YouTube SEO: How to Rank YouTube Videos in 2021 (Ultimate Guide)
By: Mani Mandrayar
Tags: Youtube Seo, Youtube Seo Tips, YouTube

Have you ever thought of doing SEO — Search Engine Optimization for YouTube Videos ? or You just like that put your hardwork and upload Videos then wait for the Views plus subscribers per policy.

I would say most of us do not think of it !

But Yes few videos are pop ups nowadays in You Tube giving you simple SEO tips and tricks to boost your videos to be listed on top of the you tube search list.

In this post you will learn How to use SEO for Youtube and How to Rank Youtube Videos in 2021

I am going to tell you the shortcut and YouTube SEO tips and things I learned from many of YouTube influencers like Techno Vedant, Neil Patel.

After reading this article you will know how to do SEO for YouTube videos you upload every time this will increase yourYouTube Views on your videos. The best thing is you can use this as Youtube optimization checklist.

What is YouTube SEO Mean?

YouTube SEO is a process of optimizing your videos to rank high in YouTube’s Organic search results fast.

The Answer is the same as blog or website SEO. Means in Blog you make the page visible and try to get it ranked in google so that if any one search any topics with keywords they see your or my blog posts.

As simple as that in YouTube Videos, each videos we upload need a special care to make it visible in the search list which need search engine optimization SEO for YouTube videos.

We know that there are 1000s of competitors running YouTube channel so the way we make our videos optimized with content , description , Thumbnail and keywords make the content visible in top list of you tube search. Let’s discuss the 5 Proven strategies YOUTube SEO.

How to update initial set up page:

Video Keywords Research:

I always prefer to see my competitor (not exactly as competitor they are our Guru 😄 ) who ranked already and what they have used youtube seo keywords which made their post on top of everyone.

You can use Ubersuggest keyword search tool to find tons of relevant keywords match your current topic also the volume per month , cost per click and so on.

There are many YouTube SEO Tools are online the most popular what I know is Tubebuddy or VidIQ extension in chrome browser when you login to your YouTube Channel. This extension will suggest you the best relevant keywords on the go.

Above all use the YouTube search bar with your topic you get more different ideas to include in your title which is one of the best YouTube Video SEO I refer.

See in the above image I typed in YouTube Search bar to search

how to rank website in and I got many keyword and title ideas as well.

Another sample I tried for you in Ubersuggest

Step#1: Go to Ubersuggest and enter a keyword of your relevant topic like I entered here for sample as ‘Biryani’

Step#2: Click Keyword Ideas in the right hand bar

Step#3: Check the number of keyword ideas like in the below screen and insert in your Title and Description.

I just tried to search the most popular food menu Biryani and I could see there are 563 keyword ideas plus the volume is 90,500 if you navigate more you get some good amount of relevant keywords for your topic if you do a food making YouTube in case.

Video Title Optimization:

This is one of the first and foremost important thing to keep in mind. When you update the title of the video content you make ensure that it should contain all main keywords you and me like everyone commonly search. You can start a title with How to, Where To, Easy Ways some thing like that. Use the keyword free tool from Google and it is pretty good idea that you can try targeting those key words so that you get higher chances of showing your video in top list.

The above snap shows the optimization simple way which covers the word like Top 5 ‘free’ awesome blogging tools for ‘bloggers’ wordpress etc.

Always remember to say the same keywords and title while you recording the video also so that the YouTube Bots can understand the the content and the title are the same which pulls the

video on top and get more views.

Optimize Description:

Start your description with the focus keywords. For example if you make a video about Google Adsense, write ‘How to get approval for Google Adsense in 24hrs’ and you make sure that you talk the same title in your video as well so that the Youtube’s bots can identify audio and description matches what you are talking about to rank your videos on top and get more views.

In the above image note that the Title with catchy word as “Exclusive interview with India’s №1 Blogger if you watch the video the creator also used the same caption while starting. Also he shared related video links in the description.

