How I rank higher on YouTube With These SEO Hacks (Step By Step)

[00:00] If you're a complete beginner or a small

[00:02] YouTuber, one of the things that could

[00:03] be holding you back is SEO. And listen,

[00:06] if you're anything like me, SEO, tags,

[00:08] description, all of that [ __ ] is a

[00:11] snoozefest. It is the most boring parts

[00:13] about this entire process. But the worst

[00:16] part is that it's one of the most

[00:17] important. So that's why I'm going to

[00:19] try and make this as painless as

[00:20] possible for both of us. Now, if you

[00:22] don't know who I am, my name is Romero.

[00:23] I've been doing YouTube automation since

[00:24] 2018. I've made over $1.9 million across

[00:28] all of my faceless YouTube channels. And

[00:29] that's pretty much it. I don't have much

[00:31] of a personality. I need to get better

[00:33] at intros. Anyways, let's go ahead and

[00:35] get started. So, what's the truth about

[00:36] tags? Is it actually important? Is it

[00:38] something you need or are you just

[00:39] wasting your time? Well, if you've ever

[00:41] heard a YouTube coach say that you don't

[00:43] need video tags, I want you to let them

[00:45] know that I said that they can go [ __ ]

[00:47] themselves because that's exactly what I

[00:49] did. I would listen to coaches that say

[00:51] SEO doesn't matter. video tags don't

[00:53] don't have any importance with the

[00:55] algorithm and because of them I wasted

[00:57] years of my life. Listen, we're at the

[00:59] end of 2025. We're about to hit 2026.

[01:02] YouTube has changed a lot. It is not the

[01:04] same as it used to be and that's because

[01:06] they soft launched Gemini. Now, if you

[01:08] don't know what Gemini is, Gemini is

[01:10] Google's chat GBT. It's their own

[01:12] version, right? And they implemented

[01:13] Gemini into YouTube in late 2024. Point

[01:17] is, they've been training it this whole

[01:18] time. And what they've been training it

[01:20] to do is to scan videos. They're

[01:22] essentially trying to replace their

[01:24] employees, the the human reviewers. Now,

[01:26] it is very important that I say that

[01:28] YouTube did not announce this. This is

[01:30] not confirmed. This is just a theory

[01:32] that I have. I think it's a pretty good

[01:33] [ __ ] theory, right? But it's not

[01:34] confirmed. Anyways, my point is YouTube

[01:37] now uses AI to identify what your video

[01:40] is about and to send it out to the

[01:42] correct audience, right? So, now it's

[01:43] even more precise with how it's going to

[01:45] recommend your videos. So, when it comes

[01:47] to SEO, you can argue that now it's one

[01:49] of the most important parts of the

[01:51] entire process. So, do yourself a favor

[01:53] in your tags. Fill them up all the way.

[01:55] Use tools like Vid IQ, TubeBuddy, Next

[01:58] Lev, whatever it is. There's a bunch of

[02:00] free [ __ ] out there. Just please make

[02:02] sure you fill up all of your tags. Okay.

[02:03] Now, what about video descriptions? Do

[02:05] video descriptions really matter? Do you

[02:07] have to make them long? Do you have to

[02:08] make them short? Do you have to put

[02:09] hashtags? Do you have to put links?

[02:11] Easy. Use Chad GBT. So, what you want to

[02:14] do is give your entire video transcript

[02:15] to Chad GBT and you want to give it this

[02:17] prompt. Pretend you're an SEO expert who

[02:19] specializes in ranking YouTube videos in

[02:21] Google search results. I'm giving you

[02:23] the full transcript of my video. Based

[02:25] on it, write a YouTube description

[02:27] that's strategically worded to rank high

[02:29] on both YouTube and Google. Use high

[02:31] traffic keywords and make it sound

[02:33] natural and persuasive, not spammy.

[02:35] Prioritize retention, relevancy, and CTR

[02:38] keywords, and structure it like a

[02:40] professional SEO copywriter would. And

[02:43] that's pretty much it. You don't have to

[02:44] go too crazy about it. Now, remember,

[02:46] you have to make your tags and your

[02:48] description very, very specific and

[02:51] detailed. And that's because you no

[02:52] longer want to just rank high on

[02:54] YouTube. You want to rank high on

[02:56] Google. Because what I've noticed is

[02:57] that they're both kind of merging

[02:59] together. Now, what about video titles?

