How to Rank Youtube Videos

27 replies
Step #1: Find “Video Keywords”

For whatever reason Google deems certain keywords “Video Keywords”. Unlike a normal SERP with 10 webpage results, Google saves some of the page for video results.



Video keywords are ideal for the simple reason that I’ve found it easier to rank videos for video keywords than for keywords with a normal top 10.

That’s because video results are like a SERP within a SERP.

And if you can get Google to consider your video one of the top 2-4 videos for that keyword, you can zoom past the normal results…

…directly to the first page!

The easiest way to find video keywords is to look for keywords in your niche with video results.

Because these don’t take a lot of time to make, you don’t need keywords with massive search volume.

Just make sure the keyword gets at least 300 exact match searches per month in Google.

In general, Google tends to use video results for these types of keywords:

How-t0 keywords (“how to shave a cat”)
Reviews (“Bluehost review”)
Tutorials (“Setting up WordPress”)
Anything fitness or sports related (“Cardio kickboxing”)
Funny videos (“Cute animals”)
It’s also important to be able to easily monetize the traffic you get.

If you’re using the video to drive traffic directly to your site, then you’re covered.

If not, take a look at sites like Offer Vault and see if there are any high-paying CPA offers that you can build videos around.



Step #2: Make Your Video

Now it’s time to make your video!

Because I want people to actually get something from my videos I make them look somewhat professional. I use ScreenCast-O-Matic because it’s cheap ($15/year) and easy to use. If you want something with more bells and whistles you can’t go wrong with Camtasia Studio.

Like with articles, longer video content ranks better:

You want your video to be at least 5-minutes long.

I like to make a nice slideshow in Powerpoint and record my voice over it. If the video is a review, use the product in your video.

Just remember to make a professional, value-packed video.

Why?

First, it helps your conversion rate.

Second, your a large portion of YouTube SEO is based on user-interaction signals.



If you make a quality video you’re more likely to get views, likes, and comments.

When you’re done with the video make sure that you use the keyword in the video’s filename. If you wanted to rank for the keyword “bluehost review”, you’d want to name your video bluehost_review_youtube_video.mp4.

There’s no need to keyword stuff. As long as the keyword appears once in the filename, you’re good.



Step #3: Upload Your Video With YouTube SEO in Mind


Now it’s time to upload your video to YouTube.

Video Title

Make a long title so that you can include your full keyword without keyword-stuffing. In my Bluehost Review video the title contains 5 words…only 2 of which are my target keyword:



Power Tip: Like with a blog post, I’ve found that you get a slight video SEO boost by putting your keyword at the beginning of the title.

So if you were trying to rank for “surfing tutorial” you’d want a title like: Surfing Tutorial: Learn How to Ride a Wave Today

Description

Your description is very, very important. Because Google and YouTube can’t “listen” to videos, they rely on your text description to determine your video’s content.

Here are the basic guidelines for the description:

Put your link at the very top of the video
Include your keyword in the first 25 words
Make the description at least 350-words
Include LSI keywords
Include your keyword 3-4 times
This SEO-optimized description helps tell Google and YouTube what your video is about without being spammy.

Tags

Just include a few keywords to help YouTube and Google learn what your video is about.



Category

This isn’t incredibly important. Most review videos fall under “How to & style”.

Once you’re done, hit “Save Changes” and your video will go live!

Step #4: Get Video Views

The #1 ranking factor for YouTube’s search engine is the number of views a video gets.

In general, the more views, the higher it ranks.

But there’s one catch…

…the views need to be real.

YouTube has caught onto fake views. That’s why I don’t recommend using a service on Fiverr to pump up your view count.

For views to actually count you need a real person to watch your video. And the longer they watch, the higher your video will rank in YouTube.

I used a YouTube view service to get real, human views (you can also use MicroWorkers.com or Amazon Mechanical Turk).

Whichever service you use make sure that people view at least 40% of your video. Viewer retention is HUGE for ranking in YouTube’s internal search engine.

Also, make sure you get some likes, favorites, and comments in there as well.

This makes your video look like it’s getting a lot of positive user-interaction.

Step #5: Link Building

One of my favorite things about YouTube videos is that you can build links like it’s 2009!

Because of YouTube’s insane trust and authority, it’s almost impossible for YouTube video pages to get slapped by Google.

It also doesn’t hurt that Google owns YouTube :-)

Here are the three steps to rank any YouTube video for a low to medium-competition keyword.

Build PAD Links

PAD links are simple .exe files that you upload to authority software sharing sites.

In exchange for submitting your piece of original software, the software directories hook you up with a dofollow link.

While you can do this manually, I prefer to hire someone to create and submit the PAD for me (You can find PAD creation and submission services on Fiverr):



Social Bookmarks

I’m normally not a huge fan of social bookmarks.

But remember: you’re building links like it’s 2009. Which means social bookmarks actually work.

Again, Fiverr comes to the rescue again. This gig has worked well for me:



Blog Network Links

While I don’t recommend public blog networks links for your actual site, they’re perfect for YouTube videos.

You can easily find decent blog network providers on internet marketing forums.

Just make sure that you use a network with original (not spun) content.

Rinse and Repeat

It takes a week or two for the views and links to do their work.

Once they do, you’ll notice an uptick in your natural views…and clicks on your video’s outbound link.

If you’re not ranked highly in YouTube or Google after a few weeks, order a few more high-quality views and links.

That’s all there is to it!

YouTube SEO is a great way to earn money from keywords that may not be worth building an entire site around.

Please click "Thank You" button if you found this useful.

