YouTube SEO Guide on How to Rank Your Videos in 2022

In the last seven days, I got 4.7 million views while writing this post. 30% of these views were from the YouTube search. It means that I got substantial traffic to my videos organically. With this YouTube SEO guide, you can do the same to rank your videos on the platform.

Earlier, I gave you the challenge to grow a YouTube channel in 30 days. Now is the time we take things even further to get more traffic from the platform itself. Let's get straight to the guide without further ado. 

YouTube SEO Guide: 3 Steps To Rank Number 1 on YouTube

The definitive guide to Youtube SEO should be as detailed as possible. But I want you to take steps to your YouTube success. That's why I've divided the guide into three main steps:

1. Do the Keyword Research
2. Optimize Your Videos
3. Boost Your Video and Track Your Rankings

First, you need to understand that keywords are the most important part of YouTube SEO. It is not easy to rank number 1 on YouTube, but with the right keyword research, you'll be miles ahead of your competitors.

Have a look at the video I’ve made for you on my channel:

Keyword research and topic selection are essential parts of a solid SEO strategy. But what is YouTube SEO, anyway? Let's find it out. 

What is YouTube SEO

YouTube SEO is optimizing your videos to appear in the YouTube search. It's a collection of the best practices to bring organic traffic to your YouTube channel. So focus on YouTube SEO to help people find your videos readily interested in them.

YouTube SEO Guide: How to Rank Your Videos Fast

To rank your videos fast on YouTube, you need to make interesting videos. But this post is not about making interesting and useful videos. Rather, I'll cover the technical side of ranking your videos on YouTube. So let's get started.

Do the Keyword Research to Up the SEO on YouTube

It's more of a search analysis in which you research the competition and choose the topic for your videos. YouTube SEO starts with keyword research to get noticed by viewers who are searching for your content. 

The best way to do the keyword research is by using the platform itself:

• Go to YouTube
• Type any topic in the search bar
• And press the spacebar

That's just it! YouTube suggests the topics that people are already searching for in your niche. But with this method, you don't get insights to decide on a particular topic for your YouTube channel. For that, I suggest you try out two top YouTube keyword research tools:

• H-Supertools YouTube Keyword Tool
• MorningFame

Let me do the keyword research on these tools for you now. 

Find Topic Ideas With H-Supertools YouTube Keyword Tool

This free YouTube Keyword Tool by H-Supertools helps you do the keyword research for your videos. It helps you find the trending topics with the low competition fast.

Let's get to know how it works:

• Go to keyword tool
• Search for a seed keyword 
• Get all the relevant keywords in seconds
• Prioritize your video content based on the data

Yes, you can make videos for certain topics based on the data. The keyword tool helps you get the data like keyword competition and volume. It doesn't necessarily provide accurate data, but you can easily count on it. 

Target the Gateway Video Suggested by MorningFame

Finding the search terms with low to zero competition is tough, right? Yes, but not with the MorningFame. It's a wonderful tool to help you optimize your first YouTube videos quickly.

This is how it works:

• Create your MorningFame account.
• Enter a search term or keyword in the search bar.
• Ensure that it gets a green signal and A grade for relevance.
• Make sure that the gateway video's channel has fewer subscribers than yours.

MorningFame recommends that the gateway video's number of subscribers and views should be less than 500. That's the sweet spot you must look for. But it's not a must! You can change the criteria according to your YouTube SEO strategy. 

Check Out Other YouTube Keyword Tools for YouTube SEO

There are tons of tools that help you research your topic ideas easily and use those insights to create relevant videos. 

H-Supertools YouTube Keywords Tool and MorningFame are my favorite tools, along with TubeBuddy. Let me share a few more YouTube keyword tools available in the market to increase organic traffic to your channel. 

• Vidooly
• Camtasia
• TubeBuddy
• MorningFame
• KeywordTool.io
• Canva, Pixlr, or Stencil
• Google Trends (trend analyzer)
• H-Supertools YouTube Keyword Tool
• Ahrefs Keywords Explorer for YouTube
• YouTube Creator Academy (Learning tool)
• vidIQ (Chrome extension for YouTube SEO)
• YouTube Autosuggest (Not a tool, but worthy YT feature)

You don't need to go premium and pay bucks for all of them. There are a lot of free YouTube tools listed above as well. H-Supertools, Google Trends, and YouTube Studio are my favorites.

Mention the Keyword in Your Videos to boost YouTube SEO

Including the keyword in your video helps YouTube know what it's about. And the search algorithm of YouTube ranks your videos higher if it ‘thinks' you are offering something relevant to its searchers.

You can mention the keyword three times in the description, once in the title and twice in tags. You should also optimize annotations, thumbnails, subtitles, descriptions, etc.

I'd highly recommend adding related keywords in the video description as well.

Create an Awesome Intro and Outro

The intro is the first few seconds of your videos that visualize the theme of your videos. And outro is the last few seconds of your videos that help your visitors to watch more or do something else.

