How to Rank YouTube Videos: 7 Proven Strategies

today i'm going to show you exactly how to rank your youtube videos step by step in fact i've used the seven strategies from this video to rank in youtube for competitive keywords like link building on-page seo video seo and youtube seo these strategies have also helped my videos rank on the first page of google so if you want to get your videos to the top of youtube and google make sure to watch the rest of this

video when i first launched my youtube channel a few years ago i was completely lost i knew that youtube was the world's second largest search engine but i didn't know how to rank my videos so i did what anyone would do in my situation i search for things like youtube seo and how do i rank my videos and i saw the same exact advice over and over again you know the kind of thing i'm talking about

use your keyword in your title use a bunch of tags and my favorite create great videos oh create a great video why didn't i think of that needless to say this generic advice didn't work and after years of trial and error i finally figured out what actually worked and now that i have youtube seo pretty much figured out my rankings views and subscribers have shot through the roof and in this video i'm going to show you

the seven strategies that have worked best for me so let's kick things off with strategy number one boost your click-through rate your click-through rate is the percentage of people that see your video in the search results and click on it as it turns out youtube pays very close attention to your video's click-through rate and if lots of people click on your video youtube will give your video a rankings boost in fact youtube's own data shows that

your click-through rate is key so how do you increase your click-through rate without using click bait use brackets and parentheses in your video title industry studies show that you can get up to a third more clicks just by adding brackets to the end of your title that's because the text in your brackets gives someone a sneak preview into your video which makes them more likely to click for example check out the title of this video from

my channel my original title was just how to rank number one in google but i decided to add this text in brackets which makes my title much more enticing to click on which leads us to our second strategy increase engagement signals engagement signals are things like comments shares likes and subscribes and the more engagement signals your video gets the higher it'll rank in fact a recent industry study found that engagement signals strongly correlated with rankings in

youtube and youtube has even gone on the record saying that videos are ranked partially based on engagement the question is how do you get more people to engage with your video first ask your viewers to answer a multiple choice question this is a big one when i first got started on youtube i'd say things like let me know what you think of this video in the comments that's when i realized something people love giving their opinions

but they hate thinking and when i ask people to let me know what they think i was making commenting way too hard that's why today i ask people a multiple choice question that's super easy to answer here's an example in fact multiple choice questions like this is one of the main reasons that my videos get thousands of legit comments next give people a reason to subscribe to your channel so instead of something like please subscribe say

make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on my future videos for example dr mike does a great job giving his viewers a reason to hit that subscribe button and it's one of the main reasons that his channel has millions of subscribers and now it's time for strategy number three embed your videos justin briggs recently analyzed a hundred thousand videos across 75 000 channels and one of the most interesting things he found was that rankings

on youtube were closely tied to video and beds in fact top ranking videos had an average of 78 more in beds than average and the easiest way to do this just embed videos on your own website for example i embed my youtube videos in almost every post now sometimes i use a video as a way for people to learn more about something i'm talking about and other times i use an embedded video to explain a step

or technique either way works you can also embed videos in press releases guest posts or anywhere else that you publish content let's keep it moving with technique number four the tsc tag formula it's no secret that tags can help your videos rank higher in the search results that's the good news the bad news is that most people use tags the wrong way in fact when i first got started on youtube i'd stuff my videos with tags

like there was no tomorrow and no matter how many tags i used my videos wouldn't rank okay tag 867 what should i write and today i know why as you already know youtube uses your tags to figure out what your video covers and if you use a hundred tags youtube's gonna have a really hard time understanding what your video is actually about for example check out the tags on this video imagine that you're youtube based on

these tags what would you say this video is about one tag says the video is about blogging but it's also about life lessons and csa whatever that is if you're confused youtube is confused and instead of tag stuffing i recommend something called the tsc formula here's how it works first make your first two to three tags your target keyword for example let's say you wanted to rank your video for the keyword public speaking tips you'd want

to make your first few tags variations of that keyword next use synonyms of your target keyword so for a keyword like public speaking tips these would be things like how to give a speech and conference speaking finally use two to three category tags these tags describe your video's larger overall topic for example let's say your primary keyword is how to do a push-up well you'd also want to use a few broad tags that describe your video's

high-level topic in this case category tags would be things like fitness and workouts that's all there is to it which leads us to step number five rank in suggested video when most people think about ranking in youtube they think about ranking in youtube search but that's not the only place on youtube where your videos show up in fact for many channels suggested video brings in more views than youtube's search engine the question is how do you

