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1. 9 YouTube SEO Hacks that
will Boost your Videos

2. As the second-largest search engine in the world, YouTube is a premier
video sharing platform. Significantly, out of 10 video search results 8 are
YouTube videos. The numbers keep growing, every minute over 500
hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. With the number of uploads
increasing on a day-to-day basis, how can a video uploaded by a user
stay afloat and be noticed?. The only way it can be done is publishing
the videos, and optimising them for search, through the best video SEO
practices implementation.
Having an active YouTube SEO
strategy provides positive outcomes.
Other than the basics of including
keywords in title, description, and tags,
and considering that search engines
can only crawl text, having a full
accurate transcript of the video
influences the search results for
YouTube videos.

3. As the second-largest search engine in the world, YouTube is a premier
video sharing platform. Significantly, out of 10 video search results 8 are
YouTube videos. The numbers keep growing, every minute over 500
hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. With the number of uploads
increasing on a day-to-day basis, how can a video uploaded by a user
stay afloat and be noticed?. The only way it can be done is publishing
the videos, and optimising them for search, through the best video SEO
practices implementation.
Having an active YouTube SEO strategy provides positive outcomes. Other than
the basics of including keywords in title, description, and tags, and considering that
search engines can only crawl text, having a full accurate transcript of the
video.influences the search results for YouTube videos.
Designing web content that will rank higher in search engine results pages
(SERPs) is a key element in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Similarly,
YouTube SEO entails optimising channel, playlists, meta data, and description.

4. Besides the video itself can be optimised for search within YouTube,
and outside it. Anything in text in the form of transcripts, closed
captions, and subtitles associated with the video is a key factor in
YouTube SEO.
The YouTube Search Functionality
After Google’s ownership of YouTube, the outreach of videos in video search has
increased dramatically, since data is seamlessly shared between the two
companies. Uploading videos to YouTube gets it a beneficiary advantage of
being indexed by Google immediately. The bots crawl the videos in the shortest
period of time, and submitting a new video site map is no longer essential.
Nonetheless, despite the close partnership between Google and YouTube, the
fundamentals of SEO still apply for the growth of the viewership of videos. An
optimised content is an essential element for search engines to index and find
YouTube videos. In the context of the videos to go viral, Google must have the
necessary information of the content of the video. Therefore, the search engine bots
are guided by the accompanying data for indexing them methodically.

6. The title of the video, description and tags are the key elements. Not
many YouTube users however realize that closed captions and
transcripts positively influences user engagement, watch time,
viewership, and obviously SEO.
The nine key fundamentals to increase viewership on YouTube and improve
video search rank are:
Doing Away YouTube's ASR Captions and Adding
Accurate Closed Captions.
An automatic transcription option has been added by YouTube, however the
auto-caption tool has the capability of delivering only 70% accurate captions, which
at times become difficult to comprehend. Remember Google has a policy of
rewarding helpful and informative content, and penalizes spam.

7. In order to prevent the detrimental effects of adding ASR captions for YouTube SEO,
adding accurate closed captions to YouTube videos would be an ideal solution. Since
search engines are not programmed to watch videos, they can only crawl text, having a
video transcript with relevant keywords added to indicate the gist of the video will have
Google crawl the content and rank it in accordance.
One of the classification of spam is
defined as ‘automatically generated
gibberish’, in other words, the
automatic caption files fit that
description aptly. It certainly would
be a risk uploading or using
inaccurate captions, this would lead
to the video being determined as
spam, the search ranking as a result
would be lost for the whole YouTube
channel.

8. Auto Speech Recognition (ASR) captions can be unfavorable for the
cause of YouTube SEO, it is always desirable to add accurate closed
captions to videos. Having a keyword rich transcript will have Google
crawl the content, and rank it in accordance.
If it is time sensitive or the user is not inclined to work on something
beyond their realm of activity, a transcription and captioning company
can be called upon to fulfill their needs.
Improved Search Ranking
Adding captions to videos contributes to better SEO ranking, a prominent media
company found out doing research, the views increased by 13.48% in the first two
weeks after captions were added, and overall views increased by 7.32%. As a
means to better understand the relevance of keywords, the company searched for a
keyword phrase that was only available in their video captions, with no trace of it in
the title, description, tags, or metadata. They found that Google had crawled the
caption text, and the video received a favorable ranking for the phrase.

9. Improved User Engagement
Adding closed captions to
videos results in improved
user engagement, getting
more likes, shares, and
comments than videos that
do not have captions. More
engagement, improved the
video search rank, it
results in more views, as
per a study by YouTube,
captioned videos receive
4% more views.