Please note the description with a detailed time stamp which is one of the unique method the creator used. This helps the user to go for a main content without skipping the video and retains to stay back in the video gives you more watch time.

Tag Optimization:

Tagging is a one among the best YouTube SEO features that YouTube provides. This feature allows you to enter relevant key words of your Video Topic.

This means the more relevant words you Tag the more you get organic traffic views to your YouTube Videos. This is one of the proven strategy of making YouTube Video SEO.

IF you notice the above sample from a famous YouTube influencer Techno Vedant’s post about ‘How to create Google Adsense Account in 2020’ above the title he has included few hash tags which is more relevant to the topic and eye catch tricks were Youtube bots can easily identify the relevant topic for its Audience.

But remember the maximum tag you can add should be 10 to 12 as per experts advise.

Eye-Catching Thumbnail:

You know one thing many people click the video link based on the thumbnail which is most attractive and unique which may create a curiosity of the topic what you made.

See the perfect example of Ahrefs youtube video thumbnail snap simply catch of eye and stop anyone scrolling all the way down in you tube list and click the video. But You can create your own different pics based on the content.

You can take a snap of different posture or unique picture behind the title which says indirectly the viewers ‘Hey this is what you are looking exactly just stop here’

Optimize your Video file name:

Always remember to rename your YouTube video file saved may be like this ‘ 20201126.mp4’ but ideally to have this identified by YouTube’s Bot change the video file name with your focused keywords may be like this how_to_apply_for_adsense.mp4 this means you are telling the youtube’s bot that what is your video is about.

Social Media Sharing:

This is one of the simple hack we normally do whenever we create a video we push the link to our Whats app group, Face book ,Twitter and Instagram etc.

Note the above snap example for Instagram sharing. The Blogger has captured a nice pic and captured the relevant hash tags to get more views which intern the followers or new visitors can go to the profile and click the click which gives more views and traffic to video or could be his blog.

Email to your contact list:

Most of us forget to do or may be lazy to do this but it is of of the most powerful marketing platform which gives 1000s of views on your video and drastically increase the watch time.

Make a standard template for your videos and title and whenever you create a video share that link through email to your contact list may be you have Gmail, Yahoo whatever just go on!!

YouTube Creator STudio — Analytics:

Step#1 Go to the top right hand corner of your youtube channel page and click on the log

Step#3 Click Views to see how many visitors and views you had for the video and watch time.

Do you know that ‘Creator Studio’ specifically gives you the awesome analytics for your YouTube videos.

This says how many views you have for videos and how many stick there for watch without skipping the video and how many videos are top performing etc.

If you go to the Analytics > Audience Retention in the creator studio page will show you how many visitors are coming back .

The Analytics also gives you the report like real time views and watch time and the overall average duration of watched videos.

Playlist Creation:

Creating playlist in youtube which means that you are helping the viewers about your most relevant topic list you have already covered.

The below example from Ahrefs video related to keyword research gives a good user experience to watch continuously the relevant topic one by one. Cool isn’t it?

So that a viewer do not have to search another part of your existing video thread.

Most importantly to increase views and watch of your YouTube video this is one of the best SEO part.

Content Quality:

Start the video with a brief introduction of what is the benefit that the audience going to get if they spend another 5 or 10 minutes watching your videos.

Create a hook that if you watch till the end of the video you get this or that benefit for 100% say some thing like this when start of the video.

While ending up the video put a question to audience about their opinion or most relevant question to the topic which make the audience to say yes or no or may be with answer to your questions and encourage them to subscribe to your YouTube channel.

Youtube SEO is not only helps to get your videos on top list of youtube search but also helps to give you more traffic to your blog or website.

Many of us have blog or youtube channel or both but some or the other end struggle to get more views or traffic right?

So the perfect concentration and focus on the youtube video SEO (search engine optimization) helps to grow all the way in all your upcoming videos.

What’s your idea about to standing out on Youtube?