Just like with blogging, there are many ways you can optimize your videos for search engines. You can do this with your title, description and tags.
Do longer videos rank higher on YouTube?
The more keyword-rich your title is, the better. This is because keywords appear in the search engine results page (SERP) and YouTube pays close attention to them when assessing your video’s relevance to specific search terms.
Adding the right keywords to your title and description can also increase video visibility outside of YouTube. This is because many people watch YouTube videos through other channels, social media platforms and sites that provide search results.
YouTube’s native tool, accessed through the channel dashboard, provides video performance metrics, including impressions and click-through rates. Track and Improve Your YouTube Video Rankings metrics show you how well your videos resonate with your audience. A high number of click-throughs suggests to YouTube that your video is relevant to the search term, and they will promote it further up the list of results.
Your video’s description is the best opportunity to engage viewers and entice them to click on your video. The text here needs to be accurate and informative, but it also must have a certain amount of creativity to help drive interest. You can use your video’s timestamps to add more text if needed, such as a link to your website or social media profile. YouTube also uses your video’s metadata to identify the subject matter and recommend videos for users.