- 2,644
- 25
- Subscriber Goal
- 250000
YouTube is a funny place. So many times I hear stories about how someone heard something somewhere and they get so completely entranced in that thing as pure Gospel truth. Rumors like this are rampant; things like the dislike button hurting your video (it doesn't) you can avoid copyright strikes/claims by giving credit to the musician or only using 2 seconds of their track (you can't) and YouTube hates you and wants to hold back small creators (they don't). I'm not sure why people get so wrapped up in these mythological ideas, but it appears as though TubeBuddy itself gets wrapped into them as well. In a recent article Kushal Rai Vlogs asks how to get a video to rank and man... some of the theories that get thrown around in there! There is some misinformation running around. Let's clear a few things up and take a moment to figure out how we need to get a video to rank.
For starters, @Dr_Alan_Science had this to say:
"I have newly come acrors something that says the SEO part is only 10% of video success. People who don't optimize for SEO can also rank. The content, language and organization of the video is the most important."
This is correct... kind of. Look, YouTube is really good at what they do. Google Brain is insane. Last week I attended the Expand Your Reach conference hosted by Luria Petruccia and Live Streaming Pro's and in one of their panels Dee Nimmin was discussing Google Brain. It showed a breakdown of a thumbnail that had been run through GB and they were able to tell that the image depicted a girl in a town eating a hamburger and she looked happy. And that it was a Carl's Jr. hamburger.
That is the program that YouTube uses to look at your Thumbnails and watch your videos in order to determine what audience your video needs to get served out to.
So If Google Brain Is So Great Why Do We Need To Do Anything At All?
YouTube gives you an opportunity to help them out. They want your input on your own video. They want to know who you think this should be seen by. So they give weighted preference to the metadata presented at the beginning of the title, the first 200 characters of the description and the to a lesser extent the tags.
99% of video performance is based on viewer reaction. The title/description isn’t for you to signal YouTube some mighty, magic info to go viral… it’s to inform the human being looking for something to watch what your video is about. This is a chance for you to help propagate a human response (that will then in turn flag YouTube as to who is enjoying this video… and who is not).
Ranking a video is actually really easy. Make a great video. ThatΓÇÖs it. If you make a one-hour video that gets 140% retention do you think that it wonΓÇÖt top the search ranks?
When you are asking how to rank a video what you are really asking is how do I rank my video. As in, ΓÇÿmy video doesnΓÇÖt perform as well and I want to try and break into the search ranks so I can get some views.ΓÇÖ ThatΓÇÖs fair, we all want that. But be mindful; your performance is going to determine your rank. Not your tags, not your keyword research and definitely not your SEO score. If your video does not perform as well as the videos it is competing against it is not going to rank.
The key here is to target long-tail keyword phrases. Instead of using a keyword like ‘fishing’ I target ‘surf fishing on a texas beach’ or ‘fishing for sharks on padre island.’ This is far more specific and therefore has less traffic… but it also has less competition. This also builds authority in a niche. If I make two dozen videos with similar keyword phrases like this then I start to build a repertoire as an authority on the subject, and it helps me to in turn build authority and gain rank for more elusive terms like ‘padre island,’ surf fishing’ and ‘texas beach.’
Once you have done your research and narrowed down the topic of your video you are going to need to implement this information into your video metadata. As mentioned before; keep your primary-targeted tag in the beginning of the title and early in the description. Also… and nobody will confirm this is true but there is a lot of evidence to support this… it doesn’t hurt to actually say your keyword phrase in the video’s first 30 seconds. YT confirms that they are listening to your video… and that the first 30 seconds is more heavily weighted than the rest.
There are things that you can do to help signal YouTube that this is a good video. Maybe it doesn’t go off for your audience; I personally make fishing vlogs but I will do the occasional How-To video and man my audience does not enjoy them. These videos aren’t made for people who already know how to fish. But after they get through the grinder they hit Search and after a couple weeks they start to gain steam and then they do just fine. YouTube is also looking at your performance in different traffic sources, they see this stuff happening. You can perform well in Suggested and poorly in Search, and YouTube will share you out more in that traffic source than the other. Sharing your video on Facebook, forums and websites helps YouTube to get a better understanding not only of your video but of the traffic sources that your video performs well in. Also worth noting… you can and will rank for things that you do not put into your video. Just because you have entered 500 characters worth of tags does not mean that these are the sole keywords that YT is going to focus on. If for some reason I make a fishing vlog about sharks at the beach but for some reason people who search for beach vacation really like my video yeah, it will rank for that regardless of whether I use it. This is also how the translated Descriptions/Titles work in your favor; you can rank for terms in other languages without entering those into the tags. Look at this screenshot;
This reflects the people who have watched and enjoyed my video regardless of my metadata. Your keyword phrases help to guide YouTube in the direction that you think it needs to go and YouTube will heed your advice. But the most important aspect is video performance. Focus on making your videos better with every publish. Make better thumbnails, get better retention… be always improving. And along the way you need to maximize your growth with solid keyword research.
