Most creators on YouTube live for the day when their video gets ranked in the trending section. Perhaps there’s no other success that would give a creator the same amount of joy as this. But reaching this glory isn’t easy, and there’s a lot you must do to rank your YouTube video.
See, the thing is that getting ranked on YouTube is a shared dream of millions of YouTubers. It implies that if someone new joins the platform with this goal, they will be stepping into a competition. YouTube currently has approximately 50 million creators catering to its 2.6 billion regular users.
Let’s assume that half or even three-fourths of these creators give up on their goal. Still, you will be up against a mighty army with more experience than you. Fortunately, we have brought a fine assortment of tactics to get you out of this slump. Go through them carefully, and apply them diligently to see your video climb the ranks on YouTube.
11 Tips to Rank Your Videos on YouTube
All the tips mentioned in this article are highly recommended by market experts. Apply them consistently to make your video rank fast in the YouTube ranking.
1. YouTube Keyword Research
The first step toward getting a video ranked on YouTube is ensuring it is in demand. You must pick a topic for your video with a massive search volume on YouTube and search engines. And that is where keyword research comes into play. Searching for the best keywords to embed in videos is essential to YouTube SEO.
The wise use of keywords can help enhance the reach of a video and boost its rank. Therefore, it is a must for you as a creator to learn how keyword research is conducted. This process works in two simple steps.
Narrowing Down Target Keywords
Once you decide on a topic for your video, you need to find a target keyword for it. The criterion for a target keyword is that it must have a high search volume and preferably low competition.
Of course, you cannot find a single best keyword right away. You will have to form a list of all the potential keywords first. Here’s how you can do it:
- Open the YouTube website and navigate to the search bar.
- Now, enter a search term that is relevant to your topic. Let’s say your video is about ‘Motivational speaking; enter this word in the search bar.
- You will instantly see a lot of suggestions in the dropdown. Note down all of them and form a list.
The best thing about getting keywords this way is that all of them are searched by the audience.
Selecting a Final Keyword
Once you have the list, the next step is to find the right keyword. Experts suggest that you pick a keyword with low competition but high search volume. So, go through the list and if you find such a term, go with it.
Use your target keyword in the video’s title, description, and Meta tags. Doing so will boost the odds of your video’s discovery by the audience and securing a rank.
2. Post a High Retention Video
The common factor among all the videos ranked on YouTube is that the viewers love them. A video that can engage the audience and hold their attention gets ranked sooner or later. So, you need to focus on creating exciting videos and make the viewers watch till the end.
Another way of ensuring audience retention is to create longer videos that keep a viewer engaged. Doing so will also help increase your channel’s average watch time and other crucial stats. Remember that audience retention is a factor that you must strengthen in your videos. And for that, you need to refine your videos and make them as engaging as possible.
3. YouTube Video Optimization
Video optimization is another crucial factor that can directly influence a video’s odds of ranking. If you successfully optimize a video, it would get discovered by more people and thus get more engagement.
Now, there’s no need to worry if you don’t know much about the search engine optimization of videos. You need to focus on the following three factors to improve your videos’ ranking on YouTube.
Video Title and Description
Embedding the right keywords in your video’s title and description can increase its searchability. People will be able to find your content right on the top of video results, affecting its rank positively. It would also help viewers locate your videos on Google search, Bing, etc.
Add Relevant Tags
Adding relevant tags to your videos’ also increases the searchability and discoverability of your content. That’s why you must search for all the trending tags of your niche and add them to the videos. Doing so will boost your videos’ views, engagement, and ranking.
Use Playlists
Optimizing a playlist to draw the audience’s attention is a trending tactic these days. Since people prefer binge-watching content these days, it is best to focus on playlists. Make custom playlists of your content and add keywords in its title, so the videos can get more engagement.
If you manage to hit all these elements, your videos will soon start getting favored by the audience. And at least one of them will eventually get ranked in the trending section.
4. Use Hashtags for Search Results
The proper use of hashtags on YouTube can effectively increase the reach and engagement of your videos. The algorithm employs hashtags to identify the niche of a video. After that, it recommends the video to the audience interested in that hashtag. So, adding trending and relevant hashtags in your video will make the algorithm’s job easier.
