YouTube SEO: How To Improve Content Marketing & Management

Businesses invest in SEO-driven content for good reason.

The audience you’re trying to reach rarely, if ever, sifts through page after page in of search results. In fact, the majority of searchers (95%) find what they’re looking for on the first page or adjust their search to get more accurate first page results.

This makes it very easy for content with a low ranking to get lost in the SERPs, especially if the content is published and never linked to again.

Though it can take time for content to earn a Page #1 ranking, it’s possible for your content to hit the front page with some strategic SEO work on your end.

But in order for your content to have any real chance at rising in rank (and reaching more people), the content has to appeal to and satisfy search intent.

Because YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google, businesses are more dedicated than ever to cultivating a strong YouTube presence.

Even if you’ve been optimizing blog and website content for years, the SEO process is different for YouTube than it is for Google.

In this article, we shed some light on these differences before detailing how you can optimize your YouTube content to reach a wider audience and ultimately convert more viewers into customers.

The Impact of Keyword Research on Content Visibility

Whether you’re optimizing YouTube videos, blogs, or other types of content, the mechanics of the SEO process remain the same: it begins with keyword research, every time.

From a content marketing standpoint, keyword research is a critical first step that allows you to identify new content opportunities.

Instead of guessing what type of content your target audience wants to see, you can know definitively by checking the search volume on short-tail and long-tail keywords.

Why is this important for YouTube SEO?

Your team might spend hours planning and then filming new content with an in-house video production setup. But all of this effort and production savvy falls by the wayside if your videos aren’t picked up in organic search.

By compiling a list of keywords with high search volume and low ranking difficulty, you can create content that you know appeals to your viewers.

Because the content matches search intent, you increase the odds of new viewers finding and watching your videos.

Finding Targeted Keywords For YouTube vs. Google

Keyword research is extremely important whether you want content to rank higher on Google, YouTube, or another search engine. Though this step is just as important for one search engine as it is for another, the actual process of finding keywords is different.

The difference stems from the fact that you’re dealing with two very distinctive search engines: YouTube as a video-centric platform and Google as a multimedia database.

Because of this, it’s possible that a keyword with a high search volume in YouTube will have a low search volume in Google, and vice versa.

For this reason, the SEO tools that you use for keyword research in Google, i.e., Ahrefs and SEMrush, may not be the best tools for YouTube SEO.

To find popular keywords and phrases for your YouTube content, a common approach is to use YouTube’s Search Suggest bar with the Keywords Everywhere extension (downloadable through Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome).

When you type in a keyword, a dropdown section appears with relevant search suggestions. With the extension, you can see the search volume, cost per click for paid advertising, and competition score of each suggested phrase.

VidIQ and TubeBuddy are two other plugins that can help in your search for high volume keywords.

Optimize YouTube Content For Higher Rankings

Once you identify targeted keywords and produce videos that relate to these keywords, there’s one final step to take before publishing the content on YouTube.

To increase your chances of the YouTube algorithm picking up your content, you should optimize all of the written copy attached to the video — from the video’s file name to the title to the description.

The reason behind this step is to make it evident to searchers (and search engine crawlers) that your content is relevant to their search. You can achieve this by including the targeted keyword or phrase intentionally (albeit sparingly) throughout the copy.

After publishing new YouTube videos, the content will be ranked based on factors like watch time, channel authority, and engagement.

By optimizing the copy about your video — and avoiding keyword stuffing at all costs — you set your video up to appear in more searches and get more views.

As long as the video content is good quality, and relevant to YouTube users, these new views can lead to improvements in your YouTube engagement and channel growth.

To help take your YouTube channel to the next level, this GrowthHackers course provides expert insight on how you can strategically grow and monetize your brand.

While it may take time to see major results from your YouTube SEO efforts, this type of strategic content creation on YouTube will pay off in the long run with enough dedication and consistency.

Mackenzie is a copywriter at Soundstripe, a music licensing company that provides filmmakers with royalty free background music.