The Ultimate DIY Guide to Start Video Marketing Using YouTube SEO

Every marketer knows that YouTube SEO video marketing tips are integral to any marketing strategy. However, not every marketer knows these tips, leading to a weaker YouTube video ranking and less effective video marketing.

A Wyzowl study found that over 99% of people who used video marketing as part of their digital marketing efforts said they would continue with it even in 2022.

If you haven’t started your video marketing efforts, there has never been a better time. Due to many factors, traditional marketing has been losing its effectiveness, making video marketing an integral part of any brand’s marketing efforts.

This in-depth YouTube SEO guide will closely examine all the key concepts, important terms, marketing tips, and tools you need to become a YouTube video marketing expert, regardless of your background or existing skillset.

Why is YouTube an Important Video Marketing Platform?

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Marketers understand that any platform with a robust user base can be a lucrative communication platform. However, ensuring that the platform is popular among your target audience is important and will help you get positive returns on your efforts.

In the case of YouTube, you can find videos of all kinds on all types of topics and interest areas. It is an ever-growing platform with users across ages and socio-economic statuses in almost every country. While the platform had nearly 1.47 billion users in 2017, it grew to nearly 1.86 billion in 2021. This sheer size of YouTube’s user base makes it an important part of any marketer’s strategy.

How to Carry Out YouTube Keyword Research

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Now that you understand why YouTube is integral to your marketing mix, let’s look at one of the most important YouTube SEO video marketing tips – keyword research.

YouTube videos are an excellent channel for generating brand awareness, sharing information about new products, and pushing customers through the sales funnel cost-effectively. However, none of this is possible without the right keywords.

Appropriately used keywords ensure that your videos reach the best, most relevant audiences and bring in the desired results for your brand. It also helps reduce costs, scale-up revenue, and gain relevant audiences faster, making it an integral part of your YouTube Video SEO efforts.

What Is a Keyword on YouTube?

YouTube keywords refer to words and phrases in your video’s title, description, headline, or any other copy that can help the platform’s algorithm understand more about your video. This understanding helps the algorithm recommend your video to people who may be interested.

How to find relevant keywords for YouTube?

There are a few practical ways to find relevant keywords for your YouTube video marketing efforts. Here are a few of the best ways to find different keywords related to your subject:

YouTube Autocomplete

When you type something into YouTube’s search bar, it automatically starts recommending suggestions that stem from what you have typed in.

These autocomplete suggestions are a great way to learn the most popular searches, allowing you to find relevant keywords. Autocomplete on YouTube is a great way to find long-tail keywords that help your content rank well.

Reliable keyword research tools

Innumerable free and paid keyword tools can help you search and find relevant keywords on various topics. WordTracker and SEMRush offer multiple YouTube SEO tools that will give you thousands of relevant keywords that can help popularize your YouTube videos.

Keyword analytics

Utilizing keyword analytics is another important part of YouTube video marketing tips. You can discover and analyze competition levels for various keywords using various free tools online.

It also helps you review local, regional, national, and global search volumes and helps estimate keyword difficulty. Such keyword analytics can also help you discover phrase matches – longer search terms with the desired keyword nested within it. 

How to Optimize Video Metadata

Understanding video metadata

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Video metadata is an integral part of SEO for YouTube channels. It helps search engines and app algorithms show your videos to relevant audiences. This video metadata refers to the text within the video file that tells the algorithm about the video.

While most search engines use video metadata to offer video results and recommendations, YouTube takes it further. It combines video metadata with other viewership data to determine which videos to show next and when to show certain videos as ‘top results’ for specific users.

In the case of search engines like Google and Bing, web bots crawl pages to determine their legitimacy and suitability as a search result. This is based on two inputs – on-page text content and backlinks to web pages. However, these bots can’t crawl videos or look for backlinks on these videos. So, search engines rely on text-based data (metadata) that’s a part of the video information.

YouTube SEO has many new aspects. However, video metadata is one of the most important parts of the process. Metadata is broken down into video titles, descriptions, and tags. Search engine web bots then use these to determine which videos suit audiences.

How to optimize video metadata

A well-optimized video can effectively rank on the first page of a Google search query, ensuring that many people view, engage with, and share the video. Here’s how you can start optimizing video metadata to take your video’s success to the next level.

Video title

Video titles must be enhanced with relevant and accurate keywords that reflect the viewer’s interest. Use tools like YouTube Autocomplete and Google’s Keyword Planner to discover the most popular and relevant keywords.

Video description

Video descriptions introduce your video and offer insights on its contents to viewers and search web bots alike. An accurate, to-the-point, and detailed video description helps generate interest and intrigue and may persuade potential viewers to watch, engage with or share your video.

Video tags

In simple terms, video tags allow users and web bots to understand which categories your video falls into, helping them classify your video accurately. This allows YouTube’s AutoPlay feature recommend and queue videos appropriately.

