YoutTube SEO, is it worth doing in 2023?

YouTube SEO is a strategy that allows you to always rank high on search engines for YouTube videos, including your YouTube channel and it's content features. The YouTube search engine use advanced tracking and analysis algorithms to place specific videos in the top positions on the YouTube search results however the algorithm is aimed at taking the route that will give Alphabet the highest ad revenue and aims to add to their already substantial brightedge of a search profit margin. By optimizing your content for the YouTube search bar, you can improve important metrics like branding and site traffic and viewers not only to your channel, but inversely audience traffic to your own website. Our optimization service is available to both agencies and individuals wanting to create a better search experience and of course increase their video rankings.

We offer our service in 28 different countries, including the United States - our aim is to increase video views by increasing search volumes with minimal use of paid tools

Is it worth optimizing videos on YouTube?

YouTube is the second most visited website in the world and the second largest search engine in that same world - our real world. It is a good idea to optimize videos for YouTube which will help them rank higher on Google searches reaching a greater audience, with more interested viewers, as well as make them more visible on YouTube itself. At the moment search engine optimization is far more complex in Google, than it is in YouTube.

YouTube is a video-sharing website that was created in 2005. In 2017, it had over 1 billion active users and was ranked by Alexa as the second most visited website in the world and the second largest search engine. The site has more than 400 hours of content uploaded every minute with about 6 billion hours of content watched every day. YouTube also has more than 50 million channels averaging over one 100,000 subscribers each (it is a bit weighted, but averages are averages), making it an extremely popular platform for individuals to share their videos and thumbnail images with others and make money off of them.

Some people use YouTube just to watch videos they are interested in while others upload their own videos to share them with others or make money off of them. One way to optimize your video on YouTube is to create a title that includes the target keyword most relevant for the content being discussed.

Optimization of your YouTube Channel means not only optimizing your videos and channel for YouTube's Search Engine, but also for other search engines. You can likely find your content through Google, Bing, and other search engines too - however YouTube is an Alphabet company, which is the same parent company that owns Google.

Optimizing videos for YouTube search trends means focusing on the number of views your videos receive within a given time frame, and how well they're optimized topically for a particular audience. Brands who optimize their videos for YouTube search trends have experienced an average increase in viewership of 50% year-over-year since 2013.

How to implement YouTube SEO on your video’s and your YouTube channel?

To get better results from YouTube SEO, you need to use relevant keywords throughout your video and it’s text transcription and related video's on your channel.

YouTube transcribes text when there are recognizable words within the content, placing relevant words and phrases within the first few minutes of the video have shown to increase relevance in the YouTube algorithm.

I personally use AHREFS and place trust in their toolset and processes.

YouTube SEO tips:

• Make sure your videos' description and description are optimized for search engines - including the relevant terminology within the title and description.
• You are not restricted on the number of channels you can have, the aim here is to have a niche specific channel that is relevant to the content and videos that it promotes. This however allows you to target multiple popular keywords through your video transcripts.
• Add subtitles to videos with an SRT file - ensure that the SRT contains relevant terminology.
• Add Cards to promote other relevant videos within your niche - YouTube wants to keep people on their platform for longer.
• Use well-researched keyword phrases naturally within the video content. Google uses NLP (Natural Language Processing) to determine if the content ‘flows’. (Or so it seems - who knows) - a more cohesive flow will result in an increase in user engagement and over time may result in substantial video ranking increases.
• Select the most appropriate category for your videos when creating the content, this helps YouTube to recommend video’s to viewers that have shown interest in your category.

To improve your chances of ranking for certain terms in your videos,  it is an excellent idea include these words in the following areas to satisfy the YouTube search algorithm:

• Title
• Custom Thumbnails
• Description
• Transcripts
• Translations
• Tags
• Links
• Call to action

Additional SEO steps that can be taken when creating videos are:

• Using time stamps to break the videos up into relevant parts
• Adding the time stamps to your video description
• Recommending other popular videos 

Use tools like Google Trends to help improve your YouTube SEO strategy and catch more viewers that may not even know they are interested in your videos.

To increase your chance of appearing in Google Trends, think about the things in the list below:

• How long was the user watching your video for?
• Does the target keyword have an association with the idea proposed in the video description?
• Do your videos appear click worthy?
• Does your video title accurately portray what the viewer expects to see?
• Do your users click on your call to action buttons after watching your videos?
• Where are people viewing your videos? Both physical location, and device type.
• Do your video descriptions and meta descriptions match the queries people use when searching for videos online?
• YouTube advertises based on the user, not the content of the video, so the more valuable the user is to YouTube the higher the Advertisement yield is for YouTube, and therefore the more likely they are to recommend your content.
• Keyword stuffing is a thing, but we are yet to see a penalty for it in video, mainly because you can't have a good conversation with your target audience whilst stuffing the keyword into your video file.