Ranking in search engines is getting harder by the day. The competition is high and ranking algorithms are getting complex every day. So it might be a good idea to focus your efforts on the second largest search engine in the world, YouTube.

Before we start with promoting here are some interesting facts.

  • Although YouTube is second search engine across devices when it comes to desktop searches it surpasses Google.com in some days.
  • How to video views are growing 70% year over year and 91% of smartphone users turn to their devices for ideas
  • World’s top 100 brands collectively upload a video to YouTube every 15 minutes. However, only 9% of small business create content for YouTube.

If you’re a small business those stats should scream out opportunity.

However, just creating and uploading a video to YouTube will not work. Creating a video is an expensive, time-consuming process. So you need to put the time and effort to promote that video and get the maximum benefit out of it. Here are few ways to go about it.

Since our main focus is on search traffic optimizing for YouTube is a must. Optimizing a YouTube videos is not that different to optimizing a web page or a blog post. You need to have a proper title that includes your main keyword, write a good description which includes the keyword and add tags to the video.

Check this article by KISSMetrics for some advanced YouTube optimization tips like YouTube channel customization, making use of annotation and channel branding.

These are basic stuff that must be done. But they pale in comparison to the most important factor of them all.

Focus on User Engagement Metrics

Although Google doesn’t come out and say it in public various studies like this one have found a strong correlation between YouTube rankings and the following factors. Even though they are ranking factors they are a good way to measure the success of your videos as well.

View Count

View count is still an important ranking factor and you could do a lot to improve this.

Embedded video views count towards the view count so the first thing you can do is add them to relevant high traffic pages. You can also share that video on Facebook, Twitter or any other channel that you’re actively using.

Another thing you can do it find relevant videos, channels, users and leave a comment on them, preferably with a link to your video.

The suggested videos to the right of your video is a good place to start. Finding relevant users and channels is a bit harder. Since time is limited you want to find the channels with the highest potential.

This article discusses in detail how to get the demographics data of a YouTuber which is useful if you’re looking for relevant users. Researching is usually a time-consuming process but a necessary one. You’re looking to build long-term relationships with your target audience so finding the right match is critical for that.

Watch Time

This refers to the length of the viewing sessions. If a video leads to a lengthy viewing session then it has a good chance of ranking well for the target keyword.

Obviously, you need a high-quality video that is entertaining or useful. Other than that using annotations to link to related videos, creating a playlist with similar content so they show up in the sidebar are few other things you can do to improve watch time.

Video Quality

HD videos rank better than poor or low-quality videos. YouTube is all about providing an amazing viewing experience and poor quality videos ruin that.

Comments

The study I’ve linked to above found a strong correlation between comments and rankings. So give some thought to ending your videos with a question or some sort of call to action.

Target Other Video Sites

YouTube is the king, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try other video sites. DailyMotion, Vimeo get decent traffic and you’ll find that there is little to no competition in those sites. Since you already have the video you can change the titles, description etc to target a similarly related keyword in those sites.

Conclusion

Along with voice search, video search will be the next big thing when it comes to SEO in 2018. So put some effort now and reap the benefits for years to come.