However, remember that YouTube’s AutoPlay feature will ensure that the following video shares at least one tag with the current video on the playlist.

How to Improve User Retention and Engagement

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A YouTube search engine optimization study by Briggsby discovered that engagement and retention are the most critical factors in ranking well on YouTube searches.

This means that apart from focusing only on keywords, metadata, and other SEO-focused tasks, improving user retention and engagement is of utmost importance. YouTube analytics are an integral part of your retention and engagement strategy. They help you understand what interests your audience.

1. Video quality

While YouTube search engine optimization is crucial, it’s equally important to ensure high video and content quality. Make sure that each video you make has valuable and relevant information. Your video marketing strategy should also value your viewers, ensuring they save or share your content.

Apart from the content quality, you should also ensure that your videos have excellent audio and video quality. Invest in a good webcam or camera and a high-quality mic that can improve the overall video quality. Use subtitles, translated captions, and relevant thumbnails to ensure that audiences remember and retain your content.

2. Watch time

Watch time is an important metric for YouTube video SEO and analytics since it tells you how much time viewers have spent viewing your content. As per YouTube’s algorithm, the higher the watch time, the more engaging your video is. Videos, playlists, and channels with high watch times have better rankings on search results.

To boost the watch time for your channel, make sure you audit your content to understand what content and video lengths work best. Additionally, you can create playlists with similar videos to keep views engaged for longer with your content.

3. Audience retention

Audience retention refers to the percentage of viewers that abandon your video before it ends. This is an important metric for YouTube video ranking. It helps the algorithm understand if your content can hold the viewer’s attention for long. The algorithm rewards videos with greater audience retention as it makes your content valuable and engaging.

To improve audience retention, determine an appropriate point for your video where you can add a relevant CTA, fun fact, or any other interesting content piece that will reel viewers back in.

4. Click-through rate (CTR)

High CTR means that your video was compelling enough for viewers to watch them after seeing it on the homepage. Well-optimized metadata, relevant keywords, and attractive thumbnails are responsible for high CTR.

To improve YouTube CTR, make sure you create compelling custom thumbnails. Don’t settle for free-frame thumbnails that the platforms pick from your video. Also, stay away from clickbait titles and descriptions as audiences may be put off and stop trusting you.

5. Subscriber growth

Subscriber growth shows how many subscribers were gained (or lost) in a given period. High subscriber growth indicates valuable, engaging content that has converted viewers into a part of your YouTube community. It shows the algorithm that your content is interesting and worth subscribing to your channel for.

The best way to boost subscriber growth is to remind users to click the ‘Subscribe’ button to get exclusive access to your content. Improving this metric will also help you boost performance on YouTube over time.

6. Traffic sources report

The traffic sources report helps you understand how viewers find and discover your content. Located on the ‘Reach’ tab of YouTube Analytics, the traffic sources report gives you important insights into the platforms or sites that bring in the most views.

By aligning your YouTube video marketing SEO strategy and keyword information, you can adjust your video marketing efforts to be more efficient.

For example, tweak your strategy to boost viewership from those platforms if your videos aren’t getting viewers via social media. Additionally, suppose a large part of viewership belongs to a particular industry or age group. In that case, you can consider creating videos around their interests to boost growth, user retention, and engagement rates.

How to Promote Your Videos

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One of the most important YouTube SEO video marketing tips is the effective promotion of your video content. In this part of our YouTube SEO guide, let’s look at how you can effectively promote your videos.

1. Create videos on trending topics

Trending keywords indicate that your viewers are interested in a specific topic or subject. Using keywords and high-volume trends, you can learn which subjects, topics, events, or ideas you can capitalize on. Once you have such content in place, you can use this as a channel for redirecting users to similar videos and relevant playlists.

2. Generate buzz through community posts

YouTube’s ‘Community’ tab allows you to create posts that will be shared with your subscribers and accessed by page visitors. Use this tab to generate teaser posts that tell users what to expect from your upcoming video. You can expect to get higher views on new videos with engaging copy and honest information.

3. Use YouTube end screens and cards

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End screens allow you to link two videos at the end of a YouTube video. These are a great way to get viewers to click on videos they just finished watching. YouTube cards are an interactive section that allows you to share clickable links at any part of the video. You can add up to five cards to a video, allowing you to promote five different videos within each.

4. Social media previews and teasers

Video content is not exclusive to YouTube. Audiences on various social media platforms consume video content. They will likely be interested in your content if it is relevant and valuable to them.

So, whether it’s LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, share a ‘preview’ of any upcoming or newly-released videos. Ensure that you have easily clickable links on your bio or caption to encourage viewers to watch your videos immediately.

5. Use email marketing

Emails are still a great way to connect users, viewers, buyers, and consumers. Similarly, emails can be used to promote your videos as they are a great way to show potential viewers how your content will add value to their lives.

Start by introducing your video topic, mention any particular features or benefits of your content, and leave them with a clickable link to your video.

