How to Rank YouTube Videos In 2020 (7 NEW Strategies)

– Today, I'm gonna show you exactly how to rank your YouTubevideos, step-by-step.

In fact, I've used the sevenstrategies from this video to rank in YouTube forcompetitive keywords like link building, on-page SEO, video SEO, and YouTube SEO.

These strategies havealso helped my videos rank on the first page of Google.

So if you wanna get your videos to the top of YouTube and Google, make sure to watch the rest of this video.

When I first launched myYouTube channel a few years ago, I was completely lost.

I knew that YouTube was the world's second largest search engine, but I didn't know how to rank my videos.

So I did what anyonewould do in my situation, I searched for things like YouTube SEO and how do I rank my videos and I saw the same exactadvice over and over again.

You know the kind ofthing I'm talking about, use your keyword in yourtitle, use a bunch of tags, and, my favorite, create great videos.

Oh, create a great video, why didn't I think of that? Needless to say, thisgeneric advice didn't work, and after years of trial and error I finally figured outwhat actually worked.

And now that I have YouTubeSEO pretty much figured out, my rankings, views, and subscribers have shot through the roof.

And in this video, I'm gonna show you the seven strategies that have worked best for me.

So let's kick things offwith strategy number one, boost your click-through rate.

Your click-through rate isthe percentage of people that see your video in thesearch results and click on it.

As it turns out, YouTubepays very close attention to your video's click-through rate, and if lots of people click on your video, YouTube will give yourvideo a rankings boost.

In fact, YouTube's own data shows that your click-through rate is key.

So how do you increaseyour click-through rate without using click bait? Use brackets and parenthesesin your video title.

Industry studies show that you can get up to a third more clicksjust by adding brackets to the end of your title.

That's because the text inyour brackets gives someone a sneak preview into your video which makes them more likely to click.

For example, check out the title of this video from my channel.

My original title was just howto rank number one in Google, but I decided to add this text in brackets which makes my title muchmore enticing to click on.

Which leads us to our second strategy, increase engagement signals.

Engagement signals arethings like comments, shares, likes, and subscribes, and the more engagementsignals your video gets, the higher it'll rank.

In fact a recent industry study found that engagement signalsstrongly correlated with rankings in YouTube.

And YouTube has even gone on the record, saying that videos are rankedpartially based on engagement.

The question is, how do you get more peopleto engage with your video? First ask your viewers to answera multiple choice question.

This is a big one.

When I first got started on YouTube, I'd say things like, let me know what you think ofthis video in the comments.

That's when I realized something, people love giving theiropinions but they hate thinking.

And when I ask people tolet me know what they think, I was making commenting way too hard.

That's why today I ask peoplea multiple choice question that's super easy to answer.

Here's an example.

In fact multiple choicequestions like this is one of the main reasons that my videos getthousands of legit comments.

Next give people a reason tosubscribe to your channel.

So instead of somethinglike, please subscribe, say, make sure to subscribeso you don't miss out on my future videos.

For example, Dr.

Mike does agreat job giving his viewers a reason to hit that subscribe button and it's one of the main reasons that his channel hasmillions of subscribers.

And now it's time forstrategy number three, embed your videos.

Justin Briggs recentlyanalyzed 100, 000 videos across 75, 000 channels, and one of the mostinteresting things he found was that rankings on YouTube wereclosely tied to video embeds.

In fact, top ranking videos had an average of 78%more embeds than average.

And the easiest way to do this? Just embed videos on your own website.

For example, I embed my YouTube videos in almost every post.

Now sometimes I use a video as a way for people to learn more aboutsomething I'm talking about, And other times I use an embedded video to explain a step or atechnique, either way works.

You can also embed videos inpress releases, guest posts, or anywhere else that you publish content.

Let's keep it moving withtechnique number four, the TSC tag formula.

It's no secret that tags canhelp your videos rank higher in the search results.

That's the good news, the bad news is that most people use tags the wrong way.

In fact, when I firstgot started on YouTube, I'd stuff my videos with tagslike there was no tomorrow, and no matter how many tags Iused, my videos wouldn't rank.

Okay, tag 867, what should I write? And today I know why.

As you already know, YouTube uses your tags to figure out what your video covers, and if you use 100 tags, YouTube's gonna have a reallyhard time understanding what your video is actually about.

For example, check outthe tags on this video.

Imagine that you're YouTube, based on these tags what wouldyou say this video is about? One tag says the video is about blogging but it's also about life lessons, and CSA, whatever that is.

If you're confused, YouTube is confused.

And instead of tag stuffing, I recommend somethingcalled the TSC formula.

Here's how it works, first make your first two tothree tags your target keyword.

For example, let's say youwanted to rank your video for the keyword public speaking tips.

You'd want to make yourfirst few tags variations of that keyword.

Next use synonyms of your target keyword.

So for a keyword likepublic speaking tips, these would be thingslike how to give a speech and conference speaking.

Finally use two to three category tags.

These tags describe yourvideo's larger overall topic, for example, let's sayyour primary keyword is how to do a push-up.

Well, you'd also wannause a few broad tags that describe yourvideo's high-level topic.

In this case category tags would be things like fitness and workouts.

That's all there is to it.

Which leads us to step number five, rank in suggested video.

