YouTube SEO How many keywords should I target and what's more important - spelling mistake tags or alternative keywords tags?

[maxfishwick]

Although I'm using the Keyword Explorer to select keywords that have a high weighted and unweighted score, I'm struggling to actually rank for those keywords.

My current strategy is:

1. Get a list of 10 relevant long-tail keywords, sorted by score (these keywords, whilst relevant to the video, will often have completely different syntax)
2. Build the title around the highest scoring keyword
3. Create the description around the 3 highest scoring keywords
4. Add the remaining high scoring keywords in the tag list.

Is there a better approach to make sure that I rank on the first page for more keywords?

Should I target less keywords (say 1-3) and include misspellings and very similar keywords in the tag list, rather than the remaining 4-10 keywords that still have a high-score but don't appear in my title or description?

 

[SILTHW]

Others will definitely have some opinions on this, but there are indications that misspellings may be less important than misused words. As in effect/affect confusion versus efect or afect misspellings. Focusing on strong keywords seems like a better strategy as long as you aren't adding keywords that have little to do with your content.

I use alternate spellings when I have room to add more but I've exhausted the "good" keywords.

 

[Laurenk]

I just upload the video and then check the SEO and if I haven't got 100% I add more and more until I've got it. Good luck

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

Nobody can say whether misspelling or alternative is better generally... rather you should look at each and see which appears to offer better performance. Make your decision based on traffic and competition for each on an individual video basis.

I really like your approach, it is very well informed. If you are having trouble ranking maybe attempt start with lower traffic (and higher scoring) keywords, you can always work your way back up the ladder. OR simply attempt to increase the amount of watchtime you are getting with the current keywords you are using. If you can increase your overall watchtime on one video by 1 minute you are going to see big difference in your performance.

Also, be sure that you are using channel tags and playlist metadata that aligns with your video tags!