---
title: 'YOUTUBE SEO BASICS - Rank Your Videos #1 on YouTube (Fast!)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=TjyqaRRLx_g'
video_id: 'TjyqaRRLx_g'
date: 2026-06-14
duration_sec: 1311
---

# YOUTUBE SEO BASICS - Rank Your Videos #1 on YouTube (Fast!)

> Source: [YOUTUBE SEO BASICS - Rank Your Videos #1 on YouTube (Fast!)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=TjyqaRRLx_g)

## Summary

This video teaches YouTube SEO basics, focusing on how to rank videos in YouTube search. The creator shares strategies used to rank for competitive keywords like 'how to self-publish a book'. Key factors include click-through rate (CTR), keyword optimization, and audience retention.

### Key Points

- **What is YouTube SEO?** [00:58] — SEO stands for search engine optimization, the science of working with an algorithm to rank videos in search results.
- **YouTube's Business Model** [01:26] — YouTube aims to keep viewers on the platform longer to make money, so it promotes videos that satisfy user intent.
- **Most Important Ranking Factor: CTR** [02:44] — Click-through rate (CTR) is the most important engagement factor. YouTube prioritizes videos that get clicked when suggested.
- **Improve CTR with Brackets** [03:32] — Adding brackets or parentheses to video titles increases CTR by giving viewers insight into the content.
- **Keywords in Description** [04:24] — Include target keywords in the first 20-25 words of the description, as that's the visible part before clicking.
- **What are Keywords?** [05:00] — Keywords are words or phrases users search for. They are crucial for matching content with search queries.
- **Finding Keywords** [06:05] — Brainstorm terms for your video, then search on YouTube to see if similar videos exist and check their view counts.
- **Using TubeBuddy** [07:44] — TubeBuddy is a free browser extension that shows keyword popularity and competitiveness.
- **Keyword Popularity vs. Competition** [08:20] — Prioritize popularity over competition; you can rank for competitive keywords if your video is a good fit.
- **Choose Keywords Before Making Video** [10:02] — Select keywords before planning your video to ensure alignment and popularity.
- **Include Keywords in Video Content** [10:47] — YouTube auto-captions videos and uses spoken content as a key ranking factor, so say your keywords in the video.
- **Description Length** [11:43] — Write at least 100 words in the description, including each target keyword about two times.
- **Tags are Not a Ranking Factor** [12:17] — YouTube no longer uses tags for ranking; they only help with homonyms. Use tags for TubeBuddy tracking.
- **Third Factor: Audience Retention** [15:52] — Audience retention (percentage watched) and average view duration are key. Higher retention indicates viewer satisfaction.
- **Improving Audience Retention** [16:39] — Ensure video fits search intent, avoid rambling, use a clear outline, and vary camera angles/graphics/music.
- **Social Proof Boosts Retention** [17:41] — Social proof (comments, likes) encourages viewers to keep watching. Ask specific, easy-to-answer questions.
- **Engage with Your Own Video** [19:09] — Watch your video multiple times after publishing to boost initial views and retention, and leave a comment.

### Conclusion

YouTube SEO revolves around three key factors: click-through rate, keyword optimization (especially in spoken content), and audience retention. By implementing these strategies, you can improve your video rankings and grow your channel.

