14 YouTube SEO Tips for 2023 and Beyond

YouTube is nearly an unrivaled user generated video content provider at this moment. It is the only video host that truly pays for video content. With the power of Google, this is one site that gets more than fourteen billion visits a month.

To get a taste of that traffic all you need to do is to upload a video and do some basic optimization and let the visitors coming. In essence, this still works and basic YouTube SEO is a fairly easy process. The secret is in the consistency and discipline, the rest all falls in place automatically.

Here, in this article, we will discuss some YouTube SEO tips.

1. Channel Setup and Customization: Creating a unique channel header and making a small channel introduction video helps a lot to create a basic branding for the channel. Any visitor who lands on your channel for the first time, gets to see the unique channel intro which makes a strong connection with the audience.

2. Consistent Video Uploads: On YouTube, consistency is a huge factor. If you upload videos whenever your heart desires, it won’t work. Set aside the days of the week on which you will upload videos. If you wish to upload three videos a week, then choose any three days, for example: Monday, Wednesday and Friday and only upload videos on these days, strictly! Now, try to top it up with the exact time of the day, say it is evening then only upload in the evening time.

This step is fairly simple step and if you are dedicated enough, you should be able to schedule videos in advance that get published on specific days.

3. Video Keywords and Description: The description space matters a lot in YouTube. Here, you can give a small description that explains what the video is about. Then, you can give links to your related social accounts, mention other videos that you already have in your channel which are relevant to the current video.

YouTube also provides a small section where you can add relevant keywords and tags. Filling up this field with related keywords helps YouTube to show your video in the correct places.

4. Optimizing the Title Tag: This is the strongest SEO signal provider and having a relevant title, just a few words in length, will help the video to rank better in YouTube serps. Do note that this is not just for the SEO robots, but normal visitors are affected a lot by this title tag. People decide whether to watch a video or not based on the title of the video.

5. Chapter Time Stamp: This video navigation feature is perhaps the most unused feature we have on our list. Again, in the description section, a manually coded time stamp video navigation can be easily included which can help the visitor to click and reach specific sections of the video. That way people won’t have to wait and they can reach the exact section of the video that they are looking for.

6. Utilizing Hashtags: YouTube does not provide a specific section for hashtags, unless you count the keyword and tag section. But again, one can make their own hashtags and include them in the description section.

7. Asking for likes and Subscriptions: People take actions when they are asked to. If you mention that you have a like target for this video and you will being more relevant content in the future then people will like and subscribe to stay tuned.

Subscribing to YouTube channels is a common practice and if you mention it on the right time, you will see a rise in subscription levels.

8. Interaction with the video: User behavior is slowly becoming a huge factor in ranking. If your visitor is taking basic steps, for example clicking the like button, then it sends a positive signal. This process can be even more leveraged by asking the user to change the video settings from normal to HD for clear viewing.

9. Embedding: Actively embed YouTube videos on your websites and blogs. Look for places that allows video embedding, and if they allow, add an article on those sites and then in the article, find a relevant paragraph where it will be best to embed your video.

10. Getting linked: Taking this process of embedding further, simply write related articles and resources and link to your video from the article. Actively search and find out sites and blogs that are on your niche and allows guest posting. Once you finalize a blog, write down a detailed article and from the article, link to your video.

11. Sharing on Social Media: YouTube is a social network and just like any other network, they love incoming traffic. So, if Facebook or any other platform sends you traffic, it will start to trend automatically. But since nothing happens on the internet without putting up effort from your side, you have to do the sharing thing first and then hope others start sharing your content and it will go viral ultimately.

12. Setup Skype and Discord: YouTube already have the subscription setup where anyone who subscribe and hits the bell icon will automatically get a notification of an upcoming video, but the same notification does not goes to all the subscribers. YouTube has an algo that decides which subscribers to show the video.

This is where a community like a skype group or a discord chat room can be helpful. Simply share a video with your community and all of the people who are in that community will be able to check out your new video.

13. Catchy Thumbnail: To get more people visit a video, it needs a catchy thumbnail image. Feel free to use a free tool like Canva to make good quality thumbnails.

14. Video Opening: The first few seconds of a video is important, as people often bounce away if they don’t find anything important in the video. Thus it is important to start the video with a few seconds of opening, which quickly tells the visitor, about what to expect in the full video.

YouTube already have a huge traffic waiting for them to feed with new videos. All one needs to do is to make videos, do basic optimization and finally sit back and enjoy the show.