6. Collaborate with other channels and creators

Just like guest blogging helps blogs bring in new audiences, collaborating with other creators or YouTube channels brings in new viewers to your channel. This simple approach can help your videos reach new audiences, gain more subscribers, and aid you in increasing your video views and reach.

7. Promote your videos on Q&A sites

Q&A sites like Reddit and Quora are a great way to bring in more views, subscribers, and engagement for your videos. Users on these platforms are seeking answers to specific questions.

So, suppose your video has relevant, valuable information for them. In that case, it is a good idea to post a link to the video and a detailed answer to their question. Similarly, you can also add valuable comments to videos on YouTube and Facebook posts or tweets.

How to Arm Yourself With Powerful Tools for YouTube SEO

To ensure that you get the most of YouTube video marketing tips, you may have to outsource any time-consuming tasks via powerful YouTube SEO tools and design software. Here are some of the most important YouTube SEO tools to consider.

1. YouTube Analytics

YouTube Analytics is one of the best analysis tools to track your channel’s performance. This tool helps you understand how your views engage with your content.

It not only shows you the overall channel’s performance metrics, but it also has insightful data on specific playlists and videos. YouTube Analytics also gives you invaluable data related to watching habits, demographics, click-through rates, impressions, and traffic sources.

2. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a fantastic tool for finding the most valuable, relevant, and appropriate keywords for your videos. You can access it from the Google Ads dashboard and don’t have to run ads to use this feature.

Google Keyword Planner also helps you get search volumes and forecasts so that you can insightfully plan your video titles, descriptions, and other metadata.

3. Rank Tracker

This tool is excellent for checking YouTube rankings, keywords, and performing keyword analysis. You can set YouTube as the primary search engine on this tool, allowing you to track ranking and get video SERP results specifically for this platform.

It also allows you to collect keywords using multiple research methods like YouTube autocomplete, search for intent-based results, and then compare them to key SEO indicators. This tool also helps you with easy-to-rank-for keywords, allowing you to feature on organic search results.

4. Rival IQ

It pays to keep track of what your competitors are doing. Such competitor analysis can help you make better decisions for your channel and boost your growth. The tool enables you to get information about posting frequency, posting time, engagement metrics, subscriber numbers, views, comments, and other relevant information about your competitors.

5. Awario

Awario helps track social media mentions. Since such mentions help you rank better within the YouTube ranking algorithm, they boost Google rankings for your video.

Using Awario, you can discover what buzz surrounds your videos on social media platforms. This step can help you understand the best ways to promote your videos. The tool also allows you to directly reply to and comment on video mentions via the Awario interface.

6. Canva

Canva is a fantastic graphic designing tool for marketers. It helps you create aesthetically pleasing channel art, thumbnails, end slides, and other visuals needed for video marketing. While there is an all-access premium membership, you can use their free version to get started. However, the free version can be limiting in many ways.

If you struggle with graphic designing, it makes sense to outsource your video’s design needs to a reliable content partner like Pepper Content. With Pepper Content’s high-quality graphic design services, you can ensure that your videos have a consistent brand look and feel, boosting recognition and growth.

7. TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy is a YouTube channel management extension that allows you to monitor video statistics, trach engagement, review social media mentions, and get video optimization tips – without exiting YouTube. You can see how competitors optimize their video content using this extension.

Key Takeaways

• 99% of marketers who used video marketing as a part of their digital marketing efforts said they would continue with it even in 2022. This attests to the power of video marketing for brands and creators.
• YouTube is an ever-growing platform with users in almost every country, across ages and socio-economic statuses.
• One of the most important aspects of YouTube SEO – video metadata – is broken down into video titles, descriptions, and tags. Optimizing these can help boost your video’s organic rankings, which will help your channel grow.
• To improve user retention and engagement on YouTube, ensure excellent video quality, monitor watch time, track audience retention, keep an eye on click-through rates, and observe subscriber growth.
• Boost video views with email marketing, collaborate with other channels or creators, and share relevant video links on Q&A forums like Reddit or Quora.
• Suppose you want to ensure you get the most of YouTube SEO marketing tips. In that case, you may have to outsource any time-consuming tasks via powerful YouTube SEO tools and design software like Google Keyword Planner and YouTube Analytics.
• Outsource key tasks like Graphic Designing for videos to online content partners like Pepper Content to save time, get high-quality graphics, and ensure a consistent brand look and feel to your videos.

The Takeaway

To make sure your videos stand out and get the desired engagement, you need to optimize them using tried and tested YouTube video marketing tips.

Ensure you optimize the video metadata with the right keywords using the YouTube SEO tips and tools mentioned above. Once your video goes live, use all necessary platforms and channels to promote it and build viewership. And lastly, optimize and track your channel’s progress, tweaking your strategy wherever required.

We hope this YouTube video marketing strategy helps you start your video marketing journey.

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