with a lot of our videos. They were now appearing in the related videos field of other videos and even competitors videos and now a huge portion of all the views on my channel come from the related videos field.
You have to remember like we said in the beginning of this video google and YouTube just want the best videos on their search results they want people watching the best videos on certain topics. So when you prove that you have the best video they start positioning your video to get more views
Spammy techniques of ranking videos are slowly becoming less effective and they’re starting to look at more value and engaging factors with your videos.
They’re looking at:
- how are people are finding your videos,
- what are they searching,
- what videos are they landing on
- how long are they watching these videos
- is it an engaging video
If you can do this, you can create the perfect video.
Now if you enjoyed this article don’t forget to leave me a comment. Let me know how you found it and how you’re going to use it. Thank you so much for reading this article, we’ll see you on the next one!
