Are videos part of your online marketing strategy?
Would you like to get more traffic to your site through your videos?
Interested in boosting your visibility and rank on platforms like Youtube?
If you answered YES to any of the above, you definitely need to figure out how to rank your videos higher on Youtube. Why? Not only can videos help you convert traffic to cold-hard sales, Youtube can also deliver more traffic to your site.
The bad news? Competition is heating up on Youtube since publishers are uploading over 300 hours of video content every single hour.
You read that right-300 hours of video. Every. Single. Hour.
That’s how much competition you’re up against. Everybody, it seems, is waking up to Youtube’s amazing traffic generation capabilities.
To make sure you have more than a fighting chance in the face of such scary statistics, you need to wrap your mind around the following 10 tips that can boost your videos’ rankings on Youtube. If you want even more tips, make sure to check this article on the smart way to get more views and 7 factors for ranking youtube videos that we wrote.
YouTube Ranking Tips
Tip #1: Keep you videos short and sweet
There’s a lot of bunk advice floating around the Web claiming that longer videos rank better. Wrong. Statistical analysis shows that shorter videos (around the 3 to 5-minute range) tend to outrank longer videos.
What gives? Well, since YouTube ranks videos based partly on engagement and views, shorter videos have the upper hand over longer vids. People are more likely to engage with social videos. They are also more likely to sit through shorter videos. This combination boosts shorter videos’ ability to rank better than longer videos.
According to analysis by video marketing experts Wistia, the average Youtube video’s views drop a lot after 2:30 minute mark, this is way people often buy views Youtube to increase those watch times.
What should you take away from this? First, make your videos short and sweet. Distill it down. Get to the good stuff quickly. Cut out the fluff.
Second, pick a format that helps you pack lots of valuable content in a short period of time in an engaging way. Narrative format counts for a lot! Some formats are better suited for ‘densely packed’ content than others. For short videos, the following formats work well in their ability to present lots of information quickly within a compact time frame.
* Explainer videos : cartoon or narrator videos explaining a concept
* Top 10 or list videos
* Highlight videos: highlights key concepts
* “Breakdown” videos : present different parts of concepts and summarize them
Tip #2: Answer needs
Expert salespeople start making real money only when they learn the secret to sales. What’s the secret? To get what you want (sales), you must first give others what they want (solutions to their needs).
Your target audience members are watching your video because they have problems that need to be solved. These are their needs.
Don’t ignore them.
Let them know quickly that you understand their problems and walk them through the solution. Don’t waste their time trying to impress them about how awesome your product or service is because of your offers’ features.
Speak directly to their needs and speak in plain terms not jargon or sales doubletalk!
Once you do this, you establish credibility and you can then push your viewer to the next step of the sales process.
Tip #3 Your videos must have high enough quality
By “high enough” this doesn’t mean you have to produce the absolute best videos ever. Your production budget’s probably not big enough to pull that off. Your stuff just has to be better than your competitors’ materials. In other words, make your videos ‘better enough.’ Not necessarily the absolute best.
Instead, look at competitors’ videos in your niche. Can you produce something crisper? Can you come up with better-sounding audio? Can you deliver sharper images?
Keep in mind that people are turned off by fuzzy, bad-sounding, unclear videos. If your stuff is obviously inferior compared to your competitors’ content, your video views won’t improve. The fewer people view your stuff, the less likely Youtube will increase your video’s visibility on its search engine.
Thanks to platforms like Fiverr and Odesk, you can get very crisp high-quality professional videos done on a budget. Likewise, services like ozki.org have made storytelling scripts very affordable.
Tip #4 Use relevant SEO-friendly headlines with a call to action
If you thought writing an attention-grabbing SEO keyword-compliant article headline is hard, wait until you try and write an effective Youtube video title. You’re trying to do three things at once:
– Grab the attention of the searcher and get him or her to click your video instead of your competitors
– Contain the keyword you’re targeting so your video gets targeted traffic
– Be clear enough so searchers will know your video is directly related to what they are looking for
If the above wasn’t hard enough, you have to do it all in 55 characters or less. Go over this limit and your title will be not shown fully during searches… which can lower the number of searchers clicking on your video.
Warning: Avoid using clickbait titles. Sure, you might get a lot more clicks but if people viewing your video discover you just tricked them, the downvotes (and possible flagging) you get might sink your video’s visibility on searches.
Tip #5: Use attention-grabbing but accurate descriptions
Use your keywords in the description box but make sure it is completely accurate and flows naturally. Don’t ram your keyword into the description that it becomes very awkward. Bad grammar can turn off a lot of your potential viewers.
Make sure to keep it a short-a couple of lines should be enough. Still, you should use a longtail keyword or two to provide context for your video. Doing this filters your traffic and your video is more likely to attract the attention of actual potential buyers instead of curiosity seekers.
Finally, place your site’s link with a call to action. This is important. Just placing a link won’t generate as much traffic as a link that explains why people should click through. The best explanation answers the question “What’s in it for me?” for the viewer.
If you want to pack more SEO power into your video, add a transcription. This enables you to include more of your target keywords.
Tip #6: Use an attention-grabbing thumbnail
Make sure the crisp, high contrast, high-resolution screenshot thumbnail you use for your video actually comes from your video or else your disappointed viewers might downvote your video. If Youtube notices a massive drop-off of viewers from the point of initial click, your video’s ranking might suffer.
Tip #7: Call your viewer to action
Not only should your description have a call to action for viewers to click on through to your website, you should also call them to action in your video itself.
Don’t just leave the call to action at the end of the video. Do this a few times throughout the video as you cover each of your sub-points in the video. For example, when you’re explaining a solution, it probably has a few features which solve specific problems or address key concerns. After discussing how the product addresses each concern, call the viewer to action. Either refer them to your link in the description or direct them to go to a website.
Make sure to use other social media platforms to share your video like crazy. This increases the likelihood more of your target audience members would view your content. Get your video in front of as many pre-qualified eyeballs as possible.
Share your video link on forums, Facebook groups, Facebook pages, Reddit, Quora answers, and Twitter. You might even extract a few high quality screenshots from your video and share those on Pinterest. Of course, you should promote your video using niche-specific hashtags.
Finally, to truly boost the SEO of your Youtube video, you might want to do blogger outreach. Find blogs that talk about the problems you solve with your video. Get these bloggers to embed or link to your video. You might want to send out a hundred or so outreach emails to get a few mentions but this is a great way of getting highly targeted traffic.
Keep the 8 tips above in mind if you’re serious about ranking your videos right. Don’t just upload and forget. Upload the right videos, use the right descriptions, position them right, and promote them. Jumpstart your video’s viral appeal and get rewarded with higher YouTube search visibility.
Tip #9 : Have a Hook at The Beginning of the Video To Keep The User Watching
For longer videos, you need to make sure the user has a reason to keep watching to the end of the video. So you need to create a way to “hook” the user. Essentially, at the very start of the video, you need to preview or show something that will be at the culmination of the video.
In this way, the user has a payoff that will come at the end of the video. In reality, you need to script your video in a way that the best part of the video comes at the very end, to ensure that you keep the user watching till the very end!