Did you know that YouTube is the most used search engine after Google? The video platform is still growing exponentially, with more than 500 hours of video getting uploaded every minute from all over the world. So how can you make sure that your videos do not get lost in the sea of channels on YouTube?
Creating unique and good-quality videos is often not enough to become popular on YouTube. You also need to follow the best SEO practices to optimize them for searches. We assume that you already know how YouTube search works and why it is necessary to boost SEO on the platform. In this post, we will discuss five easy methods to boost your YouTube SEO strategy.
Add Your Own Closed Captions
Most people who upload videos on YouTube opt for the Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) captions. The ASR technology is based on lip-reading, which does not make it 100% percent accurate. Moreover, it has difficulty understanding certain accents and often results in incomprehensible subtitles.
You should also know that Google thinks of automatically generated gibberish as spam and penalizes it. Therefore, if you choose automatic captions on YouTube, there is a risk of your video getting labeled as spam and losing search engine ranking. Closed captions are also essential for people with disabilities.
So if your video is not supported with accurate close captions, you might lose a large chunk of viewership. Therefore, it is best to generate and add your own closed caption file for your videos. That way, search bots can crawl through those closed captions and rank your video appropriately.
The easiest way to generate your own captions and transfer is to use an automated tool and then rectify it manually. Accurate closed captions can increase engagement, likes, shares, and comments for your videos to boost their search ranking.
Add a Transcript in the Video Description
YouTube allows you to put 4850 characters, including spaces in the video description. It is adequate to fit a transcript for almost a 10-minute video with a lot of dialogues. If you feel that it is not enough for your entire transcript, you can put a truncated version with a link to the full transcript.
Video descriptions are the first thing search bots use to index videos. Therefore, make sure that your transcript is keyword optimized according to your video topic so that it can work as fuel for YouTube SEO. You may not realize it, but you can use transcripts to achieve much more for inbound marketing. You can include useful links to content such as blogs, infographics, and fact sheets.
Offer Closed Captions in Multiple Languages
Closed captions in multiple languages are a great way to expand your audience on YouTube in the United States and beyond. You may not realize it, but you might have many viewers who do not speak English. For example, almost 30% of residents in Texas speak Spanish, so including Spanish closed captions can make your video accessible to them.
You might have viewers from many other countries that do not speak or understand English. Therefore including closed captions in multiple languages can expand your viewership beyond the borders of the United States.
The presence of foreign language in closed captions will also ensure that Google ranks your YouTube videos for viewers in those countries. You will also have an edge over your competition to target non-English keywords. However, make sure that you have a system to check the accuracy of the foreign language subtitles.
Include Keyword-Optimized Title and Tags
You should include keywords and phrases in the title and tags for your video that describe the content accurately and match words or phrases that your target audience might use to search. For example, if your video is about making Paella, make sure you include keywords like Spanish food in the title, video description, and tags.
However, keep in mind that Google has started penalizing keyword stuffing practices, so refrain from doing that. The easiest way to include keywords is to ensure that your content is written for humans and not search bots. Research is necessary to find the target keywords.
So make sure you use tools like Google Trends and Google analytics apart from YouTube’s free video analytics tool to find the right keywords. Long-tail keywords are often more productive than short-tail keywords. For example, ‘Paella recipe from Valencia’ will probably fetch a better ranking and more views than simply using the keyword ‘Paella.’
Make sure that you include such long-tail keywords in the title, meta description, and tags. If you want to upload your video on platforms other than YouTube, make sure that you use varied keywords, or you might end up competing against yourself on Google.
Speak Your Target Keyword in Your Videos
Including keywords in title, transcripts, close captions, descriptions, and tags would only seem natural if those keywords exist in the video content. So make sure that you include those keywords in the dialogues of your video.
Otherwise, they might seem irrelevant and misplaced, which could hurt your search ranking. Including keywords in video content and dialogues will ensure that they get naturally included in the closed captions and transcripts without any additional efforts.
People who are well-versed with YouTube SEO might feel that these methods are old. But rest assured that all of these are time-tested tips that are definitely not outdated. Any person can use these tips without any technical knowledge about SEO techniques. We can assure you that these methods will surely boost search ranking and viewership for your YouTube videos.
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