Optimizing the Rank of Your YouTube Videos
Do you want to work with YouTube in order to have a job in your home? Do you find it very delightful and satisfying making videos and showing them to the people all over the world? If your answers to these questions are all yesses, then you should first learn all the basics about YouTube videos in terms of how they are ranked in order to become successful in your ventures. In fact, you are picking a good opportunity which is actually one of the best ways to earn money online. When working with YouTube videos, you should know all of the factors that affect the rank of YouTube videos when searched by online users. These factors will be discussed below.
The Basics of Ranking
When you use YouTube, you will of course search first on the search field by putting the keyword related to the video you want to watch. After entering the keyword, all results related to that keyword will be displayed on your screen. However, there is a ranking in terms of these searches. The video with the highest ranking will be usually at the top of the list making it the video that you will watch the most. For you to understand better, let us take an example. When you go to YouTube, you can see the search field at the top of the page.
In the search field, you will input the keyword or keyword phrase related to the video that you want to watch. The keyword in the example below is “how to make cake.” This means that you want to watch a video tutorial about making cakes.
After clicking the search button located on the left side (magnifying glass symbol) or by pressing enter on the keyboard, all searches about “how to make cake” will be shown. The first video is usually the one with the highest ranking, which will be the one most likely to be watched by people.
In this case, the video entitled “How to make a frozen princess cake” is at the top of the rank. This video will be the one most likely to be watched by online users.
The Factors
Now, you may wonder how these videos are ranked. Of course, you would want your videos to be at the top of the rank so that people will tend to watch them over the other videos from the results page. The more people watching your videos, the more traffic you will receive, therefore more cash for you. This is the main reason why you would want your videos to rank up high.
There are different factors that can affect the ranking of your YouTube videos. Some factors can be directly controlled by you in order for them to rank higher. These factors are the ones involved in the contents of your videos. However, there are other factors that cannot be directly controlled by you but still affect the ranking of your videos. These factors depend on the engagement of your viewers. In order for you to comprehend easily, let us divide these two factors into two kinds: content based factors and audience engagement based factors.
Content Based Factors
First controllable factor and probably the most important of all is the title. The title of your video greatly affects the outcome of whether your video will rank high or low on YouTube and whether it will be chosen or not by YouTube users. You would want to have a title for your video that is both appealing to the eyes of users and rich in high raking keywords. However, when you incorporate keywords, make sure not to ruin the title of your video. There are times when video makers just insert high ranking keywords without realizing that the keywords ruined the title itself. As a result, when people search for the videos they need to watch, there is a high chance that they will ignore unappealing titles.
Some people find certain titles with keywords appealing and worthy to watch if the title suggests that the video is unbelievable, contains secrets, with rip off, a fraud, and all about tricks. If you can make videos with these contents and matching title rich in keywords, your videos will surely rank high on YouTube. Below is an example of a YouTube video title. As you can see, even though the title is long, it is rich in keywords as well as understandable and appealing to the users. These are probably the main reasons why the video is at the top ranking position.
Second factor that you can control is the description of your YouTube video. When you write the description of your video, you should make sure that it is as comprehensible, appealing, and can enlighten the viewers of your video about it. You should incorporate some keywords on your video description as well as one or more URL which can give additional information about your video or about you.
The image above shows a high ranking video on YouTube about magic tricks. As you can see, the description entices the viewers about the video. Moreover, the URL Free Magic Live was used by the maker of this video to redirect viewers into another page where they can learn more about the video, learning magic in this case. Furthermore, they also added a link to their Facebook Group where viewers can continue to support and follow them.
Third factor is the addition of tags into your YouTube account and videos. Your tags should be keywords if possible. They should also be relevant and related to your videos. You would want to incorporate tags that are both high ranking in terms of keywords and also understandable. Doing so can improve the rank of your videos not only on YouTube but also on search engines. When you incorporate tags, make sure that you do it carefully. Identify if your tags are spelled correctly, grammatically correct, and appealing to be able to make your viewers enticed.
When you open your YouTube account, you can find the tags on the far left side of the screen.
Fifth ranking factor of your YouTube videos in terms of the content is the transcription. There are times wherein the viewers of your videos will be looking for the transcription of your videos for clarifications and confirmation of details and information. YouTube itself provides the transcription of your videos. However, the transcription, according to most people, is so horrible that understanding it seems a faraway dream. What you should do is to transcribe your videos on your own. Allot some of your time to listen to your videos and then transcribe it word per word. To confirm that your transcription is understandable, consult an expert in grammar and spelling.
consult an expert in grammar and spelling.
