SEO on YouTube: Positioning a Video from Scratch
Hello, link building enthusiasts! This time I come with an important challenge and I will be honest with you from...
Nuria Cámaras León
7 years ago
This time I come with an important challenge and I will be honest from the start: I have never ranked a video on YouTube from scratch, but I do know the tricks and techniques that people who do it often use.
And I have decided to give it a try.
Because yes. I am one of those who think that only by experimenting do we learn.
And we need to put things into practice.
But Nuria, crazy goat, how are you going to teach something about SEO on YouTube if you have never done it before?
The answer is simple: by doing it together
So yes. I have set out to rank our press release video on YouTube: in the Top 1 of the searches on this social network that ranks just below Facebook in terms of popularity; and in the Top 1 of Google.
Will you join the Unancor YouTube SEO experiment?
Well, I’m going to tell you the first steps I have taken in this part I of the experiment.
Table of contents
Ranking a video on YouTube step by step from scratch
I would like to start this post about ranking on YouTube with a quote from the great Marie Curie:
“In life, there is nothing to fear, only to understand.”
(Well, I can understand it quickly, as my reputation is at stake)
Well, jokes aside. Let's get to the point:
Creating a YouTube channel
It’s not a big mystery and I won’t go into these details for beginners. We are SEOs through and through and we know very well how to open a new YouTube channel.
You know it’s associated with a Google account, that you can choose the name, and that, to avoid looking cheap, you should place a photo and a cover image that fit the standard sizes and the theme of your channel (I recommend using tools like Canva or going to Fiverr to hire a design for 5 USD)
This Unancor already had done, so I haven’t touched anything at all. Since it’s a company, we placed the logo in both places and didn’t complicate our lives too much.
Nothing new under the sun.
What I am interested in is explaining what I did to improve the On Page SEO optimization of the YouTube channel because, since we are at it, we might as well do it right from the start:
Channel description and SEO optimization
It’s essential that you create a good description text that includes the main keywords related to your activity.
I am a big fan of Seolyze for these things (I recommend reading my Seolyze tutorial guide if you have never used it before)
Basically, this tool analyzes the top 10 results and shows you the relationship of words included in the texts of those results. Well, for Unancor, what I did was apply the logic and write a text that includes words like:
- Link building
- SEO
- Press releases
- Newspapers
- Sponsored articles
- Links in the press
- Press statements
- Blogs
- Digital Marketing
- Entrepreneurs
- Online Visibility
- Businesses
- Ecommerce
You can also take a look at Google’s suggestions for your main keywords, as well as the titles and meta descriptions of your competitors and the top results on page 1 of Google.
The description turned out like this: https://www.youtube.com/c/Unancorcom/about
From your YouTube panel, you can go to the More information - Customize Channel section and enter the new description there.
You can also add links to your social media. Since we are big fans of the social wheel for brand positioning, I have placed links to Unancor's website, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and the blog.
How to verify a YouTube channel
The next step was to carry out the verification of the YouTube channel to associate it with Unancor's website. To do this, go to the “Creator Studio” option and in the left sidebar select Channel - Advanced options. The YouTube verification system to associate a website with your channel works exactly like any verification system. You just have to enter the URL of your website in the “associated website” section and click “verify.” You can do this by uploading an HTML file to the root folder of your website, entering a meta tag in your WordPress editor… You know, the typical options. Well, with the channel already optimized for SEO and verified, we can move on to uploading the video we want to rank in the Top 1 for the keyword “press releases” or “how to make press releases.”Creating a video for YouTube
Again, I’m going to be honest here: I hate everything that has to do with video and recording images, voice, etc. If you are like me and laziness invades your soul, take out the cash and buy a video on Fiverr. The one they prepared for us to try to rank the keyword “press releases” is not great and we would have liked it with some drawings, a bit more visual, without so much text. But there was no time and it ended up like this. It’s not very pretty, but the information is relevant, which is ultimately what matters. What we did was write a text as if it were a blog post (in fact, we based it on this article on writing press releases) and read it with background music.- We recorded the voice with the mobile recorder.
- We incorporated the music with the program Goldwave and later adapted it with FL Studio 12.
- We sent it to the gig we selected on Fiverr.
SEO for YouTube videos
With the video in our hands, and after a couple of modifications, we had it. We just needed to publish it, optimize it, and give it some life on social media. So that’s what we did on February 15th. On a social media level, we posted a tweet to gain some virality from influencers in the SEO sector (who must be a bit fed up with our stalking CM). We achieved interaction in the form of comments, retweets, and likes.⊗ FIRST ERROR IN THE EXPERIMENT
After this, I realized that I made the first mistake that would lead me to delete the video and upload it again today, February 20: I uploaded the unoptimized MP4 video file and placed a bland thumbnail image that did not capture attention and was also not previously optimized.