10. Improved Web Accessibility
Adding closed captions to videos makes it easily accessible to viewers
who are deaf or hard of hearing. Besides, with sound muted in public
places or workplaces, captions make it possible for viewers to watch and
enjoy the videos, without ‘silence’ protocols being breached.
Transcript of the Video Has A Marketing Outreach
YouTube allows adding 4,580 characters including space in the description field of
the videos.This feature enables displaying the transcript of the video, potentially for
a 10-minute video that is heavily dialogue oriented. If the transcript exceeds that
limitation, a shortened version can be displayed, with a link to the full version on a
different webpage.
The search engines reference the video description field of the videos to index them, a
keyword-optimised transcript will boost the SEO efforts of the YouTube videos.

11. How can video transcripts help marketers?
Many marketers fail to explore the full
potential of transcripts, unlike a few prominent
brands that have realized its potential value
and through it have extended the reach of
their videos. As a Content Marketing Manager
of a media company pointed out that
interesting videos can be a beginning for
content creation and a valuable component
for targeted inbound marketing efforts. She
explains that video content can be leveraged
for content marketing through video
transcripts as secondary content.

12. SEO can be optimised, using a video transcript, it can be shared,
either as blogs, infographics, whitepapers, fact sheets or even
website copy. In a way, a video transcript can be a handy component
for a marketing shortcut.
Offering Multilingual Subtitles Through A Translated
Video Transcript
The audience reach can be further expanded providing subtitles in other languages
in a similar way as English captions that enable video accessibility to more viewers.
As Brad Ellis, the YouTube Product Manager at Google explained in a streaming
media conference that 80% of views on YouTube come from outside of the United
States, which is huge, and much of it is non-English. He stressed on the importance
of translating captions, emphasising that it was a huge opportunity for growth.
Further stating that their organization is also seeing a huge demand from
non-English uploaders as well to get their content translated.

13. Videos receive an extended reach when foriegn language subtitles are
added enabling non-native English speaking viewers to understand and
enjoy them. An added advantage is attained, the search engines index
the translated caption files to include them in search results of those
languages. This will have a great potential for YouTube SEO, providing
an opportunity of ranking higher for non-English keywords with limited
competition to confront. It is important however that translations are
absolutely accurate.

14. An Optimised Keyword, Title, Description, and Tags
An important SEO element is determining appropriate keyword and
keyword phrases that accurately corresponds with the video description,
and words and phrases users were most likely to enter in search engines
that match the content of the video.
As an example, if videos about hair styling are published, the title, description,
and tags must correspond to it accurately as ‘hair styling video’. Search engines
have smart filters to identify overstuffed keywords, the urge of over-using
keywords or variations of keywords to hack the system should be desisted,
making sure that keywords are targeted at humans, not robots, or the user will
have to bear the consequences of getting penalized.
YouTube offers a free video analytics tool to determine what phrases and keywords are
being used in search. It offers a range of effective keywords for targeted audiences. Most
importantly, a variation of keywords should be chosen which has less competition, this will
have the potential of favorable end result.

15. Google Trends and Google Adwords Keyword Planner are important
tools for reference to determine phrases that are popular in search
queries.
‘Long tail’ keywords would be more appropriate for individual videos, being
more specific and targeted. Just as an example ‘hair styling videos for boys’
will have a better keyword target value than just ‘hair styling videos’.
After selecting the keywords, they need to be entered into the following fields.
Title: Consisting of 100 characters, shortened at 66 characters, with important
information included in the first 66 characters. Better results can be potentially
accomplished using persuasive or compelling language, for example “how to,”
“advice,”
“tips,” or numbered lists will have a better click through rate
Meta Description: 5,000 characters can be accomodated, but Google generally shortens
snippets to ~155–160 characters.

16. However keeping the meta descriptions long enough for it to be
sufficiently descriptive is a good practice, so the recommended
descriptions can be between 50–160 characters.

17. Tags: 120 characters can be accommodated into the meta tags. Google
however displays 50-60 characters of a title tag. So keeping the titles
under 60 characters enables an accurate display of 90% of the title.
If a video is supposedly posted on several domains other than YouTube, the
keyword phrases need to be slightly varied, unless a user wants to setoff a
competition within his own domains across different sites.
Using honest and relevant terms is a good SEO practice, rather than harping on
trending topics that may not be relevant to the user’s video content, and which
would invite a negative score later.
Targeted Keyword A Part of the Video
As mentioned earlier, the targeted keyword should be a part of the title, description, tags,
and the transcript. Since YouTube too ranks the video referencing the transcript and
captions, the importance of an accurate transcript should never be ignored.
Auto-Captions cannot be relied upon, the inaccuracies would result in keyword
advantage being lost.