[03:01] Should your keywords be in the front of

[03:03] your title or in the back? That's not

[03:05] important. Matter of fact, every video

[03:07] title you create, it needs to be based

[03:09] off of a successful YouTube video,

[03:11] right? That's how you should be doing

[03:12] YouTube to begin with. If you've been

[03:13] posting original content for the last 2

[03:15] 3 years and you haven't seen any

[03:17] results, I'm going to give you a word of

[03:18] advice. Start following the trends, man.

[03:20] Go to your niche, find your competitors,

[03:22] and create video titles and get all of

[03:24] your video ideas based on what they're

[03:26] posting. Now, what about thumbnails? Do

[03:28] thumbnails have anything to do with SEO?

[03:30] Technically, no. But with the whole

[03:32] Gemini thing going on right now, and

[03:34] with my little theory, I'm pretty sure

[03:35] it does. So, I think having text on your

[03:37] thumbnails is very, very important. And

[03:39] here's more advice. Don't add more than

[03:41] four words. Make the text yellow. Add

[03:43] black drop shadow and put it on the

[03:45] bottom left of your thumbnail across the

[03:47] board for any niche you could think of.

[03:49] That's kind of how it works. Now, what

[03:50] about what you actually say in your

[03:52] video? Your actual transcript. Does that

[03:54] matter? Again, yes. Gemini analyzes the

[03:56] entire transcript of your video. That's

[03:58] how it's able to tell if it can monetize

[04:00] it or not. Like if you say anything, you

[04:02] know, for example, you know, not

[04:04] communityfriendly.

[04:06] I almost just said it for some reason.

[04:08] But if you were to say anything that was

[04:10] out of pocket, then obviously YouTube

[04:12] has to tell somehow. But yeah, I mean,

[04:14] if you're on topic with your video, then

[04:16] it kind of automatically happens. Now,

[04:18] what about audience retention? Like the

[04:20] actual time that they spend watching the

[04:21] video. So, let's talk about that. My

[04:23] advice to you is that you don't post a

[04:25] single video that is shorter than 8

[04:26] minutes. The longer you can make your

[04:28] videos, the better. And the sweet spot

[04:30] is about 13 to 14 minutes. Anything over

[04:33] 20 minutes is also pretty solid. Now,

[04:35] for a YouTube video that is 14 minutes

[04:37] long, you want to have at least a

[04:39] 5minute AVD. For anything that's over 20

[04:41] minutes, you want to have at least a

[04:43] six-minute AVD. Now, of course, this is

[04:45] just based on my experience. This is

[04:47] just based on my analytics, what I've

[04:48] seen, and that seems to be kind of the

[04:50] sauce. But here's the thing. If you have

[04:51] a high CTR, anything over a 13%, and

[04:55] your AVD is, let's say, 3 minutes, your

[04:58] chances of competing in rank is still

[04:59] relatively high because you got to have

[05:01] one of the two. It's either going to be

[05:02] high CTR or high AVD. So, try to get

[05:05] good at one. Now that we're on topic, I

[05:07] get a lot of questions from members in

[05:09] my school community, and they always

[05:10] tell me, "Hey, um, I'm trying to get the

[05:12] video tags from competitors, but they

[05:14] don't use video tags." And then I go

[05:15] ahead and check out who their competitor

[05:17] is, and it's some random YouTube channel

[05:18] with like 2 million views, and they

[05:20] average 100,000 views per video, and

[05:22] it's like, no [ __ ] You know, they have

[05:24] way too many subscribers, and they have

[05:26] reoccurring viewers. So, tags, I think

[05:29] they don't really care. They have a fan

[05:30] base that is going to watch their videos

[05:32] regardless. So, you have to find those

[05:34] competitors that kind of have a balance.

[05:36] You know, they don't have too many

[05:37] subscribers and not every video they

[05:38] post is a banger. You want to get tags

[05:40] from those guys. But anyways, what

[05:41] should be your focus? Should you focus

[05:43] on pleasing the audience or pleasing the

[05:45] algorithm? And again, from experience,

[05:47] complete honesty, you got to sell out at

[05:49] first. You have to sell out. You know,

[05:51] that's what I did. I sold out for the

[05:53] first 2 3 years. You got to get on the

[05:55] good side of the algorithm first because

[05:56] if not, it's not going to push it to an

[05:58] audience, right? Your content could be

[05:59] good. whatever structure you have for

[06:01] your videos could be great, but if

[06:02] you're not cool with the algorithm,

[06:04] you're not meeting a certain standard,

[06:05] which was the AVD and CTR. You know,

[06:07] you're never going to find that

[06:08] audience. Again, it doesn't matter what

[06:10] your content is, how great it is, how

[06:12] high your quality is, how funny you are.

[06:14] The algorithm could care less. You got

[06:16] to focus on the analytics first before,

[06:18] you know, trying to please the audience.

