YouTube SEO Guide: How Should You Optimize Your Videos?
You can reach millions of people through YouTube. Are you wondering how to get the videos you upload to YouTube to rank higher and which SEO efforts you should carry out to achieve this?
YouTube statistics I consider important;
- With more than 2,7 billion monthly active users, YouTube is the second most widely used social platform worldwide. (We Are Social & Meltwater Digital Global Report)
- More than 1 billion hours of video are watched on the platform every day. (YouTube Official Blog Culture & Trends)
- YouTube Shorts has reached between 70 and 90 billion daily views. (Alphabet Investor Relations)
As a Google product, YouTube can display your videos as a video carousel in the results depending on search intent. It is important to remember that Google can access all the information available on YouTube and uses this information in SERPs or AI results. Therefore, optimizing videos is much more valuable.
Before moving on to the optimization recommendations, let’s briefly analyze the video results that appear for the keyword “How to make lahmacun,” which has search volume and potential.
Below, you can see how much traffic the video from the yemek.com channel, which ranks first, receives according to Ahrefs data. The relevant video receives approximately 15.2K monthly traffic on its own. Moreover, as we often mention in GEO work, these videos have also been cited in AI results:
Based on all this information, questions such as How does YouTube SEO work? What steps should you take to optimize your YouTube channel for SEO? may come to mind. To answer them, we have summarized some important tips below.
What Is YouTube SEO?
YouTube SEO is the name given to optimization methods used to help your YouTube videos rank higher both on YouTube and on Google and other search engines.
What Are the Ranking Factors in YouTube SEO?
Below, you can find some important ranking factors that may affect your YouTube rankings:
YouTube-Specific Keyword Research
You can conduct keyword research using tools such as VidIQ and YouTube’s internal search, or based on the data in your YouTube dashboard. With YouTube autocomplete, you can identify terms that may not come to mind but that users are likely to search for.
Video File Name
Uploading the video to YouTube with a more descriptive file name is one of the positive signals for rankings. YouTube can read not only your video content but even the file name during upload and use it as a ranking signal.
Example of a file name we do not recommend;
With this in mind, instead of naming the video “video11-2020,” you can use a name such as “ZEO YouTube_SEO_tips.”
Video Title
You can think of your video titles like the title tag on websites. In this section, it is beneficial to use titles that are not spammy and that fit a natural language flow. You can choose titles that accurately describe the video, are relevant to your target audience, and provide users with information. Titles that include personal experience will generate more engagement:
You can plan A/B tests to understand what attracts users’ attention most when choosing titles, and consider using 3 hashtags:
Video Description
You can include words that describe your videos and may be useful to users in the description section. This section also has a 5.000-character limit. You can use different hashtags here.
You should avoid irrelevant and potentially spammy words as much as possible. Using repetitive and irrelevant words is against the guidelines. You can also use Google Trends to find keywords and identify popular terms this way.
Example usage: BBC News Türkçe
You can also run ongoing tests in the description section with YouTube Analytics to determine the most effective usage.
Video Category
Placing your videos in more relevant categories can both help your video rank higher and help you attract more relevant audiences. For example, if you create a video on a topic such as “10 Challenges Referees Face,” setting its category to “Film & Animation” would not be the right choice. Instead, you could select the “Sports” category.
Video Tags
Video tags are another factor that affects your videos’ rankings. YouTube also recommends using tags on videos in its own resources. We recommend using video tags that are as relevant to the topic as possible and do not repeat one another:
Shorts
One of the easiest ways to reach your target audience is to create Shorts videos. You can cut your long videos into vertical formats or create Shorts videos exclusively in vertical format, and increase your subscriber count. If you wish, you can also use these videos on TikTok.
Thumbnails
It would not be wrong to say that thumbnails are among the most important elements of videos. Users are highly likely to click based on video thumbnails, both within YouTube and in SERPs. If you wish, you can click the “Show suggestions” button to create an additional image.
In addition to the video title, thumbnails send viewers a signal about the video’s content, which can affect the number of clicks and views your video may receive. YouTube already automatically generates thumbnails from videos, and you can select one of them; however, our recommendation is that you should always have a custom thumbnail.
Example thumbnail usage. (From Tokyo search results)
Creator Academy, “90% of the best-performing videos on YouTube have custom thumbnails” reports. You can use images that are 1280x720 pixels (representing a 16: 9 ratio), 2MB or smaller, and saved as .jpg, .gif, or .png.
We should also note that your account must be verified in order to verify thumbnails.
Using Subtitles
One of the critical points in YouTube SEO recommendations is adding subtitles to videos using .SRT files. Videos with subtitles added appear as shown below:
Upload subtitles in the video’s original language without disrupting the video’s synchronization. Then, if possible, translate them into other languages and add them to your videos as well. Even if you cannot add subtitles to the entire video, you can still translate the title and description sections.
In some search results, Google takes parts of video subtitles and displays them in the AI Overview section:
By accessing the area shown below for your YouTube videos, you can easily add subtitles not only in Turkish but also in other languages:
Playlists
Presenting related videos in a single playlist can encourage viewers who visit your channel to watch more content on topics they are interested in.
You can think of playlists as category structures on websites and create action plans accordingly. In addition, instead of sharing related videos one by one, you can share playlists more easily. You can also update the description sections of playlists so that they describe the relevant playlist:
Cards
You can see cards in the upper-right corner while watching videos. Here, you can show viewers video content that you find relevant. Example usage:
When editing your YouTube videos from the Details tab, you can add cards not only for videos but also for playlists, links, or polls. 
End Screens
YouTube end screens, shown on the screen as videos end, can help direct viewers to different content.
Example of end screen usage.
Reach Data
You can also use statistics from your YouTube videos when optimizing them. For example, you can use many statistics, such as where your videos were found and the view rates generated from those impressions, to plan your future videos.
In addition, YouTube may occasionally test these end screens and display different end screens in order to better analyze user preferences.
As we near the end of our article, we can note that video watch time is also one of the important signals. Many other factors, such as subscriber count, likes, comments, hype counts, social shares, user intent, and average watch time, can also be used in rankings.
Of course, what we have covered above represents only a small portion of these ranking factors. If you would also like to carry out SEO work on YouTube, you can contact our team.