## Transcript

today i'm going to teach you the basics
of youtube seo and exactly how to rank
your videos in youtube search i've used
these exact strategies to rank my videos
in the top three on youtube for
competitive keywords like how to
self-publish a book how to write a
business plan and how to start your own
business
now right now if you're making videos on
youtube but you're not getting as many
views and your channel isn't growing as
quickly as you would like i want to grow
quite possibly youtube seo mistakes are
the culprit so in this video i'm going
to teach you everything you need to know
about youtube seo and how to rank your
videos on youtube including very
specific tactics that you can start
implementing today on your videos small
changes you can make that make a big
difference and the most important three
factors that the youtube algorithm truly
cares about
so what exactly is youtube seo well seo
just stands for search engine
optimization and basically it is the
science of how you can work with an
algorithm to get your videos to rank
well in that search algorithm so here on
youtube when someone types in a search
term is your video going to show up in
the top results if your video is search
engine optimized then it will so let's
start out with a bit of a truth bomb the
truth youtube is a business and they
exist for one main purpose and that
purpose is to make money and like most
businesses they invest in their business
so that their business can become more
and more profitable and one of the main
ways youtube does this is by investing
into their algorithm by improving the
process by which they promote videos to
viewers so that they can keep their
viewers or their users on the platform
for longer and keep them happy because
the longer they can keep people on
youtube the more money they can make and
what that looks like in a practical
sense is youtube has spent millions of
dollars perfecting their algorithm so
that it can match viewers with the exact
videos they want to watch and why that
matters to you is because if you're
making videos that someone out there
wants to watch then you need to make
sure that you are working with the
algorithm so that the algorithm truly
knows what your videos are about and who
would want to watch them and can promote
your videos to those people when you
make videos on youtube your audience or
your viewers are going to engage with
them in different ways they will first
of all potentially click on them they'll
watch them for a certain amount of time
they might hit the like button and they
might leave comments but you might be
wondering which of these factors is
really the most important well youtube
has said time and time again that the
most important factor for whether or not
a video is going to rank and the most
important factor of audience engagement
is simply whether or not someone clicks
on the video the percent of people that
click on your video when it's suggested
to them is called click through ratio or
ctr now youtube does also give some
weight to other factors including your
viewer retention how long people keep
watching your videos we'll talk more
about that in just a couple minutes and
also likes and dislikes and as far as
that goes what that means is that it is
worth asking people to like your videos
but let's talk a little bit more about
ctr since youtube has said time and time
again that click-through ratio is one of
the most important factors for ranking
on youtube one specific
easy tip that i can give you about how
to improve your ctr is to simply add a
bracket or parentheses to the end of
your title now multiple studies have
shown that when you add a bracket or
parenthesis to the end of a title it
increases the percentage of people who
click on that and this goes for videos
as well now the reason why this is is
because it gives people a little bit of
an insight or at least it makes them
feel like they're getting an insight
into what the video is actually about
intriguing and since they feel more
confident about what the video is about
they feel more confident that the video
will be what they're looking for and
that the video will be interesting to
them and so they are more likely to
click on it obviously this is one of the
easiest things you can do to improve
your videos click-through rate and
therefore rank higher on youtube another
bonus tip is to add your target keywords
again we'll talk more about keywords
what those are and how to find your
target keyword in just a minute but
whatever your target keywords are make
sure that you include them in the first
20 to 25 words of your video's
description that's because this is the
only part of your video's description
that viewers or potential viewers can
see before they click on your video and
so it's the only part of your video's
description that can affect whether or
not they choose to click on your video
meaning the part that can affect your
ctr and therefore affect your ranking so
let's move on now and talk about
keywords as i promised so what exactly
are keywords well they are simply words
or phrases that people use to search for
content and they're words or phrases
that you can use to identify your
content so for example someone might go
to youtube and search youtube seo basics
and find a video like this one or they
might search for a term like how to
start an online business to find videos
like this
keywords are extremely important because
they are the heart of how any sort of
search algorithm works users are typing
in keywords to tell the algorithm
what type of content that they're
looking for and then the algorithm is
using keywords at least in part to tell
which pieces of content are the right
fit for that search inquiry so it is
extremely important that you know what
keywords you are trying to rank your
content for that you choose good
keywords to rank your videos for and
that you correctly optimize your videos
to in fact rank for those keywords so
let's talk about how to do that to find
the right keywords for your video you'll
want to start with some good
old-fashioned common sense duh just
think about literally what your video is
about brainstorm a whole bunch of
different ways that you can explain what
your video is about in just a few words
or less then it's time to take to
youtube itself and start searching for
each of those terms now you're looking
for two things here first of all of the
videos that youtube returns for your
search inquiry are these videos very
similar to the video that you were
thinking about creating because you're
getting some very valuable insight here
you're learning what the algorithm has
decided people want when they search for
those words so you want to make sure
that your video your content is in
alignment with that if you're making a
video that you think is a great fit for
that term but the algorithm doesn't
think so then when your video
potentially ranks for that term people
are most likely not going to click on it
if you make a video about a certain
topic and associate it with a certain
keyword that you think is a good fit for
it but the algorithm doesn't think so
then it's simply not going to rank for
that keyword better luck next time so
like i said that is the first thing
you're looking for are the videos that
match those keywords you're looking for
similar to the video you're trying to
create the second thing you want to pay