It will quickly put your video in a specific category and recommend it to your target audience. In this way, your videos will get more engagement, and their odds of getting ranked will boost significantly.
5. Create an Attractive Thumbnail
Viewers are so obsessed with aesthetic looks that they mostly click on videos with attractive thumbnails. Now, what does that tell you? It implies that you must draw the audience’s attention by equipping your videos with insanely cool thumbnails.
Wake up the artist within you and design creative thumbnails for your videos. You can also hire a professional to make them for you.
Also, here are some pointers about making good thumbnails:
- Make sure that the thumbnail accurately defines a video.
- It should not be misleading or contain any clickbait.
- Try to keep it simple instead of adding too much art to it.
- Always highlight the text in the thumbnail to make it easier to read.
Once you start making thumbnails according to these guidelines, your videos will get more engagement soon.
6. YouTube Caption File
If you want your video to get ranked, you must ensure that people worldwide can understand it. Thus, it is best if you upload caption files with it to provide subtitles in multiple languages. This tactic won’t just help your video get ranked but also increase your channel’s reach in other countries.
It might also lead your videos to get ranked in some foreign countries, which would be an outstanding achievement.
7. Create Backlinks
Creating backlinks for your videos is an excellent way of getting organic traffic to them. However, getting backlinks for your videos can be challenging, unlike other SEO elements. You rely on other people’s corporations for this specific tactic. So, you should establish good connections with other YouTube channels and blog owners.
You can ask them to do you a favor and give your videos a backlink in their blog posts or videos. Surely it will take you some time to get enough backlinks for your videos, but it’s worth it. Enough backlinks will increase your channel’s authority on YouTube, making it more likely for your videos to get ranked.
8. Use Cards
YouTube cards can send viewers on a binge-watching streak by recommending new videos. As you might know, cards appear at the end of videos with a thumbnail of the following video. Now, most viewers end up clicking on that video to explore more content from the creator.
This leads to an increase in your channel’s average watch time and the number of views. And the more impressions and views your videos get, the more chances they will have of getting ranked. So, focus on this little tactic to achieve a greater goal.
9. Promote Your Video
The easiest way of increasing your video’s popularity and getting it ranked on YouTube is to promote it. Experts recommend promoting YouTube videos on multiple platforms to reach the maximum target audience. It is always best to start with social media platforms as most viewers come to YouTube from them.
All you have to do is copy the link of your video and share it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. You can tag your friends in the posts so they don’t miss the update and watch your video. Other ways of promoting videos involve email marketing, word of mouth, embedding on websites and blogs, etc.
10. Build Your Video Visbility
You cannot start seeking glory on YouTube without building a solid base first. As a creator, you must develop your channel and get more views, subscribers, and interactions with your content. Boosting these stats is crucial since they directly influence the authority of a channel and help videos get ranked.
How does that work? Well, it is simple. When your videos get more subscribers, they automatically get more views. And as we know, views are an essential social proof for videos that can attract more potential viewers. While you focus on creating content, try to boost your channel’s stats, especially video views.
You can even buy real YouTube views these days to make your videos climb the ranks quickly. Therefore, use whatever tactics and tools you have at your disposal to boost your views and subscribers.
11. Utilize CTA at the End
YouTubers have been using ‘call to action statements for a long time to gain audience favor. You can use a catchy CTA to convince the audience to like, share, and subscriber to your YouTube channel. Say something like, “Like, share and subscribe to my channel for more,” at the end of your videos.
This affirmative statement will charm and convince your viewers to comply. This is one of the easiest tactics in this post, so apply it to every piece of content you post.
Conclusion
We earnestly hope you liked today’s post and found all the tips helpful and easy to understand. If you want more excellent and practical tips for YouTube, you must check out our blog page. You will find lots of helpful articles there.
Also, if you didn’t understand any point, let us know in the comments section. We will try our best to solve your confusion. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for the latest posts and updates.
Leave a Reply