[06:20] Now, what about uploading times? What

[06:21] time should you upload your videos? It

[06:24] doesn't matter, right? As long as you're

[06:26] not posting at like 4:00 a.m., you

[06:28] should be fine. If you live outside of

[06:29] the US and you're targeting US-based

[06:31] viewers, try to schedule your videos to

[06:33] PST time. So, I would say anywhere

[06:36] between 8 to 9:00 a.m. PST. At least

[06:38] that's what I do. The latest I've ever

[06:40] uploaded was 9:00 p.m. PST, but I've had

[06:42] a lot of students in my school community

[06:44] get results posting at like midnight.

[06:46] Now, what about video category? Does the

[06:48] category of your videos really matter?

[06:50] Not anymore. Uh, I mean, YouTube kind of

[06:52] did it at the beginning because they had

[06:54] specific sections where it'd be like,

[06:56] "Oh, the top 10 uh videos in the sports

[06:59] category and people would care, you

[07:00] know, people would watch that." Yeah,

[07:02] nobody cares. It's kind of like

[07:03] subscribers. It's not important anymore.

[07:05] And if you're not sure what to

[07:06] categorize your your YouTube channel,

[07:08] hey, just ask Chad GBT. Now, if I was to

[07:11] give you one piece of advice, that would

[07:14] be get good at SEO. I wouldn't go too

[07:16] crazy with the content as long as it's

[07:18] not complete dog [ __ ] Get good at SEO,

[07:20] get good at tags, get good at video

[07:22] ideas, get good at marketing, and then

[07:25] you can focus on your video content. If

[07:27] you're posting every day and you're

[07:29] getting like 20, 30 views per video and

[07:31] you're like, "Oh man, I got to make

[07:32] better content." You're looking at this

[07:34] wrong. Just focus on SEO and CTR first.

[07:37] Get people to watch your videos. Make

[07:38] dog shake content at first if you have

[07:40] to. Now, with practice, you're going to

[07:41] get SEO and CTR, right? which means

[07:44] you're going to get a higher pool of

[07:45] people that watch your videos and that's

[07:47] going to lead to a more accurate AVD,

[07:49] you know, average view duration. You're

[07:51] going to know how long people watch your

[07:52] video for. So, from there, you can start

[07:54] tweaking your content. But do not go

[07:56] based off of 20, 30, even 100 views. Get

[07:59] a video that gets like 2,000 3,000

[08:01] views. See what the AVD is. Then it

[08:04] would make sense to actually start

[08:06] tweaking things. Of course, the more

[08:07] views the better. But you got to get

[08:08] good at marketing. That's what YouTube

[08:10] is. Again, I run over six faceless

[08:12] YouTube channels. I've gotten hundreds

[08:13] of millions of views. And here's the

[08:15] crazy part. I haven't watched a single

[08:16] one of my YouTube videos since like

[08:18] 2021. I have a lot of big creators, a

[08:21] lot of big YouTubers come to me for for

[08:22] assistance with their YouTube channels.

[08:24] And it's kind of like, wo. That's when

[08:25] it kind of clicked. You know, that's it

[08:27] goes to show that YouTube just isn't

[08:29] content. YouTube is marketing. So, try

[08:31] and look at it that way. Now, for those

[08:32] of you that want to take YouTube serious

[08:34] and you want to learn how I do YouTube,

[08:36] you can go ahead and click the link in

[08:37] the description of this video or in the

[08:39] pin comment and that's going to take you

[08:40] to my school community. And here in my

[08:42] school community, you get a blueprint

[08:43] step by step which shows you from A to Z

[08:46] on how to start a YouTube automation

[08:47] channel. But where all of the videos are

[08:49] are in the tutorial vault. And this is

[08:51] 70 videos plus where I go into extreme

[08:54] detail about SEO, Photoshop tutorials,

[08:56] editing tutorials, and pretty much

[08:58] everything that I've learned about

[08:59] YouTube since 2018. And matter of fact,

[09:01] there was a 2025 Vault update where, as

[09:04] you can see, [ __ ] got a little bit more

[09:05] advanced. But the best part is that I go

[09:07] live two times every single week. And

[09:09] this is where I speak with you guys

[09:10] directly, answer any questions, review

[09:12] your channels, all of that good stuff.

[09:14] But for those of you that don't give a

[09:15] [ __ ] thanks for watching. I would

[09:16] appreciate if you liked and subscribed

[09:18] to the channel. But for those of you

[09:19] that are actually going to go check it

[09:21] out, I'll see you in one of the live

[09:22] calls.