Let's start this article with some numbers. This will help you understand the visibility impact that YouTube can have on your business.
YouTube, in 2022, has:
- 2.2 billion users worldwide
- 890 million visits per month and 63.9 million unique users in France
- An audience primarily composed of 25-35 year olds, both men and women. Like all search engines,
YouTube is a search engine. It is the second largest search engine by volume after Google. (Is TikTok soon to join the race? That's another topic, hehe). Like any search engine, YouTube has its own ranking algorithm.
Therefore, there is a list of best practices to follow to perform well on YouTube. The goal of this introductory article on YouTube x SEO is to provide you with some quick, impactful, and free actions to optimize the content of your channel.
The 3 Tips (SEO) to Optimize Your Video
1 - Optimize the Title and Description Tags of Your Video
Just like the Title Tag and Meta Tag of a website, the Title and Description fields are crucial on YouTube. To ensure your video is well-referenced, you need to:
- Choose a title that is neither too short nor too long (around 60 characters)
- Include your most important keywords in the title!
- Create a description rich in keywords.
👉 Refine the video title and video description
2 - Add Tags
Add tags to your videos! Tags significantly enhance your chances of having your video ranked better on YouTube's search engine.
YouTube allows you to use up to 500 characters for tags, so don't hold back—make the most of it!
👉 Create up to 500 characters of tags
(Tags are a bit hidden, click on more in the options to unlock them)
3 - Manually Add Subtitles to Your Videos!
I can't find the statistic, but I remember it being huge. Many users on the platform watch videos without sound. Therefore, it is advisable (even essential) to add subtitles to your videos.
YouTube automatically generates subtitles for your video, but depending on your articulation and the jargon used, the translations can sometimes be incorrect.
👉 Add subtitles manually to enhance the quality of the subtitles on your videos
Bonus: Download the VidIQ Chrome Extension
The extension (with the free version) allows you to:
- Conduct an audit of your videos (with a scoring system out of 100)
- Suggest semantic keyword ideas
- Analyze metrics like "views per hour"
And many other features to discover!
What's next?
Here are my 3 initial tips to easily optimize your videos on YouTube.
At Digidop, YouTube is an integral part of our SEO strategy and, more broadly, our inbound marketing strategy. YouTube is a real visibility lever for our company. As a bonus, the platform is free for creators!
I will soon create a comprehensive guide on optimizing a video for SEO on YouTube and integrating it into your SEO strategy!
