How to Build a Winning YouTube SEO Strategy

What’s the second most-used search engine in the world?

Nope, not Bing. Or DuckDuckGo. Certainly not Yahoo, AltaVista or AskJeeves.

The second most-used search engine in the world is YouTube. Over 2.5 billion users visit the site per month, and people watch over a billion hours of video on the platform every day.

It’s no surprise that brands are looking to connect with an audience on YouTube. But the sheer size of the site — and the algorithms that govern it — can make it hard to be seen.

Here’s a quick guide to help your channel make the grade.

Keys to an effective YouTube SEO strategy

As with any content marketing, a great video SEO strategy takes great content. Make sure that the video content you’re producing is relevant to your audience, offers genuine value, and meets the specific intent of the keywords you’re targeting. It doesn’t need to be a Hollywood-grade production, but should cast your brand as credible and worth remembering.

When you’re ready to upload that killer content and start racking up views, keep these elements in mind.

Optimize the video title

A title is just as important to a YouTube video as a headline is for your blog posts. Treat your title the same way. The goal is to entice people to press play and clearly identify your subject matter for the search algorithm.

Aim for specific and quantifiable value for the best result. For example, consider these two titles:

New trends in B2B automation
Make your invoicing more efficient with these B2B automation tips

The first title is short and it has our keyword (B2B automation). But it’s too vague — it doesn’t tell me what I’m going to get for my time investment. You could get even more granular, depending on the audience: “Save 10 hours of accounting time with B2B Automation.”

To avoid having your title truncated, aim for 75 characters or less. The descriptive second title above is only 65 characters, so you have more room than you think.

Optimize the description

YouTube offers a generous 5,000 characters for the description field. But it doesn’t offer a guarantee that anyone will read to the bottom. It’s a good idea to be thorough in your description, including links and time stamps, but don’t feel like you need to fill space. And definitely don’t feel like you need to shoehorn in more keywords!

For long videos, your description should include: