How to Make the Most out of YouTube for Your Brand | Part One
3 MIN READ
We all know by now that video marketing isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a must-have to stay relevant and successful in a crowded marketplace. Although many of us know this to be true, businesses continue to avoid adding video to their marketing roster. Putting your face in front of the camera or talking into a microphone is scary for anyone (especially when you have to hear your own voice!), but it doesn’t have to be a painful process when you effectively use YouTube.
Not only is YouTube the best place to fall down rabbit holes and watch deep dives into your latest niche interest videos, but it’s also a haven for curating a collection of video content that your followers actually want to see. The process is easier than you’d think when you remember YouTube is equal parts social media and search engine. The platform maintains the social aspect of your favorite platforms with the inclusion of subscriptions, trends, and commenting. All of this is paired with the art and science of SEO and will ensure your audience finds the topics they want.
To create an impactful YouTube channel, keep the following tips and best practices in mind:
YouTube is Not Regular SEO
Optimizing YouTube videos is essential to the success of a video because YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine behind Google. When you don’t optimize your content for search, your videos will lie stagnant, never delivered to your target audience. While Google and other search engines crawl websites’ backends or copy for information on the site, YouTube’s algorithm doesn’t crawl video content the same way. Instead, it relies on other key areas to determine what the video is about:
Video Title
Video Description
Engagement Metrics (likes/dislikes, comments, views)
Watch Time
Video titles and descriptions are where SEO shines. This is where you’ll include your keywords that relate to your brand and video, which bots will ultimately crawl and use their findings to deliver content to your ideal audience.
Find Keywords Before You Create Your Video
Creating successful YouTube videos is a lot simpler when you start off by knowing what your audience is searching for on the platform. One way to do so is using paid tools like Kparser and Ahrefs that allow you to select specific search engines, including YouTube, and accurately determine what words are being searched on each platform. In fact, there are over 30 keyword tools that marketers find helpful.
If investing in tools isn’t currently in your marketing budget, you can also find keywords by using YouTube’s autocomplete feature in the search bar on the site. For example, if you type “Mary Clark Higgins” into YouTube’s search bar, you’re able to see that people are searching for “mary clark higgins full movies,” “mary clark higgins audiobooks,” and “mary clark higgins interview,” to name a few. This is a great way to search for the long tail keywords that will lead users to your videos.
Pepper in Keywords
Using an abundance of keywords won't boost your YouTube video's success. Instead, it's crucial to use a technique called Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keywords, which mirrors natural language. This means your keywords should align with user intent and the reasons behind people's searches for your videos. You don’t want to throw in a bunch of words that make little sense together, or worse, don’t apply to the video, hoping to gain the attention of YouTube’s algorithm.
Another important facet to consider is YouTube favors long tail keywords, where searchers often use more than three words to find what they're looking for. This allows brands to incorporate longer keyword phrases that accurately represent how users search for content on YouTube. By focusing on user intent and utilizing longer keyword phrases, you can improve the discoverability and relevance of your videos on the platform.
Want to know exactly where to include those keywords for the best engagement? Check out our next post in this series to find out the answer and more on the steps you need to take when uploading videos if you want to see results!
Originally posted February 25, 2020. Updated February 21, 2024.
