How to Get a Video Ranked on Google and YouTube?

According to Cisco, online video will account for more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2022. Every week, an average person watches 16 hours of online video. And video is used by 85 % of businesses as a marketing tool.

It should come as no surprise that video is quickly becoming a necessary medium and digital marketing management is emerging to be one of the most fruitful fields in 2021. YouTube is a powerful marketing platform that your company should take advantage of, with over 6 billion hours of video viewed per month.

The majority of today's competent marketers recognize that video should be a part of everyone's marketing strategy and are redirecting all their resources and efforts towards video marketing. That is why video Marketing agencies are in the spotlight, now more than ever.

This means we must overcome our fears that it will be unpleasant, as it most likely will be at first. And getting good at it will take some time and practice. It is a part of the journey.

But I'm not going to delve into that right now. Instead, I'm going to talk about how to get your videos to rank, both on YouTube and in search results. This is crucial because even if you create the most incredible videos in the world, they will be useless if no one sees them.

What exactly is video SEO?

The process of increasing organic traffic to your website by obtaining more video views from Google is known as video SEO.

Youtube works in the same way that Google does: users search for a term, and instead of articles and products, video results appear. The Youtube algorithm determines which videos appear based on a variety of ranking factors. The easier it is for Youtube to figure out what your video is about, the higher it will rank it. To rank on the first page of Youtube, it looks for the most relevant videos with the most engagement.

Let's start with YouTube because it's the foundation of everything, whether we're talking about YouTube ranking or Google search results.

How to Rank a YouTube Video?

After you've finalized your video and uploaded it to Youtube, you'll want to make sure it appears on the first page of search results. There are a lot of factors that go into determining how high your video will rank on Youtube. The following are a few of the Youtube ranking factors:

➣ Use of a Target Keyword

➣ Retention of the target audience

➣ Subscribers & Video Engagement

➣ High-quality content

1. Create high-quality content

Many factors influence how well a video ranks on YouTube, but one of the most important is its quality.

Because there is no way to objectively measure quality, it isn't a direct ranking factor. However, it has a large impact on user engagement, which is a direct ranking factor.

The higher a video's ranking on YouTube, the more people who watch, like, and comment on it. So, make sure that your videos are created to solve a specific problem for your viewers.

Share some useful information. Teach them how to do something or share your thoughts on a current event in your industry.

The key is to create a video that is both informative and entertaining. It's also a good idea to encourage them to subscribe to your channel and leave comments, likes, and shares on your videos.

However, before we can make a video, we need to figure out what kind of information people are looking for.

2. Do a Thorough Keyword Research

Unlike traditional SEO, keyword research for YouTube is fairly straightforward. There are no tools available for YouTube that show search volume, difficulty, or competing videos. We only have the YouTube and Google interfaces to work with.

Fortunately, these provide us with a reasonable amount of information quickly. Using YouTube's Search Suggest feature to come up with ideas is a good way to start. Because it is populated based on user activity, this is a powerful tool. As a result, you won't have to guess whether or not people are looking for these terms.

Another way to come up with video ideas is to look through some of the most popular channels in your niche and see which ones have the most views.

To accomplish this, go to the VIDEOS tab and sort the videos by popularity. It's important to remember that just because a topic has a lot of views doesn't mean it's worth making a video about.

Other advertising channels, such as paid search, social, email, and so on, can inflate the view count. It could also be due to the fact that it has been online for a long time.

It's also worth noting that you can use any of the tools and strategies you'd use for traditional keyword research here. However, you should proceed with caution, as there may not be a direct correlation between organic search and YouTube search volume. You can also get an idea of the level of competition by using Google's appropriate search operators to look for videos on a specific topic on YouTube's domain.

After you've chosen your target keyword or phrase, make sure that every aspect of your video revolves around it. The title, description, tags, and actual video content are all part of this content.

Every video on Youtube is transcribed; so, if you include your keyword throughout the video, Youtube will be able to better understand what the video is about and rank it higher.

3. What is Video Optimization?

When we talk about optimizing your video, we're referring to two things: the video itself and the YouTube page where it's hosted.

4. What is The Optimum Video's Length?

Size does matter when it comes to the length of your videos. I'd like to stress that this is more of a case of correlation than of causation.

This, I believe, is due to the fact that longer videos are more comprehensive and thus provide more complete answers to viewers' questions.

As a result, viewers are more satisfied, and they are more likely to like, comment on, and share the video, as well as watch it for longer periods of time.

5. Is Video Quality a Ranking Factor?

In this case, when I say quality, I'm referring to the quality of the video file itself. This is significant because HD videos account for 68.2 % of the videos on YouTube's first page.

This is, once again, a case of correlation rather than causation. In this case, higher-quality video results in more satisfied viewers and increased engagement.

Furthermore, people who invest in higher-quality equipment are also more likely to devote more time and effort to create higher-quality content.

6. Incorporating Keywords into the Video

You may believe that Google is unable to determine what is contained within the video but this is not the case. Google has been rapidly implementing machine learning in a variety of ways, as I detailed in an article a few years ago.

We already know they extract the audio from the videos we upload and create a text transcript automatically. Based on their other AI applications, I don't think it's a stretch to assume they use it in their ranking algorithm. Perhaps they can even analyze the context from a contextual standpoint.