attention to here is how many views are
those videos getting you want to make
sure that you're choosing keywords that
are popular enough so that if your video
ranks for that keyword it actually ends
up getting a significant number of views
i always recommend starting with youtube
and your common sense for this but you
can also use a tool such as tubebuddy to
see how popular different keywords are
and how competitive they are which
basically means how many other videos
are trying to rank for this keyword as
well by the way tubebuddy is a free
browser extension that you can install
on your browser and then sign into with
your youtube account to be able to get a
lot of valuable search data so as you
look at the numbers that tubebuddy shows
you about each different keywords
popularity and competitiveness and then
the score that tubebuddy gives it you
might be wondering which of these
numbers is really the most important and
what makes for a good keyword common
advice is often that you should go for
keywords that are as popular as possible
but not competitive at all because if
the keyword is too competitive then you
won't be able to rank for it but this is
simply bad advice because the truth is
that you can rank for any keyword
regardless of how competitive it is if
you correctly optimize your video for
that keyword and you make sure that your
video is a good fit for that keyword
meaning that people will be satisfied
with your video as a result to their
search that's what i was looking for
so for example if you searched on
youtube youtube seo basics and you found
this video would this video be what
you're looking for if it is then it
stands a great chance of ranking high
for that keyword even though that's a
very competitive keyword now earlier on
i mentioned that it's very important
that you are ranking for keywords that
are popular enough so that when you do
rank for those keywords you can actually
get a significant number of views from
that high ranking so because of that the
keyword's popularity is of primary
importance you'll want to make sure that
that keyword is getting at least a few
thousand searches every month and you
can see that listed as the search volume
for that keyword in order for it to
truly be worth your time to make a video
about it as far as the keywords
competition yes it can make it a little
easier for you if you steer clear of the
most competitive keywords but you want
to give a lot more weight to the
popularity of the keyword than the
competition level another really
important note when it comes to choosing
keywords is that you want to choose them
before you make your video ideally
before you even plan your video so that
you can first of all ensure that the
keyword is popular enough and the second
that you can design your video around
that keyword to make sure that it will
really give the viewers what they're
looking for on the other hand if you try
to optimize your video for keywords or
choose the right keywords for it after
you've made it you might find that
you've made your video around keywords
that aren't very popular or that you're
trying to fit your video into a keyword
that is more popular but it's not really
the right fit for
and it's tough to ever rank a video for
a keyword that it's not the right fit
for so now let's talk about how to
actually rank your video for your
keywords once you have selected them now
of course as i'm sure you know you can
and should include your keyword in your
videos title description and tags
however what matters more than any of
those things is that you include your
keywords in your video's actual content
because youtube is automatically
captioning every single video meaning
it's listening to it and it's
transcribing it and it is basing your
search ranking more than almost anything
else on what you actually say in the
video because that obviously that makes
sense that that would give youtube the
best information about what your video
is actually about and now going back to
what we were talking about earlier how
there are three main factors that have
the biggest impact on your videos
ranking well what you say in your video
is going to be that second most
important factor and finally before we
move on from keywords let's talk about
one more bonus tip for getting your
video to rank for a keyword and that is
to make sure that your video's
description is at least about 100 words
long the more words you include in your
video's description the more you can
tell youtube and the algorithm about
what your video is actually about so
you'll want to make sure that you
include each of your main target
keywords in your video's description at
least about two times this is going to
give youtube a strong indication that
your video is probably about that and
help your video to rank higher for those
terms and next up let's talk about tags
first of all what's the difference
between a keyword and a tag well a
keyword we already talked about that is
just a term that people are using to
search for content and a term you're
using to identify your content tags on
the other hand are something very
specific there is a specific field in
your videos description or metadata
where you can type in video tags and
these are just keywords that you're
plugging into your videos metadata so
keywords super important can't avoid
them tags on the other hand are actually
a bit of a relic of the past ancient
history now there is a reason to still
use tags we'll talk about that in just a
minute but first let me give you a very
short history of youtube tags when
youtube was first created there wasn't
really an algorithm at all people were
just uploading videos willy nilly very
quickly it became a search driven
platform where people were searching for
certain keywords and then youtube was
trying to give them what they were
looking for and at first youtube based
this primarily off of the videos titles
and the videos tags because they added
in this tag field so that they could
sort and categorize the videos now over
time as youtube sought to improve their
algorithm so that they could give their
users better results that were more
aligned with what they were actually
looking for and keep them on the
platform for longer they updated the
algorithm to factor in descriptions and
also captions that people added to the
video so that they could better
understand what the content was actually
about as things progress even further
youtube developed the capability to do
auto captioning where they started
actually listening to the videos and
transcribing them which gave them a lot
more insight into what the videos were
truly about now i understand now as i'm
sure you can understand as youtube got
more and more data about what the videos
were actually about and that data was
really from the source it was from the
actual content of the video instead of
just what the creator said the video is
about youtube began to rely more and
more on that data and eventually stopped
relying on tags altogether it's been a
couple of years now since youtube came
out and blatantly said that they are not
using tags as a ranking factor at all
and that their only purpose for tags is
to correct commonly misspelled words or
words that are homonyms words that sound
the same sometimes the captioning
software can't tell exactly what you're
saying in the video and so if there is a
