Focusing on YouTube SEO is important for any online marketer because it allows them to reach millions of potential customers. YouTube SEO helps you get found by Google and other search engines. You can also use it to promote your YouTube channel, gain subscribers and grow your audience. Here are some YouTube SEO best practices teachers can use to grow their online teaching channel.
How is YouTube SEO different from Google search SEO?
YouTube SEO is a bit different from Google Search SEO. There are many differences between the two platforms. One of the biggest differences is that YouTube doesn’t use search engine optimization (SEO). Instead, YouTube relies heavily on engagement signals like watch times, likes, dislikes, and comments.
In addition, backlinks aren’t nearly as important on YouTube as on Google Search. While backlinks still play a role, they are less important than on Google Search because YouTube users tend to share links through other social media sites.
What is YouTube algorithm?
YouTube algorithm works in such a way that if you upload a video, it will determine which videos will be recommended based on your interest and the quality of your video. Several factors affect a video’s ranking, including the number of times someone clicks on your video.
Whether they click on your video after viewing another video or like your video, you can also optimize your video for YouTube search by using keywords and descriptions that match the viewer’s search terms.
YouTube SEO is a tricky thing to get right. If you’re not careful, you could spend months trying to optimize your videos and still not see any results. That’s why we’ve put together YouTube SEO best practices for you in detail.
1. Keyword research
Keyword research is an important step in any online marketing strategy. First, you need to understand your audience’s keywords to find information about your product or service. Once you know your target market’s terms, you can create content around those topics.
Your content should answer questions like “What does my customer want?” and “How can I help them?”
2. Optimize your videos for search
YouTube wants you to optimize your videos for search. That means ensuring your videos are high quality and contain keywords that will help them rank higher in searches. You should also submit your videos to other sites like Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.
Because those social media channels can help boost your views. Finally, you should create a website for your channel and link to it from every video you upload.
3. Tagging with important keywords
Tagging videos with relevant keywords is easy to increase visibility on YouTube search results pages. Search bots will crawl every piece of text in your video, looking for the keyword. Once you’ve tagged your video, double-check that you haven’t violated copyright restrictions upon uploading your video.
4. Video SEO is about more than keywords
You should include them in your video’s title, tags, and description. Your video title should be relevant to what you’re talking about, and your description should explain what your video is all about. Of course, you’ll get more views if you add a keyword to your video title. But if you write a great description, you’ll get more clicks.
5. Optimize your video for all platforms
You should optimize your videos for both YouTube and Facebook. First, you should create a separate account for each platform. Then, if you already have an account for one of those platforms, you should link your accounts together. This will allow you to share your content across all three platforms.
6. Video analytics
You should also keep an eye on your video analytics to see what type of content works best for your audience. For example, you may notice trends in the videos that get the most views or that certain keywords tend to bring in more traffic.
These insights can help you create more effective marketing campaigns in the future. If you aren’t sure how to start analyzing your video analytics, check out our guide to using Google Analytics for YouTube.
7. Video sitemap
A video sitemap is similar to a regular sitemap. You should include all the URLs of your videos in the sitemap. Once submitted to Google Webmaster Tools, you can expect your videos to rank higher in search results.
8. Increase your watch time
If you’re trying to increase your watch time, start teasing out what will happen next in the video. You can also try to tease out the value proposition at the end of the video. For example, if you’re selling a product, tell them why they should buy it before they even see the price tag. If you’re giving an opinion about something, let them know what you think will happen if they follow your advice.
How can YouTube SEO be used?
YouTube SEO best practices can be used in various parts of your video to help it be good on the Youtube algorithm and appear high in rankings on the YouTube search results.
Description
YouTube description of your video is very important in the criteria of the YouTube Algorithm. To write a YouTube SEO-friendly description, one needs to understand the keywords. Use should be able to write a relevant and catchy description that creates the interest of the viewer. Also, the use of keywords should be good, and the hashtags used should be 3-4 to get it easily and mark a check in the algorithm criteria.
Thumbnail
Your thumbnail should also mention your video and be attractive with a focus on the intent of the video. It should give an idea of what the video is about. Using thumbnails, you can help in improving the rankings of your YouTube video.
Title
The title of your video should have the focus keyword. It is important to keep the title to have the main keyword as the focus and use it properly to help in improving the rankings of the video in the YouTube search.
Final Thoughts
Remember, quality is everything. If you spend money on marketing, you need to invest in high-quality video content. You’ll see more organic traffic when you start producing higher-quality content. Keep your focus on YouTube SEO and follow the above-mentioned points.
If you need more help to grow your online classes or coaching business, Classplus will provide a platform for you to host the system. You can conduct live sessions, share recorded lectures with your students, share pdf files, etc. Give it a try!
YouTube SEO Tips For Teachers FAQs
A1. YouTube SEO definitely helps with making your channel rank according to YouTube’s Algorithm. SEO optimizes your videos to bring them to a higher ranking in the YouTube search engine.
A2. To write an SEO-friendly description for your YouTube Video, you need to focus on the use of keywords in your description. The keyword should be specific, and you should know where to use it, how to track it back, what your audience is watching, and what keyword is being the most searched. Knowing this, you can write a good SEO-friendly YouTube description.
A3. To get good ranking keywords, use multiple tools such as Google Trends, Google Keyword planner, Ahrefs, Tube Buddy, Keyword Tool for YouTube, etc.
A4. Ideally, you should use 3-4 hashtags only because YouTube has mentioned that if you use more than 15 hashtags, it will ignore your video and only the first 3 hashtags are visible with your title and description.
A5. An SEO checklist is like creating a to-do list of all your SEO works, such as On-Page SEO, that includes the use of keywords, short URLs, Image optimization, compelling meta title, meta description, and other aspects of the SEO.
