Video marketing has been a pivotal marketing tool in recent years and social media platforms such as YouTube are a crucial part of this growth. Data shows that the global average monthly watch time on the platform is around 15 hours per month, much of this is consumed on mobile devices that are easily accessible to millions of people worldwide. Taking this into consideration, digital marketers are taking advantage of the demand for unique, engaging, and entertaining content online.
Using videos for marketing can serve a lot of purposes. It can introduce and promote a brand, advertise a newly launched product, and even educate and entertain audiences. But given the popularity of video marketing as a campaign strategy, it can be difficult to pique draw the interest of your target audience to your content. There are tons of content creators on YouTube. All of which are vying for the attention of millions of viewers online.
Considering the tight competition on YouTube, it is important for digital marketers to understand how search engine optimization on the platform works. To give you a better idea, here’s a quick introduction and guide on how SEO works on YouTube videos.
Benefits Of Video Marketing On YouTube
Source: Pexels
Before we jump into the specifics of YouTube SEO, let’s first take a look at the advantages of conducting a marketing campaign on the platform.
YouTube is the biggest video-sharing platform
Despite the introduction and unprecedented growth of differing video-sharing and live-streaming platforms in recent years, YouTube still stands as the largest video-sharing social media site in the world. Reports show that YouTube has a whopping average of 2.2 billion monthly active users. In addition to this, roughly 5 billion videos are watched on the site every single day. With these numbers, YouTube trumps similar platforms such as TikTok. In comparison, Tiktok has a significantly lower monthly active user average of only 1,000 million.
YouTube offers expansive reach to diverse audiences
In relation to YouTube’s large number of monthly active users, marketing on this platform also offers access to a significantly expansive and diverse online demographic. YouTube is the second-most visited website globally and is particularly popular in different regions worldwide. Records show that the countries with the most active monthly users are widespread in countries in Asia and the Americas. India tops the list with roughly 467 million YouTube users. It is followed by the United States (247 M), Indonesia (139 M), Brazil (138 M), Russia (106 M), and Japan (102 M).
Aside from its global audience reach, YouTube is a popular social media platform with people of all ages. While people between the ages of 25 and 34 years old account for 20.2% of the total number of global YouTube viewers, other age demographic groups are not so far behind. Viewers between 25 to 44 years old account for 16.5%, while audiences between 18 to 24, 45 to 54, and 55 to 65+ years old account for 14.5%, 11.9%, and 18.6% respectively.
YouTube is compatible with both short-form and long-form video content
In terms of video creation, YouTube also has an edge over other platforms. Initially, YouTube is considered king when it comes to long-form video content. Viewers can find vlogs, explainer videos, how-to guides, product reviews, etc., that are at least 10 minutes long. However, the site added features that cater to different video formats.
In order to compete with TikTok-style short-form videos, YouTube introduced a new feature called YouTube Shorts. This addition is dedicated to short-form videos and snackable content where users can creators can post seconds-long clips, highlights, promos, and more. Aside from this, YouTube is also expanding to the video live streaming sphere with the continuous development of its YouTube Live feature. All in all, YouTube is a total package platform where creators can utilize different types of video content and media formats.
YouTube allows you to appear on Google search engine results pages
YouTube’s search engine optimization is not limited to the platform itself. Since YouTube is a part of Google, well-optimized videos will also appear on Google’s search engine results pages. Considering that Google is the most visited site on the internet, this opens more opportunities for marketers to produce content that can be visible to audiences outside of YouTube.
YouTube in itself can drive revenue
The primary goal of any business is to generate revenue. Other than using YouTube to advertise and promote your online business, you can also use your channel to earn some revenue through the platform’s monetization program. Once you’ve established your channel and gained quite a following, your YouTube videos can serve both as a digital marketing tool and a passive source of income.
How SEO Works on YouTube
Source: Pexels
Unlike other social media platforms, YouTube runs its own search engine analytics. This means that like Google, Bing, and other search engines on the internet, YouTube uses the quality, value, and relevance of content as the basis in order to provide accurate and adequate recommendations to its users. Much like Google, YouTube pays close attention to the contents of a video and ranks it depending on how much value it can offer to its user based on their search engine inputs.
However, another factor involves in YouTube SEO and ranking is the user’s watch history and preferences. Instead of relying solely on SEO analytics, YouTube also takes into account the type of video content a particular user commonly watches and prefers to watch. For example, a viewer who watches a lot of gaming-related content would be recommended videos from creators within the same niche or similar style. Utilizing user-generated content features allow the platform to create unique and personalized video recommendations for its users for a better user experience.
Taking these into consideration, how exactly can digital marketers optimize their online videos in order to improve their visibility on YouTube? Here are some helpful tips that can improve your YouTube videos’ SEO and ranking:
Conduct keyword research
Keyword research is essential in any search engine–related campaign. If you want to create content that is relevant, then up-to-date and timely keyword research can provide you with details of what exactly your target audience is looking for. This step provides digital marketers with an opportunity to provide the valuable information that their audience needs at a time when there is a high demand for it.
Optimize video titles and keyword
Another important step in YouTube optimization revolves around video titles and thumbnails. These two elements in social video content creation provide the viewers with a sneak peek of what your content is all about. Given that the title and thumbnail are the first things that people would see, it is important to make sure that it is designed to be engaging or intriguing. To improve visibility, always include the target keyword of your content in your video titles. As for the thumbnail, keep it dynamic and bright to make it attention-grabbing to encourage or entice viewers.
Add captions and transcripts
Search engine analytics are not capable of watching videos in order to judge their value and relevance. Much like articles and blog posts, YouTube’s SEO analytics relies on texts to preview a video’s content. Adding captions and transcripts to your video uploads allows YouTube to scan through your content. This also makes it possible for the software to identify the primary and related keywords used throughout the video and therefore boost its SEO ranking.
Bottomline
YouTube is a highly versatile social media platform. If used properly, digital marketers can effectively increase website traffic, gain valuable leads, as well as engage with a targeted audience. But for any YouTube video marketing campaign to be successful, it is important to have a deep understanding of how YouTube search engine optimization and ranking work.
Optimizing your content on YouTube can make your video marketing campaign run effectively and efficiently.
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