For starters, @Dr_Alan_Science had this to say:
"I have newly come acrors something that says the SEO part is only 10% of video success. People who don't optimize for SEO can also rank. The content, language and organization of the video is the most important."
This is correct... kind of. Look, YouTube is really good at what they do. Google Brain is insane. Last week I attended the Expand Your Reach conference hosted by Luria Petruccia and Live Streaming Pro's and in one of their panels Dee Nimmin was discussing Google Brain. It showed a breakdown of a thumbnail that had been run through GB and they were able to tell that the image depicted a girl in a town eating a hamburger and she looked happy. And that it was a Carl's Jr. hamburger.
That is the program that YouTube uses to look at your Thumbnails and watch your videos in order to determine what audience your video needs to get served out to.
So If Google Brain Is So Great Why Do We Need To Do Anything At All?
YouTube gives you an opportunity to help them out. They want your input on your own video. They want to know who you think this should be seen by. So they give weighted preference to the metadata presented at the beginning of the title, the first 200 characters of the description and the to a lesser extent the tags.
99% of video performance is based on viewer reaction. The title/description isn’t for you to signal YouTube some mighty, magic info to go viral… it’s to inform the human being looking for something to watch what your video is about. This is a chance for you to help propagate a human response (that will then in turn flag YouTube as to who is enjoying this video… and who is not).
Ranking a video is actually really easy. Make a great video. ThatΓÇÖs it. If you make a one-hour video that gets 140% retention do you think that it wonΓÇÖt top the search ranks?
When you are asking how to rank a video what you are really asking is how do I rank my video. As in, ΓÇÿmy video doesnΓÇÖt perform as well and I want to try and break into the search ranks so I can get some views.ΓÇÖ ThatΓÇÖs fair, we all want that. But be mindful; your performance is going to determine your rank. Not your tags, not your keyword research and definitely not your SEO score. If your video does not perform as well as the videos it is competing against it is not going to rank.
The key here is to target long-tail keyword phrases. Instead of using a keyword like ‘fishing’ I target ‘surf fishing on a texas beach’ or ‘fishing for sharks on padre island.’ This is far more specific and therefore has less traffic… but it also has less competition. This also builds authority in a niche. If I make two dozen videos with similar keyword phrases like this then I start to build a repertoire as an authority on the subject, and it helps me to in turn build authority and gain rank for more elusive terms like ‘padre island,’ surf fishing’ and ‘texas beach.’
Once you have done your research and narrowed down the topic of your video you are going to need to implement this information into your video metadata. As mentioned before; keep your primary-targeted tag in the beginning of the title and early in the description. Also… and nobody will confirm this is true but there is a lot of evidence to support this… it doesn’t hurt to actually say your keyword phrase in the video’s first 30 seconds. YT confirms that they are listening to your video… and that the first 30 seconds is more heavily weighted than the rest.
There are things that you can do to help signal YouTube that this is a good video. Maybe it doesn’t go off for your audience; I personally make fishing vlogs but I will do the occasional How-To video and man my audience does not enjoy them. These videos aren’t made for people who already know how to fish. But after they get through the grinder they hit Search and after a couple weeks they start to gain steam and then they do just fine. YouTube is also looking at your performance in different traffic sources, they see this stuff happening. You can perform well in Suggested and poorly in Search, and YouTube will share you out more in that traffic source than the other. Sharing your video on Facebook, forums and websites helps YouTube to get a better understanding not only of your video but of the traffic sources that your video performs well in. Also worth noting… you can and will rank for things that you do not put into your video. Just because you have entered 500 characters worth of tags does not mean that these are the sole keywords that YT is going to focus on. If for some reason I make a fishing vlog about sharks at the beach but for some reason people who search for beach vacation really like my video yeah, it will rank for that regardless of whether I use it. This is also how the translated Descriptions/Titles work in your favor; you can rank for terms in other languages without entering those into the tags. Look at this screenshot;
This reflects the people who have watched and enjoyed my video regardless of my metadata. Your keyword phrases help to guide YouTube in the direction that you think it needs to go and YouTube will heed your advice. But the most important aspect is video performance. Focus on making your videos better with every publish. Make better thumbnails, get better retention… be always improving. And along the way you need to maximize your growth with solid keyword research.
