When putting the time into creating a video, you want to make sure that the video is seen by as many of the right people as possible. Therefore, it is important to make sure that the video is well optimised.
Here are our top 5 tips to optimise your YouTube channel to help ensure that it is being found by your target audience, and you are maximising the effectiveness of your videos as much as possible.
1. Keywords
We all know how important keywords are in our social media strategy, and the same goes for your video channels and content. You need to make sure that your keyword appears in as many places as possible, so that people can find your video.
On YouTube, this includes in the channel name (where appropriate), in the banner image and in the channel description. For each video, make sure you include the keywords in the title, description, tag, thumbnails and file name. That way YouTube can pull through your video when people search the relevant keyword term. We recommend that you include 5-8 tags per video, and the description should be at least 250 words long, with the keyword in the first 25 words.
2.YouTube’s preferred video categories
YouTube has a powerful algorithm that decides the position and ranking of YouTube videos for search terms, similar to Google’s algorithm. Before creating your content you should first consider whether your video will fit into YouTube’s preferred video categories. These are: How to’s, Reviews, Tutorials, Fitness/Sport related content and Comedy videos. These categories may help form your video content strategy and help you to be creative with your brand.
3.Encouraging engagement
It’s not just important that people view a video, but also that they engage with the video and your channel. This includes liking, sharing, subscribing to the channel, clicking the notification bell and leaving comments. You can encourage this by running competitions and giveaways that stipulate that you must share, like and leave a comment on the video. You can also ask people for opinions to leave in the comments or ask a question in your video that people can answer in the comments. People are more likely to engage if you are creating good content that is useful and informative. If you receive a high amount of engagement, YouTube is more likely to push out your video via its algorithm.
4.Publishing a high retention video
A high retention video is one that people watch most, if not all, the way through, and don’t immediately click off from. YouTube will interpret the high retention as the video being relevant and of high quality, as so it is more likely to push that video out. You can create a high retention video by giving it a relevant title (and not clickbait), making sure the content is super engaging and not too long or dragged out, and by ensuring that the quality of the video is good. You can also leave an element of mystery or intrigue at the end of the video, for example saying there is a giveaway but telling your audience to wait until the end of the video to hear the details of how to enter.
5.Channel set up
Making sure that you follow ‘best practice’ methods to optimise your YouTube channel set-up will ensure you look professional and help with SEO. This includes having the correct size profile image – this should be 800x800px -, a high-quality channel banner – which should be 2048(w)x1152(h)px -, links to your website or specific product, links to your other social media channels and links to any other relevant channels you have. This gives further confirmation to Google that you are a high quality and professional channel, helping them push the video further out.
If you follow all of these steps, your channel will have a much better chance of being successful and engaging with your target audience.
Upgrade your video marketing
V Formation regularly works with clients to help them develop and implement their marketing and video strategy. We have been able to work with our specialist collaborators to make fantastic videos and we are noticing a real increase in video content from brands. If you would like to upgrade your video marketing, or want more advice on how to optimise your YouTube channel, please get in touch with us today.