Happy YouTube Traffic Hunting
#rank #traffic #videos #youtube
  • Profile picture of the author sandy007
    Realy Nice Trick .....Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author Assignmentwriter
    Thanks to share great tactics for you tube. i want also start my campaign on you tube but making a video is tough job for me because i have no proper tool to use make videos. i want convert my slides in videos you mentioned screencastomatic is this best for converting ppt in videos.
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  • Profile picture of the author sarah23
    Great tips.
    I always upload SEO rich videos.
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  • Profile picture of the author Area
    great tips ! i wil try to apply this ! thx
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  • Profile picture of the author Imaveryluckyman
    nice tips thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author melvinsh
    Good tip I've been doing this for years.
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  • Profile picture of the author pkarl
    Nice tips. Thanks for sharing useful information.
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  • Profile picture of the author nizum26
    good tips.thak you so much
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  • Profile picture of the author Ihate9to5
    That this first time I ever heard about pad files or links.Thanks for the tutorial.
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  • Profile picture of the author @i
    i would say for when you use these kind of tactics they dont work long term, i would suggest using it on like a video that you have made again possibly from fiverr and posting it under a new youtube account using a new ip etc.. As ive used cheap spammy llink services sometimes and also view generation services and it has banned my videos but it does work fantastic for temporarily increasing search results.

    thanks for the tips good luck too everyone using this method
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  • Profile picture of the author varsrad
    Sorry to say, I tried every bit of these on some of my youtube videos. But still today I could rank them on first page, I tried to create videos for my own website, for affiliate products and all that stuffs based on many such guides. I created good backlinks using social bookmark, youtube views etc etc.,

    But even after getting good amount of social bookmark and other stuffs, none of my youtube videos got on first page. Note that the keywords which I used is pretty much low to medium competition and there wasn't any videos on the first page.

    So it is not that easy as we point out, there should be some good stuffs needs to be done to get our video ranked well. Also, I am not sure how does the traffic flows if we rank your vides on first page.

    Just my views on ranking videos.
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    • Profile picture of the author RicF
      There's more to ranking video than keywords - see my post in #12 - get that course - it answered all my questions and it will for you to. $27 with MBG so no risk.


      Originally Posted by varsrad View Post

      Sorry to say, I tried every bit of these on some of my youtube videos. But still today I could rank them on first page, I tried to create videos for my own website, for affiliate products and all that stuffs based on many such guides. I created good backlinks using social bookmark, youtube views etc etc.,

      But even after getting good amount of social bookmark and other stuffs, none of my youtube videos got on first page. Note that the keywords which I used is pretty much low to medium competition and there wasn't any videos on the first page.

      So it is not that easy as we point out, there should be some good stuffs needs to be done to get our video ranked well. Also, I am not sure how does the traffic flows if we rank your vides on first page.

      Just my views on ranking videos.
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanbiddulph
    Great tutorial! Always save files with SEO in mind to get extra Google juice, and looking up according to video keywords is the smart way to mimic successful niches.
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  • Profile picture of the author Matthew Anton
    You stole this from Brian Dean of Backlinko:
    YouTube SEO: How to Rank Videos

    Give credit where it's due you newb
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    • Profile picture of the author LastWarrior
      Thank you!... for the share darkc0de1! I actually learned a thing or two. Take care fellow Warrior!

      =====================================

      Originally Posted by Matthew Anton View Post

      You stole this from Brian Dean of Backlinko:
      YouTube SEO: How to Rank Videos

      Give credit where it's due you newb
      Looks like you are right MA, but if you read again, he never claimed it was his stuff and he shared it here and asked for a "Thanks". There's a saying... "Nothing is new under the sun". While it's more of a thinking process than a concrete statement, there is some truth in it. Who here came to be upon their own wisdom? NO ONE! We've been learning since birth in the beginning from our parents, siblings, teachers and other children for starters.

      I don't recall where I gained most of my knowledge individually, but when it's something fresh, I do give kudos at times. OP may not be as informed of the ways things are here or abroad. Not all cultures are the same as here in N. America. Sorry for the long gab, but I just think you were harsh saying "...you newb"... as if it were something derogatory and furthering the beating by saying "stole".

      You too were a newb at many things too my fellow warrior.

      Words to ponder. Peace out!

      LastWarrior
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  • Profile picture of the author socoman
    nice old one im using this methode for a while its useful
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  • Profile picture of the author Malteaser
    Great stuff... I actually use some of those methods to rank myself. YouTube is an incredible place to market as it is so much easier to rank compared to blogging! I have even managed to rank within 3 days for buyer keywords
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  • Profile picture of the author IMStrategus
    by the way, annotations and subtitles work amazingly well for seo.
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    I lie on marketing forums. Social media is for fun, pics & hook ups.

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  • Profile picture of the author JoelDean
    Actually it's easy to rank Youtube videos as long you'll follow these 3 steps.

    1. Video Optimization
    2. Backlinks
    3. Frequency

    I've ranked always my videos on the top 3 not only on long tail keyword!
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  • Profile picture of the author jwebb117
    This is helpful. Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author Etoot
    Hi darkc0de1,

    If you want to rank your YouTube video then do the following things;

    1) Write a clear video title so that it can truly reflect what inside the video
    2) Write a detailed description or short script of the video
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  • Profile picture of the author harribo
    Anyone noticing results from this?
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  • Profile picture of the author banwork
    If you use Google AdWords for video aka YouTube advertising to your guide as the method to get more views, you solve one of the most difficult parts of your system!
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    Thank you to the 400+ warriors that chose to buy my Facebook WSO granting lifetime access to my Udemy course!

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    • Profile picture of the author smedia11
      There is real solid information in this post. Thanks!

      Backlinko is a great site too
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  • Profile picture of the author stuartdell92
    Thanks for the tips! I also think aside from what you said, backlinks also matters for your videos to rank high on SERPs. Social exposure also matters!
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