get your video to rank as a suggested video well youtube suggests videos based on two main factors one the types of videos that you recently watched and the video you're currently watching for example if you just watched a bunch of videos about cold brew coffee youtube is gonna suggest more cold brew coffee videos even if you're watching a cute cat video right now but like i said they also base these suggestions on the video that you're

watching right now so if you're watching a video about cute cats youtube is going to suggest more cute animal videos in the sidebar and this is where the opportunity is you see when you optimize your video with the same keywords that a popular video uses you have a good chance of showing up next to that video in the suggested video area so if you see a video in your niche with lots of views try to use

a few of their tags as your synonym and category tags in your video and now it's time for strategy number six increase your watch time when it comes to youtube ranking factors watch time is a big one so what is watch time watch time is the total amount of accumulated time that people have spent watching your video on youtube and this is a little bit different than audience retention audience retention is a percentage of a video

that people watch and watch time is the total minutes that people have watched since that video first came out and according to youtube watch time can help your videos get more visibility across the entire platform including search with that here are two quick strategies for increasing watch time first i recommend planning scripting and outlining your videos when i first started making videos i'd turn on the camera and start talking i had a general idea of what

i wanted to cover but because i didn't plan my video ahead of time i was all over the place today i plan out every video ahead of time that way i don't lose people with a scattered or unfocused video next you want to mix things up with every video there's nothing that youtube viewers hate more than a static video that never changes so do your best to change up your camera angles visual styles add music anything

that keeps your video fresh and interesting let's keep things rolling here with our last strategy optimize your video description as you might already know along with your title and tags youtube uses your description to understand your video's content and when you write an optimized description you can find yourself with higher rankings and more views with that here's exactly how to create an seo optimized video description first make your description at least a hundred words lots of

youtubers treat their description as an afterthought needless to say a super short description like this doesn't give youtube a lot of information about your video and if youtube doesn't understand your video it probably won't wreck instead you want to write about 100 words that outlines the content in your video for example my description for this video is 232 words which gives youtube enough content to understand what my video is all about next include your target keyword

in the first two to three sentences of your description youtube's algorithm puts more weight on terms that show up in the first two to three sentences of your description in fact youtube recommends that you quote put the most important keywords towards the beginning of your description for example my target keyword for this video is link building and as you can see i used that keyword in the beginning of my description finally you want to sprinkle in

your target keyword and some related keywords a few times now this isn't about keyword stuffing or anything like that it's just using your keyword a handful of times to emphasize to youtube and google that your video is about that keyword and you don't need to use your keyword a hundred times to do that three to four times is more than enough for example you can see that i use my target keyword link building four times in

this description and now it's time for a quick bonus technique strategically promote your videos back in the day i'd publish a video and hope that people would see it please get views please get views please get views and needless to say this publish and pray approach didn't work that's why today i strategically promote every video that i publish how you exactly promote your videos depends a little bit on your unique situation for example i have a

pretty big email list so i focus on promoting my new videos there but i also promote my stuff on social media which helps a little but maybe you're in a niche that's big on reddit if so that would be a great place to promote your video now you obviously don't want to do anything spammy but if you share a helpful video with the right subreddit people actually appreciate the share with that it's time for one last

bonus strategy before we close out this video find untapped keywords here's a great strategy to find keywords to optimize your videos around first go to your traffic sources report and hit search this will show you the exact words and phrases that people use to find your videos if you already spend time optimizing your videos you'll probably recognize a few of these keywords but if you dig deeper you can sometimes find keywords that your videos accidentally rank

for and if you're getting views from these keywords without even trying imagine how many views you can get when you actually create a video that's optimized around these accidental keywords i hope this video helped show you how to rank your youtube videos if you like this video make sure to subscribe to my youtube channel right now that way you don't miss out on more actionable videos like this one just click on the subscribe button below this

video and if you want exclusive seo and traffic techniques that i only share with subscribers head over to backlinko.com and hop on the newsletter it's free now i want to turn it over to you which technique from today's video are you gonna try first are you gonna start promoting your videos or try optimizing your video description let me know by leaving a comment below right now and as it turns oh okay that wasn't bad and one

of the most i wasn't looking at you nah so boom next last one youtube so it's just me begging