The YouTube video platform continues to grow, with more users accessing its video content online. This has opened a new door in the world of digital marketing since the potential value of videos in reaching our audience cannot be compared with any other Inbound Marketing strategy.
However, even if this new door is open, we must know how to access it if we want to get the most out of our video content. That is why in today’s article, we will discuss everything related to SEO for YouTube Videos, as well as its relationship and differences with Google.
Although the focus on SEO for YouTube Videos differs from what we do to position on Google, it should continue as part of our general strategy. In fact, certain specific SEO positioning techniques for YouTube videos can be used to position videos on Google.
What is SEO Video Positioning?
As we said previously, SEO positioning for video marketing is different from the web positioning we have used for conventional search engines. YouTube is neither more nor less than the second most used search engine on the Internet, only behind Google, and as such, it deserves to have a search algorithm like Google, which requires a specific approach. Different with both keywords and search intent.
Nor does this mean that everything changes. One fact that many do not know is that, after all, Google owns YouTube, so linking or attaching our videos with other written content can help us in our SEO positioning process.
Of course, it is important to be very clear that searches carried out through YouTube do not have to have any relationship with the results of the same keyword on Google. You can see this for yourself when carrying out keyword research, where you can verify that the search intention is not transactional as it happens in Google. Still, rather, it would be of a much more instructive nature.
A simple example would be recipe videos, where the person searching for a “Spanish omelet” wants to learn how to cook it without knowing where to buy the eggs, potatoes, and onion to make it. Yes, the Spanish tortilla goes with onion, and there is no discussion about it.
Another aspect to remember is that when we access a video on YouTube, it will show us a list of suggested videos next to it. These suggested videos are an important source of traffic, so it is important to know how to optimize our videos to appear in this category, which positions them based on the search intention and viewing history of the user performing the search.
Best practices for SEO positioning of videos
As I promised previously, below, we will see those practices that give us the best results when optimizing our video content to give them visibility in YouTube search lists.
Video thumbnails should attract users’ attention.
As we already know, when searching on Google, users choose a link in the SERP based on its title and meta description. Well, it is much simpler on YouTube since most people choose the video they will view based not on the title, which is the most logical thing, but on the thumbnail representing the video.
That is why it is so important to design our thumbnails, since if we do not do so, YouTube will present an image of the video as a thumbnail, which, if we are not careful, can be an empty frame or a screenshot of the announcer while he was speaking, which usually ends with a grimace. Uncomfortable This has two buts: the first is that these types of thumbnails do not represent the theme of the video. The second is that they are unprofessional and will negatively impact our brand’s image.
There is a section within the YouTube Studio application where they help us create thumbnails. There, we can choose between three different options for our video or add our own previously created thumbnails.
Remember, our miniatures must be relevant to their theme and, importantly, eye-catching. Looking at the video above, you’ll see that we immediately know what the video is about and who is presenting it, all with a blurred background to make the thumbnail as eye-catching as possible.
The title tag must be related to the video.
The mechanism of search intent on YouTube is straightforward: users select a video that aligns with their search query. If the chosen video fails to meet their expectations, they will click away and explore another option.
This is one of the SEO factors that both YouTube and Google take into account, so videos with high bounce rates risk dropping in their search rankings.
To reduce our bounce rate as much as possible, our videos must avoid bad practices that seek to improve SEO optimization at the expense of the user experience. Be very careful with this because there is nothing that giants like YouTube or Google like less than Black Hat SEO practices that affect the user experience.
An example of these bad practices would be keyword-priming our videos to increase their visibility at the cost of tagging them with keywords that are irrelevant to users.
The best solution is to carry out keyword research and focus on the best tools to search for keywords that fit our content. Suppose you find a keyword that interests you due to its search volume but does not fully align with any of your content. In that case, the solution is to create specific content for that keyword using the best tools to search for keywords. However, in no case should you add the keyword to already created content that does not fit with what the article or video contains.
The description must fit the content offered by the video
The descriptions for videos work in a very similar way to the meta descriptions used on different web pages. These should be relatively short and directly focus on the content topic, including some keywords we have previously selected with keyword research.
Again, it’s very important that we don’t fill our descriptions with keywords that don’t quite fit what we’re offering. If YouTube believes that we are trying to attract users with a false description, the platform will not hesitate to apply sanctions to our positioning on YouTube.
Today is not like before, and Google and YouTube bots or spiders have improved so much over the years that we have no choice but to focus on their guidelines and make sure that we really offer the viewer the content they are looking for by clicking on one of our videos.
Tags help categorize videos.
Video tags were of enormous importance long ago when the YouTube algorithm took more into account than the description and even the title itself. This has changed over time, and today, its role focuses solely on helping define the categories in which each video will be found.
Despite this, they still have their importance since, when combined with the title and description, video tags facilitate SEO positioning and can help boost our video’s search rankings.
Moreover, video tags assist Google in presenting videos that align with users’ search intent, thereby aiding users in discovering related videos when they search by selecting tags.
Video transcriptions are a fundamental part of SEO positioning on YouTube
The issue of transcriptions is, without a doubt, the Achilles heel of all those videos that, after paying attention to keywords, descriptions, and titles, cannot position themselves properly.
Transcribing videos is probably the best advice we can give in this guide for boosting your video’s SEO positioning.
Transcripts consist of the text found in our video subtitles. They may also appear in the comments section beneath the video.
Logically, the transcription will deal with the main topic researched for the video and include the keywords we have previously established. This is one of the reasons why transcripts are so important, as it encompasses everything bots need to classify a video in one place.
However, this is not its only advantage:
- Google crawls the texts of video transcripts when determining their web positioning.
- Allows people with hearing difficulties to follow the video content.
- By including the transcript in the description section or in the comments, we can add time markers to key points so that users looking for immediate answers can access the timestamp and get the content they need quickly. This is much more direct.