The image above shows a transcription of the speech made by YouTube itself. According to experts, using other means of transcribing your videos is preferable than using the one provided by YouTube.
Sixth and last ranking factor on the content side is the delivery of your video. This is included on the content side since YouTube and determines if your video is worthy to watch or not. The viewers of your video can start an interaction with each other by sharing their opinions about your video. They may criticize your video or they may rather compliment it. If your video is perceived good and high quality by the viewers, its rank on YouTube will go up. Else if your video is perceived bad and low quality by the viewers, its rank will go down. If this happens, you should consider judging and assessing thee videos you make. Take some time to know the mistakes you have done.
Audience Engagement Based Factors
The next factors are the audience engagement based factors that dictate whether your videos will rank high or low on YouTube. The difference of these factors from the content based ones is that these factors cannot be directly controlled by you. These factors are the strength or intensity of the engagement of the audience of your YouTube videos. Although they cannot be directly controlled by you, they greatly determine the ranking of your videos on YouTube.
First factor is the number of views of your YouTube videos. This actually works on the other way around than the aforementioned factors since what you have to do is to increase the number of views of your videos by improving their ranks. In order to accomplish this, you should make use of outside connections you have. If you have an account on Twitter,Facebook, or other social media sites, take time to share and spread your videos through these sites. If you have some other websites, then promote your videos through your sites. Having connections outside of YouTube can increase the rank of your videos as well as the number of views since more people may see and watch your videos.
However, you have to be very careful when doing the things mentioned above to gain ranking and views. Surprisingly, YouTube can determine if the viewers of your videos are engaged to what they are watching by detecting if the viewers of your videos will finish what they are watching. If not, YouTube can conclude that the viewers of your videos are bored and unengaged. They can then lower your rank on their website. In order to prevent this, make sure that your videos are appealing and amazing as possible, wherein their viewers will totally get engaged and amazed at what they are watching.
The image above shows the current YouTube videos with the highest number of views among all other YouTube videos out there. It has an amazing number of views of more than 2 billion views. The main reason for this is that if you watch this music video, it is funny and has a great sense of musical quality.
The second uncontrollable YouTube ranking factor is the inbound links. Although can be slightly controlled by you, it is still up to the viewers of your videos to share the links of your videos to its YouTube page or channel. If you can make an amazing video, you will expect the inbound links to build naturally. The inbound links can be a link to your YouTube channel or the link to the specific video itself. As mentioned before, you may be able to slightly control this. What you have to do is to share the link of your video to your blogs, websites, or social media accounts. If people can find that your videos are worth watching, they will then share this video themselves. The process then goes on and on until more and more people watch your video and share them through links. The more link connection there is, the higher will be the ranking of your video on YouTube.
The image above shows how a YouTube video is being shared on Facebook, a social media site. The friends of this person who shared the video will most likely view the video themselves on Facebook. If they liked it, there is a high possibility that they will share the video by linking it. This video’s rank on YouTube will then go up.
Third factor is the number of social shares. Unlike the previously mentioned factors affected by social media sites, this one is a bit different. Social media sites have their own share buttons and fields where people can share the videos they enjoy to the people who they interact with on their social media accounts. When people watch videos directly on YouTube, they can also share the videos they watch on their social media accounts through the YouTube’s share option. The more shares there are on social media sites regarding your videos, the higher their ranks will be. This sharing option is shown in the image below.
The fourth factor is the number of embeds. When you create amazing videos or videos that some website owners would want on their own blogs or websites, they can choose to embed your videos. Embedding is like putting the videos on their own blogs or websites like they were the ones who uploaded them. The more people embed your video, the higher will be the ranking of your YouTube videos.
The image above shows a website using a video from YouTube. This means that the website owner has embedded the YouTube video into his website.
Fifth uncontrollable ranking factor is the comments and video responses of the people to your videos. Obviously, you will not be the one controlling the perception and responses of people to the videos you make. That is why your only option to ensure that the responses and comments will be great and extremely positive is to make high quality, relevant, and amazing videos. Comments are easy to obtain. You only have to make your videos worth responding for. Viewers of your videos will then comment on your videos themselves. If your video a tutorial about something, then the comments that people can give you may be thanksgiving comments thanking you for showing them how to do something they cannot do before. These comments can then improve your YouTube ranking. If possible, respond back to those comments in order to start an interaction. Making your videos worth talking about can greatly improve the rank of your videos.
On the other hand, video responses can also improve the ranking of your videos on YouTube. However, video responses seem hard to obtain. It is rare for people to create responses to some video about something. What you can do is to work with a friend of yours and respond to each other’s videos. Although this can be time consuming, it can greatly improve the rank of your videos.
