So before we begin, SEO means Search Engine Optimisation. This means creating and designing digital content to rank highly in search engine results pages (SERPs). For example, if you want to become a valuable resource for cybersecurity, ensuring your cybersecurity videos, web pages and blogs have the right terms people are searching for will increase their chances of being seen. 

Unlike Google, which uses backlinks and other factors to evaluate rank, YouTube SEO requires optimising your channel, playlists, metadata, descriptions, and videos. You can optimise your videos for search both within and outside of YouTube.

Once you’ve created beautiful, interesting, educational and entertaining content, you want people to see it. That’s when optimisation is key. If you can invest time and budget into creating a YouTube channel for your business, this can be one of your strategy’s most powerful and low-maintenance channels.

YouTube… low maintenance?

Yes! Although creating video content is a highly skilled and time-intensive endeavour, it can be less time-intensive with the right system than Instagram. That’s because channels like Instagram require a variety of content multiple times a week like Stories, Reels, graphics and photos. On Instagram content also has a very short lifespan. Whereas on YouTube, you could comfortably post a video just twice a month and still have a highly influential presence.

When I worked in-house for a global cybersecurity company, I launched a YouTube channel from scratch and obtained around 45k views on videos within six months.

Here’s how:

Google owns YouTube and it’s essentially another huge search engine. Navigating the site primarily comes from using the search bar. So a great way to get more eyes on your content is by creating results for the types of things users are searching for.

You can find this information by simply typing in your topic to the search bar and seeing what suggestions come up. So if I wanted to create a video on content marketing, I can do a quick search and below are the top search results.

You can use this to

a) direct what videos you create to service the demand
b) continue creating content that’s in line with your business but give it an angle relevant to the top searches
c) ensure my titles and descriptions include some of these terms.

Note: Only include top search terms in your titles and descriptions if they are relevant to your video. If you mislead your audience, your watch time, aka audience retention, will drop, decreasing your exposure in the algorithm over time.

Common phrases 

Another way of using the search bar is to find commonly phrased questions.

I launched a video series called ‘What to do when’ which is how we got a huge percentage of our views. ‘How to’, ‘the best of’ and ‘tips for’ are also good phrases to use in your titles for greater exposure.

Other sources to direct your YouTube strategy

The following websites compile top searches around different topics to enable you to harness the search volume. Simply type in your keywords and you’ll get a huge amount of angles, phrases and keywords. 

• Answer the Public 
• Ubersuggest 
• Google Trends 

Answer the Public is a great one for seeing the different phrases and angles used to find information on your product or service. 

Once you’ve done this research the key is to use it!

Bring the data to your marketing, planning and content meetings so that the information is used effectively. 

I wish I had time for this!

I know, this sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but it’s worth putting the time in now to get off to a strong start next year. If you have limited resources, we guide, assist or do it all for you.

Email info@alicevioletcreative.com to set up a discovery call.