MBA913 Guest Teacher: Brian Dean- How to Optimize Your YouTube Videos for Higher Rankings (and More Views)
Jan 8, 2018
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Brian Dean, an SEO genius and founder of backlinko.com, shares expert insights on leveraging YouTube for business growth. He reveals the importance of optimizing video content for higher rankings, detailing seven powerful strategies. Listeners will learn how to enhance viewer engagement, utilize keyword-rich descriptions, and craft irresistible titles. Discover the crucial differences between YouTube and Google algorithms and why mastering them could significantly boost your online presence.
Encouraging viewers to leave comments on YouTube videos enhances engagement, signaling content quality and improving video rankings significantly.
Long-form content of around 14 minutes tends to outperform shorter videos in rankings, emphasizing the importance of maintaining viewer interest.
Deep dives
Engagement Through Comments
Encouraging more comments on YouTube videos is a key strategy for improving their rankings. High comment counts signal to YouTube that viewers are engaged and enjoying the content. To increase comments, creators can prompt viewers to respond to specific questions related to the video, making it easy for them to interact. For instance, asking viewers which strategy they plan to use first can significantly boost comment numbers and enhance video visibility.
The Power of Long-Form Content
Contrary to the belief that short videos are preferred on YouTube, long-form content has been shown to perform better in terms of ranking. Research indicates that videos averaging around 14 minutes tend to have higher total watch times, a crucial metric for YouTube's ranking algorithm. This means creators should focus on producing longer videos that maintain viewer interest instead of relying solely on brevity. Employing engaging elements such as varied editing styles can help keep audiences captivated throughout longer videos.
Optimize for Click-Through Rate
Maximizing the click-through rate (CTR) of YouTube videos directly influences their ranking potential. Creators can enhance CTR by crafting compelling titles that incorporate numbers and provide a brief enticing description to attract clicks. For example, titles with odd numbers have been found to garner more interest than those with even numbers. Delivering a strong, concise message in the initial lines of the video description can entice viewers to choose that particular video over others in search results.
YouTube has been called “the world’s 2nd biggest search engine” behind Google. While so many entrepreneurs are striving to climb the Google rankings, are we leaving potential customers on the table by ignoring YouTube? Our first guest teacher of 2018 seems to think so, and he’s put the time in to discover exactly how to dominate it. Now, he’s here to tell us how it’s done.
Brian Dean is an SEO genius, whose years of experimentation and fine-tuning have made his website, backlinko.com, one of the most trusted resources for content marketers. In fact, he’s so great at SEO that we actually found him through (you guessed it) a Google search!
In the last year, he’s turned his attention to YouTube, which – like Google – is key to building your audience. But YouTube’s ranking algorithms are very different from Google’s. Today, Dean shares 7 strategies to optimizing your YouTube videos, including some surprising discoveries that will completely change how you approach the video-sharing site as a content marketing tool.
Brian Dean is the first of many fantastic guest teachers we have lined up for this year. Don’t miss out on what YouTube can do for your online presence. Click play at the top of the page!