Being the world’s most popular and largest video-sharing platform, YouTube is also known as the 2nd largest search engine and hosts 2 billion-plus active users per month. 50 million out of the 2 billion are actively uploading video content on their channels.
It seems everyone is watching YouTube videos on a regular basis, so why not grab their attention make them watch your videos to get more eyeballs on your business website or online store?
There is a huge number of business owners and digital marketing professionals trying to boost exposure and increase their sales by using this largest video-sharing site. Since video content can greatly acquire the attention of modern consumers, YouTube is the best platform to boost your digital marketing efforts via YouTube optimization. It might be hard to stand out from the increased competition.
However, you can consider the following YouTube optimization tips for digital marketers to climb the search, increase YouTube subscribers, get more views for your videos and get the most out of your digital marketing efforts.
Rename your video files before you upload
Before you upload your video on the YouTube channel, make sure it is named properly and the file name matches the title of your video. The very first bit of YouTube optimization begins right here as it tells the YouTube algorithm what your video is about and helps you appear in more searches.
Pay Attention to Video Titles
You should choose short, sweet, and relevant titles for your YouTube videos. A good YouTube video title usually contains 50 characters max and includes focus keywords relevant to the video content. Along with making a title engaging, short and relevant, make sure your video is descriptive so that people can easily find it among a lot of videos out there it is competing against. Furthermore, you can also update your video title with more relevant keywords overtime to appear in more search results.
Create Longer Video Description
Video and channel descriptions can be a great way to drive more traffic to your video content. There are 5000 characters available to write a product description that allows you to write 500 to 600 words easily. That is the reason, you should write lengthy, relevant, and keyword-rich video description as consumers see a lengthy video as useful to learn more about the video. So, reap the benefits of every word you are given to write a video description and hook your viewers by writing interesting and detailed ones. Adding a short but enticing text at the start of the description can help you grab the attention of viewers.
Use Keywords Smartly
The use of relevant keywords while optimizing your video is always helpful to make your videos found in the search bar. That’s why, you should smartly use your focus keywords in video title, video description, and tags to make sure your videos appear in more search results. Also, try to use relevant keywords in your description and tags to increase the chances of appearing in both YouTube and Google search results.
Video Tags
When uploading a video on YouTube, you are given a dedicated text box to add tags that are relevant to your video. Effective tagging helps your video appear in relevant categories and searches. Hence, try to use the most relevant tags based on your focus keywords and your niche.
Use high quality and Appealing Video Thumbnails
Gone are the days when YouTubers let YouTube use a random scene of the video as a video thumbnail. Everyone on YouTube is using high quality, customized, and appealing thumbnails to hook the audience. It allows them to help with self-promotion along with describing the video. Thumbnails are the very first thing that people see when searching for required video content. That’s why, you should create personalized, high-quality, and enticing thumbnails for your videos. There are no graphic designing skills required to create professional-looking YouTube thumbnails as we can use drag and drop graphic designing tools like Canva. Such platforms help a lot in creating thumbnails either by using available editable themes or from scratch. You can also change video thumbnails overtime by adding higher YouTube numbers like views count for your video or number of shares etc.