Needless to say that the intro and outro of your videos are important. They can either help you rank high on YouTube or doom your videos to hell.

So, add a cool intro video before the main video and an awesome outro after it. And you can create intro and outro videos using Canva and InVideo. 

Optimize Title, Description, and Thumbnail for YouTube SEO

Title, description, and thumbnail are the most important aspects of YouTube SEO. They bring in the eyeballs to your videos. Here are the best practices to optimize title and description.

• Put the primary keyword at the start of the title and description.
• Use the keywords naturally across the entire description if it's long.
• Include the power words, but don't opt for clickbait.
• Tag your videos with popular keywords in your niche.

A well-designed thumbnail is also crucial for getting views on your videos. You can create visually appealing thumbnails using Canva. It's a wonderful design tool for non-designers.

This is how you create and optimize thumbnails for your YouTube videos:

• Create your Canva account and choose ‘thumbnail' templates.
• Add colors, photos, and blocks relevant to your video.
• Include attractive captions
• Make text bold that interests your audience the most.

And boom! You can also include hashtags suggested by YouTube in the title, description, and thumbnail.

Boost Your Videos and Track Your Rankings

Now that you've done everything to get traction on YouTube don't just wait. Start spreading the word about your videos. And share them everywhere using a few smart tools, especially at the start. 

OneSignal: If you have a blog or website, send the push notification about your new videos using OneSignal.

Emails: Email marketing is huge! Start collecting email addresses if you have a blog or website. And share the relevant videos with your list afterward. ConvertKit is a wonderful service to get started with email marketing. 

Telegram Channel: Create the channel and start interacting with your audience. And share your videos there, even before making them publicly accessible on YouTube. 

Quora and Reddit: Share your videos on Quora and Reddit, but don't spam! Add value to the audience on these platforms and share your videos if they make sense. 

FindAForum: It's a wonderful place for you to find a forum related to your niche. Share your videos after you've found the one. 

TubeBuddy: Track the performance of your YouTube videos with TubeBuddy. It's a premium tool that will ask for a few bucks. But it's worth it. 

ContentStudio: Syndicate your video content across other platforms using ContentStudio. I use it every day to share the same post on several social media sites. 

Con-Schedule: Create click-worthy titles using CoSchedule. Try out several headlines for your YouTube video and see if one of them has all the ingredients it should have. 

That brings me to the last step to rank your videos on YouTube. Cutting a long story short, don't leave any stone unturned to share your videos outside YouTube. And do it immediately after uploading them. 

Make Interesting and Useful Videos

YouTube search algorithm gives the most weightage to watch time and click-through rate (CTR). This means if people spend more time on your videos and click more often, you will rank higher in YouTube searches.

And that depends on how interesting and useful your videos are! So, make interesting and useful videos that people love. Make them funny, informative, or instructional.

Do something that adds value to people's lives. Let me share a few practical SEO tips for your YouTube channel now. 

Practical YouTube SEO Tips to Grow Your Channel

YouTube's success is not easy because it's a long game. You need to be consistent in creating high-quality videos to stay relevant on YouTube. These tips will help you spread the word about your videos and optimize them as well. 

• Create more videos that are already working on your channel
• Choose Google-friendly keywords.
• Fill out your YouTube channel profile and metadata.
• Optimize your channel's description as well.
• Improve the production quality of your videos.
• Interact with them and offer value to your audience.
• Encourage your viewers to like, share, and comment
• Try a question and answer session.
• Create a series to niche down.
• Make a playlist for more relevant content.
• Go live and add CTAs in your videos.
• Run contests and giveaways (I love running them).
• Work with brands to expand your audience.
• Respect the community guidelines always. 
• Optimize your old videos by tweaking changes in title, thumbnail, and more

These YouTube SEO tips will help you take your videos to the moon! But don't expect the results fast, for it takes time to get the level of success you want. I hope this YouTube SEO guide helps you rank your videos fast on the platform. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Let me answer a few frequently asked questions about YouTube SEO now. 

Does YouTube Use SEO?

Like Google, YouTube also uses search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to help people find videos they're looking for. Optimizing your videos for YouTube will help you get more views and better rankings in the platform's search results.

How Does SEO Work on YouTube?

YouTube's search relies on several factors to determine your videos' rankings. These include the title, description, tags, and content relevance to the viewer's query. You can improve your ranking by ensuring your videos are well-optimized for these factors.

But that's not all. YouTube also focuses on improving every user's experience with the site. This means you must make videos that attract people's attention and keep them engaged from beginning to end.

What Are the Best YouTube SEO Tips?

There are many things you can do to improve your YouTube SEO. Some of the most important include optimizing your videos for search, adding closed captions, and using interesting thumbnails. You should also make sure your videos are compelling and engaging. 

How Do I Improve My YouTube SEO?

There are a few things you can do to improve your YouTube SEO. Make sure your videos are properly tagged, use strong keywords in your titles and descriptions, and build a strong channel authority. Good luck!