Internet users search for products or services information on the web using keywords or phrases. As they look for specific information, search engines particularly Google crawl for and present different types of contents. On Google’s search result pages, you can sort out the results by videos, forum, images, and other categories by simply clicking the content classification on the left side the page. This means that having different kinds of contents increases the chance of your business to be included in different kind of search results.
YouTube.com is perhaps the most popular site for free video hosting and sharing online. A number of singers and actors have been discovered and became popular through their videos uploaded in YouTube. YouTube gets more than 800 million unique visitors monthly who watch three billion hours of video. There’s no doubt then that YouTube can boost the online exposure of your brand.
But there are now a great number of videos on YouTube. How could we make sure that our marketing videos will get better rankings?
Jeff McRitchie, V.P. of Marketing at MyBinding.com, shared 12 YouTube ranking factors grouped into two main categories.
Creating Awesome Content
Content is a core factor under your control. You are the one who plans, designs, and create your content. So, you must take advantage on it by transforming creative ideas into an awesome video presentation. Here are the six ranking factors under this category:
1. Title
Make a unique title that best describes your content. Perform keyword research ahead of time to determine what netizens want and need to see in a video presentation. After identifying your title, ensure that your presentation delivers on that topic and meets the expectation of viewers. Or else, viewers may dislike your video and the number of dislikes would create negative impression to other netizens. This may dissuade other netizens, giving you a very poor click through rate.
2. Description
Your video description is crucial in getting the interest of potential viewers. It would increase your chance of getting a great click through rate. Make a 300- to 500-word description about the topic of your video. You may include its transcription to make it more viewer-friendly. Or you can add link on the description to direct viewers to your site.
3. Tags
Make at least 10 tags for your video based on the keyword research you did. Off course these tags must be relevant to the subject of your video. As well, make sure that you both include the singular and plural forms of these tags so that both YouTube and Google could rank your video better.
4. Transcription
Your video transcription not only make your presentation becomes more viewer-friendly, it helps your video gets better ranks as well. YouTube now produce transcriptions of videos using a machine. The resulting awful transcriptions are used to rank videos for keywords. So, it’s better to transcribe your video and upload the text file. In so doing, you can ensure that the keywords you used in your title and descriptions will surely be properly included in the transcription. This will boost your click through rate and help your video gets better rankings.
5. Channel Authority
Controlling your content denotes controlling your authority. Google uses channel authority as a basis for ranking. Consistent posting of awesome videos with great content will most likely gain authority for your channel. This impact will also flow over into your current video, giving it better rankings. Hence, to get better rankings for your channel, you need to look at the quality and content of all your uploaded videos.
6. Delivery
The quality of your content delivery is important to get good engagement on all your videos. An awesome content delivered in a crappy way, will definitely trigger viewers to dislike your videos. The more dislikes your videos have, the lower click through rate they will likely get.
Getting Engagement
You need to promote your videos in social networks to get a great number of views. Nonetheless, a YouTube video may go viral but may end up full of dislikes. The number of views in this case will not get the video a better rank. To get better rankings for your videos, you need a great number of views and positive engagement or likes from viewers.
1. Quality of Views
As already mentioned, your videos need a great number of views and likes from viewers. They need a good viewers’ engagement. This means that your audience should be watching your videos all the way through. Getting the attention of your viewers is not enough. You need to get them engaged until they fully seen your video.
2. Inbound Links
YouTube uses inbound links on videos as a basis of ranking. Both Google and YouTube look for channel links and links under a particular video. So, you need to build links to your channel and videos. Off course, these links must look natural. You can build links naturally through your social media and blog. Your followers in these social networks will link back to your videos when they get interested to your content. You can also create profile links. You can put the link of your YouTube channel below your name in your e-mail signature. You may embed your videos on your website. Or you may link your press releases to your channel. buy youtube watch hours