When most people thinkabout ranking in YouTube, they think about rankingin YouTube search, but that's not the only place on YouTube where your videos show up.

In fact, for many channels suggested video brings in more views thanYouTube's search engine.

The question is, how doyou get your video to rank as a suggested video? Well, YouTube suggests videosbased on two main factors, one, the types of videosthat you recently watched, and the video you're currently watching.

For example, if you justwatched a bunch of videos about cold brew coffee, YouTube is gonna suggestmore cold brew coffee videos, even if you're watching acute cat video right now.

But, like I said, theyalso base these suggestions on the video that you'rewatching right now.

So if you're watching avideo about cute cats, YouTube is gonna suggestmore cute animal videos in the sidebar.

And this is where the opportunity is.

You see, when you optimize yourvideo with the same keywords that a popular video uses, you have a good chance ofshowing up next to that video in the suggested video area.

So if you see a video in yourniche with lots of views, try to use a few of theirtags as your synonym and category tags in your video.

And now it's time for strategy number six, increase your watch time.

When it comes to YouTube ranking factors, watch time is a big one.

So what is watch time? Watch time is the totalamount of accumulated time that people have spentwatching your video on YouTube, and this is a little bitdifferent than audience retention.

Audience retention is a percentage of a video that people watch, and watch time is the totalminutes that people have watched since that video first came out.

And according to YouTube, watch time can help yourvideos get more visibility across the entireplatform, including search.

With that, here are two quick strategies for increasing watch time.

First, I recommend planning, scripting, and outlining your videos.

When I first started making videos, I'd turn on the camera and start talking.

I had a general idea ofwhat I wanted to cover but because I didn't planmy video ahead of time I was all over the place.

Today I plan out everyvideo ahead of time.

That way I don't lose people with a scattered or unfocused video.

Next you wanna mix thingsup with every video.

There's nothing thatYouTube viewers hate more than a static video that never changes.

So do your best to changeup your camera angles, visual styles, add music, anything that keeps yourvideo fresh and interesting.

Let's keep things rollinghere with our last strategy, optimize your video description.

As you might already know, along with your title and tags, YouTube uses your description to understand your video's content and when you write anoptimized description you can find yourself withhigher rankings and more views.

With that, here's exactly how to create an SEO-optimized video description.

First make your descriptionat least 100 words.

Lots of YouTubers treat their description as an afterthought.

Needless to say, a super-shortdescription like this doesn't give YouTube a lot of information about your video.

And if YouTube doesn'tunderstand your video, it probably won't rank.

Instead, you want to write about 100 words that outlines the content in your video.

For example, my descriptionfor this video is 232 words which gives YouTube enoughcontent to understand what my video is all about.

Next include your target keyword in the first two to threesentences of your description.

YouTube's algorithm puts moreweight on terms that show up in the first two to threesentences of your description.

In fact, YouTube recommends that you, quote, put themost important keywords towards the beginning of your description.

For example, my target keyword for this video is link building, and, as you can see, I used that keyword in the beginning of my description.

Finally, you wanna sprinklein your target keyword and some related keywords a few times.

Now this isn't about keywordstuffing or anything like that, it's just using yourkeyword a handful of times to emphasize to YouTube and Google that your video is about that keyword, and you don't need to use yourkeyword 100 times to do that.

Three to four times is more than enough.

For example, you can seethat I use my target keyword, link building, four timesin this description.

And now it's time for aquick bonus technique, strategically promote your videos.

Back in the day, I'd publish a video and hope that people would see it.

Please get views, pleaseget views, please get views.

And, needless to say, this publish and prayapproach didn't work.

That's why today I strategicallypromote every video that I publish.

How you exactly promote yourvideos depends a little bit on your unique situation.

For example, I have apretty big email list, so I focus on promotingmy new videos there.

But I also promote mystuff on social media which helps a little.

But maybe you're in aniche that's big on Reddit.

If so, that would be a greatplace to promote your video.

Now you obviously don'twant to do anything spammy, but if you share a helpfulvideo with the right subreddit, people actually appreciate the share.

With that, it's time forone last bonus strategy before we close out thisvideo, find untapped keywords.

Here's a great strategy to find keywords to optimize your videos around.

First go to your trafficsources report and hit search.

This will show you theexact words and phrases that people use to find your videos.

If you already spend timeoptimizing your videos, you'll probably recognizea few of these keywords.

But if you dig deeper, youcan sometimes find keywords that your videos accidentally rank for, and if you're gettingviews from these keywords without even trying, imaginehow many views you can get when you actually createa video that's optimized around these accidental keywords? I hope this video helped show you how to rank your YouTube videos.

If you like this video, make sure to subscribe to myYouTube channel right now.

That way you don't miss out on more actionable videos like this one.

Just click on the subscribebutton below this video.

And if you want exclusiveSEO and traffic techniques that I only share with subscribers, head over to backlinko.

com and hop on the newsletter, it's free.

Now I want to turn it over to you.

Which technique from today'svideo are you gonna try first? Are you gonna start promoting your videos or try optimizing your video description? Let me know by leaving acomment below right now.

And as it turns, oh, okay, that wasn't bad.

And one of the most.

(clearing throat) I wasn't looking at you.

Nah, so boo, next to last one.

YouTube, ah, so it's just me begging.

.