If you don’t want the same to happen to you, I recommend continuing to read.
Optimize the video for SEO
I still remember it and it frustrates me because this mistake has delayed me by 5 days. But it doesn’t matter, now we have the new SEO-optimized video uploaded to our YouTube channel. And we are going to position it! Alright. Uploading a video to YouTube is easy. You just have to click on the little arrow in the upper right menu and select your file to upload. BUT FIRST: OPTIMIZE THAT VIDEO FOR SEO. To do this, go to the folder where your video is saved, right-click on it, and select "properties."
Here we will introduce valuable information for the YouTube algorithm that will help us maximize the chances of positioning our video on YouTube ahead of competitors:
- Title: Include the keyword, but it should not be the same title you put for the video on your channel.
- Rating: Mark 5 stars. This may not help at all, but if your competitor hasn't done it, it could be an advantage. You never know.
- Tags: here you can use Google's suggestions or long-tail keywords related to your keyword to position.
- Comment: Use this space to add new related keywords and to explain what your video is exactly about.
Click the apply button and another thing done.
We're getting closer.
YouTube Thumbnail
Now that you have uploaded your optimized video and haven't made the same mistake I did, we will move on to changing the thumbnail image of the video on YouTube, which is the image displayed in the YouTube results list and on Google when our video is ranked in Top 1.
Again, you can go to Fiverr to request a thumbnail image (the dimensions are 1280 x 720 px, maximum 2MB, aspect ratio 16:9, and format jpg, png, gif, or bmp). I created ours in just 5 minutes with the Canva tool (choose the youtube thumbnail option)
Keys for a good thumbnail image that grabs attention in YouTube results:
- Use colors like red, yellow, or green to attract attention.
- Place your title in large letters. Here, as a good copywriter, I had to apply some technique to create a title that grabs attention, so I incorporated numbers, words like “tricks,” “secrets,” “the whole truth about” or similar, and the word “tutorial.”
- I found the image on Pixabay and liked that it had a clock (time is running out) and a dollar sign (you lose money as time passes). Conclusion: you need to learn to write successful press releases now.
Well, with the image already created, we just need optimization and uploading.
How to Optimize the Thumbnail for SEO
To optimize it, we will do the same as with the MP4 file. Right-click on your image and select “properties.” This time we will only change the capture date (again we put February 20, 2018)
How to Change the YouTube Thumbnail
From the Creator Studio section, click the edit button for the video you uploaded to your channel.
Now click on change image and upload your new thumbnail image already optimized for SEO.
Advanced Video Settings
We have our video uploaded, the thumbnail image placed, and we just need to tweak a few things in the advanced settings and enter the video description optimized for SEO.
Category
The rest of the videos that appear in the top positions on YouTube have selected the category "people and blogs," so I have selected the same.
Location
If you want to position your video on YouTube for a specific territory (local SEO on YouTube), you would need to put it here. For this case, I recommend geolocating your thumbnail image and adding the coordinates of the territory in question before uploading it to YouTube. You can use pages like Geolmgr, but I recommend reading more about this topic in Juan Carballo's post on geolocating photographs.
Language
Spanish.
Recording Date
February 20, 2018.
Subtitles
From the subtitles section, you can click on the automatic ones that appear as a base and then on the "edit" button. These automatic subtitles often have errors, so it's worth reviewing them and taking the opportunity to introduce keywords that YouTube will read and use to place you in one position or another in its ranking.
Video Description
Here the SEO is very similar to what you can do for any post on your blog. You know, include your main keyword, longtails, and semantically related words with the content of the video. With a text of 300-500 words and well optimized, it will suffice.
At the end of the description, I took the opportunity to link to Unancor's blog post related to the video, the landing page to buy premium press releases, and Unancor's Twitter.
Tags
Here we have included keywords related to the theme of the video, as well as the names of our main competitors in terms of writing and publishing press releases.
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By carrying out all these techniques, with the video just published today, February 20, 2018, we appear:
- In the position 13 of the YouTube results list for the keyword “press releases”;
- In the position 1 for “premium press releases” and “press release 2018”;
- In the position 9 for “how to make press releases”;
- And in the position 17 for “press release”.
And now yes, our video is published on YouTube:
Now we need to apply link building for YouTube videos and analyze how it evolves.
Are you encouraged to follow the experiment with us? Subscribe to the blog and I will notify you when I publish the second part of this series of posts about how to position videos on YouTube and optimize videos for SEO on this social network with so many millions of views per day.
In Part II of SEO for YouTube, I hope to tell you that I have improved the positioning of the video and show you some of the embeds and links that I have placed to give it strength and make it rise to infinity and beyond.
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Any doubts or contributions? The comments section is yours.