18. YouTube offers a tool called ‘Search Suggest’, typing a word or phrase into the search
bar, outputs a set of keywords. These are based on terms that users would be
searching for. Keywords can also be determined through the YouTube Search Report
(under Traffic Sources > YouTube search). The value of a good keyword can also be
known by searching for it on YouTube, the “About results” generated can help
determine the popularity of the key word, and how many users may have used it.
However, choosing a low-competition keyword makes better sense.

19. Video SEO Embed for Improved SERP
As stated earlier, videos are prioritized in Google search results, however
if the meta-data is not appropriate, it won’t be prioritized by the search
engine. An automation tool can be used to provide information to Google
understand details about the video, such as a detailed description,
thumbnail URL, upload date, and duration.

20. This tool embeds all the information into the head of the webpage. In
marking up the information of the video with Google search, it
becomes easier for people to discover and watch the videos. This will
have videos appear in Google Search results, video search results,
Google Images, and Google Discover. In addition to optimising the
video on YouTube, if it is also optimised in Google, the videos get 2-5x
more views.
Improving User Engagement
Viewer responses to a users content is of prime importance to Google, they look at
the following aspects:
Watch Time Data
Watch time reporting provides an insight into the amount of time people spend watching
videos or video ads.

21. This data helps understand the interaction of the people with the video
ads, and which are the videos viewers watch the longest, besides how
long the content is keeping people engaged, even after the ads are
skipped.
Assuming a viewer watched a 10-minute video for 5-minutes of duration or
until 50 percent completion, this will get the video a higher ranking than a
3-minute video that was watched one-hundred percent.
This makes it important that the first 15 seconds of the video is packed with teasers
to hook the viewer. If the video is about a DIY project, the finished product should
find a place in the beginning of the video, to sustain the interest of the viewer
Session Watch Time
This is another important measure of user engagement. The contributing factor that
YouTube takes into account is the overall time spent by the viewer during the viewing
session.

22. All aspects of the viewing session are taken into account, was the video
viewed until the end, or did the viewer leave the site midway, or in fact
watched a couple of more videos.

23. The more time viewers spend watching videos, it meets the objectives
of YouTube. However, as website owners, this goes against their SEO
goals, because the videos created were to bring visitors to their
website, but it was moving them away to YouTube instead.
Analysing User Intent
Analysing user objectives is something Google does with extreme diligence,
they have a perfect understanding of searchers needs. In this context,
compelling video titles play a decisive role in search rankings. Desist the
temptation of using plagiarized titles, just because they happen to be the top
ranking searched phrases or terms. It makes better sense to answer a user’s
question in the title of the video, while the search term can be included into the
description, Google will be more appreciative and rewarding.
Extending Subscriber Base
Videos generate a lot of watch time during the first week they are published. The
first seven days are crucial for productive user engagement.

24. It’s a good practice notifying subscribers to provide them regular
schedules, and letting them know when they can expect the
publication of a new video.
Making Good Use of Playlist
This is another way of boosting user engagement, creating relevant, short
sub categorised playlists. This facilitates sharing multiple videos
simultaneously by sharing the playlist instead of sending the subscriber a link
to one video.
Video Marketing Best Practices & YouTube
How YouTube Can Be Explored As A Productive Marketing Platform?
An online survey of 600 online respondents that included senior marketing
personnel provided their feedback to the WVMC and ReelSEO.

25. They shared their marketing strategies, many of the personnel
believed that videos had great potential, and were assimilating it into
email marketing, social media and content creation.
Over 65% of respondents in the survey stated that they had posted
YouTube videos on their websites.
What options can companies follow for embedding
videos on their websites?
Looking at the options of optimising websites through video, there are two possibilities
that can be explored, both will provide different results. If a company’s marketing goals
are set at driving viewership and branding, YouTube will fit their needs, because eight
out of ten videos results are assimilated to YouTube. It would be absolutely naive on
the part of any marketing strategy to overlook the importance of YouTube as a
marketing platform.

27. Standalone media player on the company
website
Nonetheless, marketers also need to take into account the negative fallout
of web marketing cannibalization, driving visiting audiences away to
YouTube, is not the best of marketing policies. A simple work-around would
be to embed videos on the company website through a standalone media
player.
The video landing page can be optimised, through relevant keywords and a video
transcript. For better results, visitors can be provided with a clear path that will
guide them towards a goal.
After a period of time, when promotion and traffic to the video page has slowed down,
the video can be placed on YouTube, optimising the YouTube video page, following
the same principles of adding keyword variances, captions, and transcript.

28. THANK
YOU

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United States
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Info@captioningstar.com