The revenue scale is still tipping in YouTube’s favor.
No matter how hard other social platforms are trying to usurp it with Facebook Lives, Snapchats and Instagram Stories, they’re pitting fads against a lifestyle. And a lifestyle it must be, because YouTube is streaming 6 billion hours of video each month, and neither you nor me can be passing a day of our lives without constant contact with this video-sharing website.
From a marketing and monetizing POV, YouTube is and always has been a goldmine of opportunities, waiting to be calibrated for maximized performance – the same way you would optimize for search engines.
YouTube’s estimate of a mind-blowing 92 billion page views per month has never meant that you can just upload a video and it will automatically be found by millions of viewers. More than 35 hours of video are being uploaded every minute, and no matter how big this playing field, you’re still only a single player in the crowd until you master the rulebook and strategize your game.
Here are some pointers that will tighten up your YouTube presence, so you get a satisfyingly high ranking in the search results.
#1: Go Into Deep Detail With The Video Description
The longer and more detailed the description is, the better your chances for ranking in relevant searches. The reason for this is `contextual search’. You cannot depend on just one longtail keyword anymore. You need various permutations and combinations of the phrase, and the most effective way to achieve this is by writing up a long description comprising several paragraphs. As long as this content is deeply relevant to the video – in other words, `contextual’ — it will organically contain a wealth of longtails in it. So if you’ve been writing short, pithy descriptions, not wanting to bore your viewership with reams and reams of copy, start doing it right now.
#2: Give The Video File A Keyword-Friendly Name
Don’t render the video with a random mov2002.avi sort of filename. Rename with a relevant keyword instead, so the search algorithm knows straight off the bat what the video is about.
#3: Use The Closed Caption (CC) Feature
Closed captioning not only helps viewers to better understand the content sometimes, while facilitating translation into various languages, it is an effective way to become more search-engine friendly because the video narration will no doubt be rich in contextual keywords. Thanks to YouTube’s new algorithm, your voice will automatically be converted into transcript.
#4: Tag Your Videos
Tagging is another way to optimize for YouTube. List your main keywords first, and then add some extra contextual ones for good measure. Use the Tubebuddy tool to find some heavyweight tags. It also shows ranking strength for each one.
#5: Don’t Make The Videos Too Short
For good optimizing juice, don’t make your videos too short. In this day and age of mobile usage, 5-10 minutes is optimal, but do research your niche and then take a call on this. Just remember that you’d rather be too long than be too short.
#6: Create Themed Playlists
Don’t just upload videos. Curate playlists out of other relevant videos (could be your own) to increase engagement, video length and channel time.
Even with this list, it is very difficult to go viral with YouTube. There is a high degree of competition. Many people built their pages far before it was so difficult to optimize videos. Remember it is about consistency and patience. This is a longtail game. Do the research, try, try and try again!!!
Good luck!
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