YouTube SEO checklist for 2021

YouTube SEO checklist

 The SEO strategy is the same for YouTube and other search engine platforms like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and so on. The main target for doing SEO is to match the organic search intent.

When emerging an SEO strategy for YouTube, you should focus on content that would satisfy the YouTube user’s search intent.

We need to focus on what user searches for, Are they looking for the learning skills? Trying to find new products? Searching for DIY cleaning methods or for entertainment purposes. Before creating content, understanding how someone is searching your content to reach your YouTube channels help you to get more engagement and visibility among other competitive YouTubers.

YouTube SEO is the same as optimizing your website, here our job is to develop SEO factors for optimizing your channel by creating a playlist, adding metadata, and meta description. You can optimize your playlist within or outside the YouTube platform.

YouTube SEO strategy

What is the key factor for YouTube SEO strategy?

If you want to make your video go viral, then you should make Google understand your content. So, only the search bots will consider your videos and helps your video for indexing.

The text, title, subtitle, description, and meta-tags are the key that every YouTube owner should aware of to get a positive impact from the user.

 Next  YouTube keyword research and mapping those keywords to your search intent is another key factor for developing the SEO strategy

The reason for YouTube Keyword research is to cover what are the keywords do people used to reach your YouTube channel.

Keyword and keyword phrases describe what your video is about and phrases to match the user enters in the search engine to match your content.

The use of  YouTube keyword research is

  • For making the searches directly on the YouTube channel
  • For making searches of Google Search Engine

To find out the most trending keyword phrases and keywords people used, you have to do an effective keyword search. You can use YouTube’s keyword analytics tool to find the keywords or else you can also use ahrefs tool.

What are the best Keyword research tool used for YouTube SEO

  1. YouTube Autosuggest
  2. Ahrefs
  3. Keyword planner
  4. vidIQ
  5. Keywordtool.io

What are the top 3 optimizations for YouTube Channel?

Here we prioritized the top three fundamental optimizations for YouTube channel helps to drive more traffic and reach the targeted audience. They are

  1. Video Title or Meta Title
  2. Video Description or Meta Description
  3. Tags

Video Title

The meta title or video title are the first things that user looks on the SERP, make sure to add the targeting keywords in your meta title to get inspiration from the viewers and to drive high CTR.

Youtube seo checklist

Next to the Meta title, it’s worth adding an attractive thumbnail image, to get more impact on search results and to achieve high CTR.

The title fits 100 characters, the first 66 characters you entering is the most important, your title should be more informative and it encourages viewers to click your video.  Include the words like “ how-to” “top -tips”, “DIY” in your title to seek more user’s attention.

Video Description or Meta Description

The video description helps to describe what your video content is about and provides information for your video content. Use the description to clearly explain what your video is about and include all your major keywords at the beginning of the video descriptions.  Use keywords to make sense and avoid stuffing of many keywords.

Video description is a kind of metadata that helps YouTube users to clearly understand the content for your video and well-optimized content leads to a higher ranking for your YouTube channel.

Youtube SEO marketing Tips

A long video description gives more information about your video content and helped the video to rank higher.

YouTube’s algorithms give more importance to the first 2-3  starting sentences to rank faster on the search engine.

So, we recommend adding main keywords at the beginning of your sentences and repeat main keywords 2-3 times in your descriptions naturally to rank faster.

YouTube Tags or Meta Tags

Video tags are added to the YouTube videos allows users to understand what keywords your video is targeting. Same as adding the keywords and meta descriptions metatags are more important for your video to get a high ranking. You long-tail keywords as a tag for a better understanding of the YouTube users.  Always use double quotes to add the meta tags.

SEO for YouTube

These meta tags help to find your video’s title and meta description.

Final Words:

When you are building a YouTube channel, the most fundamental things are to add meta title, thumbnail, meta descriptions, and metatags to build an SEO Strategy for a better understanding of what people are interested to search and watch. Shape your video based on the people’s search intent.

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Karthiga Mohan
Jr. SEO Consultant, Blogger, & Content Specialist. Passion for writing in SEO, Digital Marketing & Tech-related Niches.
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