Even if this has no direct impact on rankings, it can still be useful because YouTube transcripts can be used as text on the page where a video is embedded.

7. The impact of Tags on Ranking

While tags do not have a direct impact on a video's ranking on YouTube, they do help your videos appear as a suggested video. Putting your videos in front of more people can have a significant impact on your engagement rate.

You can use the same keywords in your tags, but make sure to look at other popular videos tags to see if you're missing any. While the tags aren't visible to the public, there is a useful Chrome extension called VidIQ Chrome Extension that displays them right on the page.

8. Retention of the target audience

Audience retention refers to the amount of time your viewers spend watching your video. High view rates on videos will rank higher in <4 href="https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-the-youtube-algorithm-works/">Youtube's algorithm because they demonstrate that your content is engaging and relevant.

To ensure high audience retention, keep your video focused on the topic from beginning to end. This will prevent viewers from clicking away after the video has begun. You could also give people a reason to stick around until the end of the video. Your Youtube ranking will improve as a result of this.

9. Video Engagement

Along with audience retention, your video's ranking on Youtube is determined by how users interact with it. This refers to how many likes, comments, shares, and subscribers you have.

According to Youtube ranking factors, the more engagement your video receives, the higher it will rank. Encourage viewers to like, comment, and subscribe to your videos to increase engagement.

Share your videos on other platforms, such as social media and blog posts, to really boost Youtube video engagement. With more engagement, Youtube will recognize that your video is more relevant to the audience and will give it a higher ranking.

How to get a video ranked on Google?

The YouTube search optimization we've already covered lays the groundwork for ranking our videos in Google. However, in most cases, it isn't sufficient. Consider it on-site SEO for your website. Off-site factors must also be taken into account.

1. Links from Other Websites

We'll typically need inbound links from multiple authoritative websites to rank for even mildly competitive terms. I would like to emphasize the importance of having anchor text that matches or is very similar to the video title.

Because you're linking directly to a Google property, you don't have to be concerned about over-optimization. To put things in perspective, I've personally thrown millions of exact match anchor text links to YouTube videos and have yet to see a negative result.

I'm not saying this is the best strategy, but it's one of many we've tried and found to work. A few relevant links from high-quality, authoritative websites can often be enough to make a difference in this area.

2.The Importance of User Interaction

We all know that user activity influences how well a video ranks on YouTube, but most people aren't aware that it also influences how well it ranks in Google searches.

It's a little more nuanced here, though.

The amount of engagement a video receives from the search results has an impact on how well it ranks. This is because Google tries to give users what they want, and higher engagement rates indicate that your video is providing that. You might get some engagement without doing any extra work, to some extent.

However, it would be foolish to stop here because your competitors will be doing everything they can to outperform you.

There are numerous methods for manipulating your engagement rate, ranging from pristine with an angelic glow to blacker than Lucifer's hooves. Because this is a no-judgment zone, you can do whatever you want based on your risk tolerance and what your competitors are doing.

However, you must be aware of the dangers. While a penalty of any kind is unlikely, some of the grey to black hat tactics commonly used to manipulate engagement leave a negative impression of your brand.

One of these strategies entails hiring micro workers or virtual assistants, usually from overseas, to "watch" your videos and leave a slew of comments.

The issue here is twofold. Because micro workers and virtual assistants do not have the same command of the English language as native speakers, their comments will be spammy.

And instead of showing your videos to people in your target market, you'll be training the algorithm to show them to more people in those areas.

A better strategy is to use paid social, PPC, and email marketing to drive the right and real people to your videos, where they will engage authentically.

3. Closed Captions are Game Changers

You've probably heard that a written description of your video is required by YouTube and Google.

What better way to do so than with closed captions? 75% of the YouTube videos in the top ten search results had closed captions, according to our analysis.

This is not surprising; Google is committed to providing the best answer to a query, and the more it knows about a video, the more confident it can be about the quality and intent of the information. Closed captions are a good idea when performing video SEO.

4. Promote Your Video

The general rule is to promote your video everywhere. Technically, you are shouting about it, but you are doing so with greater understanding. You can use Q&A sites such as Yahoo, Quora, and MSN. The best way to use these sites' Alexa rankings is to be proactive.

Your videos can be embedded in the answers. However, do not attempt to paste links or you will be quickly banned. Investigate the audience niche for your brand. Look into what they're looking for. Answer questions in the relevant section of your niche before embedding your video. You can use your virtual assistant to complete the task and only respond positively with Dos and Don'ts.

When used correctly, YouTube is a powerful platform. Video marketing is still in its infancy, but it will become increasingly important as time goes on. It's crucial to get your content in front of the right people at the right time if you want to be successful. If you follow the steps outlined above, your videos will begin to appear in Google and YouTube search results soon enough.

This is it for today’s blog. I hope you enjoyed reading it. Do share your feedback with me and reach out to me if you have any queries. I will get back to you as soon as I can. If you have a business YouTube channel and you want your videos to rank well, we at Prism Digital can help you reach your audience by using tailored YouTube marketing strategies made just for your business. Experts at Prism video production company are all ready to take your business to next level.