Here is a complete guide on how you can dominate YouTube easily and quickly. Follow these 5 methods and you will prevail in video marketing!
Method 1: Tips for Optimizing Titles of the Video
Titles are very important and I can’t believe how many people are not paying any attentions to optimize them. Optimized titles can increase click rates and eventually increase traffic dramatically on your YouTube channel. Do keyword research using Google Keyword tool and come up with a great way to fit it into your video title. Keeping title both compelling and SEO optimized can be difficult, but these quick tips are certainly worth trying when selecting an effective video title:
1) Don’t Deceive
Don’t deceive your users with titles to get more views. Let’s say if you just have a slideshow of your earnings, don’t use a title like “How to make $1k with Clickbank”. In doing so, you will not only upset your viewers but some might also give you a thumbs-down which can really hurt your legitimacy in the long run.
2) Update Title with the Current Events
This trick works great if used wisely. Let’s say you have a video of fireworks demonstration. You can update its title to during New Year to reflect that video is regarding current New Year fireworks. You can do the same during 4th of July (USA) and other similar occasion to get upticks in views and thumbs ups.
3) Try Variants in Video Title
Certain types of videos on YouTube get more click rate and attention when you put certain words in caps or even all caps. You can also try using special characters like arrows (►) and stars ( ★) and other stuff like this. Again, no one can tell you which combination will work best and it all comes down to you experimenting with different variations.
4) Observe Magazines
Observing magazine titles are the best way to come up with compelling video titles. These people work very hard to come up with great titles that distinguish their magazine and capture buyer’s interest within other piles of magazines hanging on the store shelves. You can also experiment with some power keywords like “Secrets”, “Amazing”, “Hidden”, “Shocking” etc.
5) Top 10 … Really?
It used to work before but now people are smart enough to know that the person is just stretching it to be 10. Let’s say you want create a YouTube video with title “Top 10 Money Making Tips.” Now, people usually think that person is just stretching his tips to be 10 and there will be only couple solid tips. Now let’s say there is another result stating “Top 7 Money Making Tips”. People most likely think that this person is not using normal top 10 conventions and it could contain all 5 solid tips. You see, trends do change. People had been accustomed to seeing Top 10 for years that it is beginning to lose its legitimacy.
6) Character Count
It is important that you keep character count in your mind when writing the title for your YouTube video. YouTube gives you around 100 characters but only shows first 50-60 character in search results. Google search engine shows around 60 characters in regular search while YouTube search only shows around 55 characters. Now you need to work on a title that is compelling yet does not exceed these limits. So, shoot for a title that is less than or equal to 50 characters. If you want to optimize your title for SEO only, make sure your main keyword is at the beginning.
7) Switch between Compelling and SEO Video Titles
Now sometimes it is impossible to achieve both in one video title. The trick here is to make your video title compelling first to get instant views and subscribers as your title will show up on other subscriber’s boxes or in twitter steam, etc. Now let the traffic follow for couple days and then change it later so it’s SEO optimized in order to get more organic traffic. This technique combined with technique #2 can do wonders.
Method 2: YouTube Video Optimization Tips
1) Be authentic. Be honest and be yourself.
2) You have only around 15 seconds to either get your viewer to watch the whole video or just navigate away from it. Use first 15 seconds of your video wisely. Don’t jump into the video without some basic introduction or overview of what the video is all about.
3) If you are capturing your video then make sure to look straight at the viewer as you normally would when you are conversing with someone. It helps connect with your viewers as it will seem to them as a normal conversation.
4) Use the right thumbnail for your YouTube video. Most people do not even care to see what thumbnail is being used for their video. It is one of the most important factors that can attract more viewers and click rate. Choose thumbnail that best describes your contents or is more catching.
5) Video length can also be a crucial factor in deciding your ranking. I have experimented and noticed that sometimes by just changing the video length you can acquire higher ranking. Mostly I get good results for 2-3 minutes long videos as opposed to those that are 5-10 minutes. Again, experiment and changed things around. You can also check your competitor’s video length and change yours accordingly.
Method 3: Description Optimization Tips
You won’t believe how many people don’t want to put any description for their YouTube video. It’s a good idea to make good use of this field to clearly explain your video and provide with other valuable info. Here are some tips to better optimize your description:
1) Start your description with the video title and then link.
2) Description doesn’t have to be a 100% unique. What I usually do is when promoting a product is to copy and paste information from their sales page and then just flip flop the sentences. You can also paste it in MS Word and right click on any word, choose “Synonyms” and choose any synonym you like.
3) Sprinkle your description with keywords. Try using keywords at the start of each sentence.
4) Try to use your tags in your description as well.
Method 4: Tagging Optimization Tips
One of the things most people don’t take into consideration is using proper tags. Sometimes people over-generalize one category and end up being considered spam. It’s easy to make something edgy and go into the R-rated area, but if you can keep it in the PG-13, you can avoid a lot of the issues that come up with your content just being put into a pile of controversial content.
1) Always use relevant tags. Seems obvious but this takes some thought to get into the minds of users similar to keyword discovery.
2) Some people use just a couple tags and some never even bother to add any. Remember, the more the merrier. There is penalty for using all your available tag space as it could aid in your video discovery.
3) Use some category descriptor tags. Remember YouTube’s default search settings are Videos, Relevance and All Categories.
4) Use adjectives. Remember lots of folks are browsing and they’ll use adjectives to find what they are in the mood of viewing.
6) Use most important tags first. Also, make sure to use tags that are also in the description of the video.
7) Don’t use stop words like “to” or “in” etc. Instead of wasting that space, use some more relevant and specific tags.
Method 5: Community Optimization Tips
The idea here is to get found by people in your interest community and get them to view your video content, comment on it and rate it.
1) Enable Comments and Ratings.
2) Point your user to your next video and make it easy to access. Post video responses to your own videos so people can jump to the next video without searching for it. Even if they are not planning on watching more, they will be tempted to watch it if it’s relevant and valuable.
3) Another way to point your user to your other videos is to use annotations. Cross reference your videos with good title and point them to your other videos.
4) Use your relevant videos to post a video response to other videos that have complimentary content to yours.
Bonus Random Tips
1) If you have a blog, then post your video on your blog prior to posting it in the YouTube. This way you will get a quality backlinks to your video post from YouTube.
2) Users often use the word “video” when they search on search engines; add it in your title, description, and tags to get optimum results.
3) By including a relevant and brief optimized introduction transcript to describe your video, search engines will be able to understand your videos’ content and can aid you in ranking higher.
4) Users are fond of setting up RSS feeds to their preferred content sources. Submitting your content to RSS will enable users to add you to their feed and review it in the future, hence increasing traffic and views.
5) Use services like Traffic Geyser. It is not a free service but if used properly, it can bring in more sales. It submits your video to over 100 sites that will bring in traffic around the clock. There are many more options if you are serious about visibility.
6) Look at your competitor’s video and analyze its contents. Take note of anything that stands out and imply the same strategy in your video.
7) Google treats backlinks differently for sites and YouTube videos. Google seems to not care about the quality of the backlinks. So, if you really need to get higher ranking, then buy crappy Fiverr backlinks.
8) If you have multiple channels, then add links to your videos and channels on each other. YouTube gives a solid do-follow backlinks to other YouTube videos and channels.
Have fun and dominate the YouTube now!
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