question then youtube's algorithm goes
to the tag to figure out which of those
two meanings you really meant but the
big takeaway here is that tags don't
really affect your videos ranking at all
at this point so you might be wondering
should you even bother with tags should
you type anything into that tag field
well first of all if there is one of
those commonly misunderstood words in
your video something that the algorithm
might be confused about you might as
well put it in the tag section just to
clarify but beyond that i actually still
would recommend that you do include your
target keywords in the tag section now
it's not going to help you rank for them
but it will give you some valuable
insight especially if you're using a
tool such as tubebuddy if you have typed
your target keywords into that tag
section then when you view that video
tubebuddy will give you data on how
you're ranking for each of those
keywords and that way you can easily see
how your video is performing so far and
you can work on optimizing from there so
far we've covered two of those three
most important factors for ranking well
on youtube and now we come to the third
and that is audience retention so
audience retention is the percentage of
time that your viewers watch your video
and channel wide the percentage of time
that your viewers on average watch your
videos and something that's very similar
to audience retention is average view
duration which is the number of minutes
that viewers watch each of your videos
now doesn't it make so much sense that
of course youtube would rank videos
higher if viewers keep watching them for
longer obviously that's a really strong
indicator that they are enjoying the
video and that the video is what they
were looking for especially if they
searched for a certain term then they
chose to click on it and then as they
watched it they kept on watching it it
shows that it was really what they were
looking for so how can you improve your
audience retention how can you keep
people watching for longer well there
are three things you can do first of all
make sure that your video is a good fit
for the search intent so this goes back
to what we talked about earlier you need
to have the keyword in mind when you
plan and film the video you need to make
sure that you are designing the video
around the keyword so that it is a good
fit for what your viewer will be looking
for second don't waste your viewers time
avoid rambling and make sure that your
video keeps moving forward with new
valuable information or new events that
keep unfolding and third make sure that
you keep your viewers focused by using
an easy to follow outline the only way
you can do that is by planning your
video ahead of time and having a clear
outline viewers are more likely to keep
watching a video for longer if they
understand the information that they're
consuming you can also keep viewers
attention by keep changing things up
with different camera angles graphics
and music so that your viewers don't get
bored this is interesting so let's wrap
things up with a bonus tip for getting
people to keep watching your videos for
longer so here's the thing people keep
watching videos for longer when they see
social proof that others also enjoyed
the video they think other people said
this video is good so it must be good or
it's going to get good so i'll keep on
watching it to get to the good part or
to get whatever else is coming later so
here are a few different ways that you
can increase the social proof on your
video first of all how can you get
people to comment more well just asking
people to comment is too vague and
people don't have a good idea of what to
say you can make it way easier for
people to comment and make it much more
likely that they do so by asking them a
specific and easy to answer question
ideally this is a multiple choice
question where they can choose between
two options that makes it easy for them
to answer and a lot of the time they'll
want to share their opinion so for
example here's a question for you right
now how do you choose your keywords or
your video topics do you make videos
just about what you feel like making
videos about or are you more the
analytical type that likes to do a lot
of keyword research and choose your
keywords and your video topics based on
data data data data i cannot make bricks
without clear tell me in the comments
down below
are you more of the intuitive type or
more of the research type and one more
way to increase your video social proof
and keep people watching your videos for
longer especially if your channel is
still really small
is to add some social proof by actually
engaging with your video yourself so
when you first publish a video don't be
shy about clicking on your video and
watching it all the way through a few
times not only is this going to start to
rack up the first few views which adds
some social proof but it also is going
to set your audience retention on a good
path from the start so that means your
first few views are going to be 100
audience retention which can help to
increase your search ranking you can
also of course give your video a like
and leave a comment and you can pin your
comment to the top which again adds more
social proof and if you have multiple
google accounts maybe you have yours
maybe you have access to your
significant others or to a friends or to
your businesses or to your dogs well you
can log into each of those different
google accounts and do the same things
with those accounts again adding more
social proof and helping your video to
rank higher from the start a lot of
people don't talk about this tactic
because it can feel a little silly but
when you're first starting out every
single view counts and so this tactic
can really help there is tons more about
youtube seo that i would love to share
with you but i don't have time in this
video it's already getting way too long
so i recorded an hour-long masterclass
in which i share with you more about how
the algorithm works more about how to
work with it and especially how to grow
your channel to a thousand subscribers
as quickly as possible in fact i've had
several people reach out to me and share
that they use the strategies in that
free workshop to get their first
thousand subscribers after posting just
five or ten videos and i even share one
of the stories like that in the workshop
itself and i break down exactly how that
new creator did that so if you want to
check out that workshop and get access
to that hour-long youtube algorithm
masterclass and be sure to check the
description below you can sign up and
choose a time to watch it that works for
you because it is an on-demand workshop
which means that we've got multiple
showing times every day that you can
watch it and it is completely free all
right well that is everything for this
video thank you so much for joining me
today give this video a like if you
learned something new if you have
something valuable out of it if you have
tips now that you are going to start
implementing on your next video and of
course consider subscribing if you want
to learn even more about how to grow
here on youtube or you're interested in
starting your own online business which
is one of the main things i talk about
here on my channel my name is gillian
perkins thanks so much for joining me
today i love you and i'll see you next
week with another video