In order to be competitive as a content creator in the digital marketplace and become successful, video SEO must be of the utmost importance.
Algorithms are utilized by the search engines in order to determine the hierarchy of these rankings. Knowing what motivates a search engine and what drives their need for success is the first step in understanding video ranking factors.
The primary motivating factor for the search engines is more or less a no-brainer, money. More views for a search engine naturally equates into more capital. This is true because the more views a search engine receives; they will be able to sell more ads that will ultimately be observed by the viewers.
If the search engines receive a high number of views, then that will make them more lucrative and sought after and bidding for ads will skyrocket.
If as a content creator you can help the search engines attain a high number of views by providing solid results, your video rankings will be substantially higher.
This video ranking guide will explain the nuances and most important aspects of these algorithms in a high-level overview, as an expansive and in-depth analysis of the algorithms would be much too time-consuming.
Also read: Top 9 ASO Ranking Factors for Apps
Video Ranking Factors
Two video ranking factors come into play for a search engine consideration. They will consider the search audience for the video and its relevance to the search query that was initiated.
Regardless of the change of algorithms, and they can change fairly often and consistently, search audience and content relevance remain constant video ranking factors.
Audience Interest
Audience interest cannot be directly impacted or manipulated. The best way to approach mastering this component would be to understand it and manipulate your content to cater to the audience’s interest at the time and foster more of it.
This will create a direct and positive correlation to the second component of video relevance when you create the signs within your video to the search engine of that relevance.
Today it’s not about ‘get the traffic’ – it’s about ‘get the targeted and relevant traffic.’ – Adam Audette
Engagement Signals
Search engines measure the interest of the audience thus establishing relevance by using a list of many different video ranking factors. An important thing to remember is to never target just one or two factors. This is a mistake that can cause Google, Bing, or YouTube to omit a huge segment of potential audience members. These are referred to as “engagement signals” that mirror the interest of an audience in a video.
Engagement signals such as; the number of views, view velocity, view quality, and likes all need to be taken into high consideration with regards to SERP optimization.
Other Video Ranking Factors
Comments, Video Quality, Channel Subscriptions, and Subscription velocity are some additional but lesser impactful video ranking factors that search engines use for their ranking algorithm.
Relevance
Video relevance has changed over time but in comparison to other video ranking factors, you have more influence on the relevance factor.
Keywords and titles, descriptions, location diversity, transcriptions make up the components of video relevance.
A Few Tips to Consider
Most important of all, make sure you keep the guidelines of a search engine as your foremost thought. Search engines want to keep their viewers pleased while watching more and more ads. The search engines need good content to produce a solid platform for those ads. If you can provide that solid platform, then your video rankings will be high.
Be aware of the tempting pitfalls that will hinder your success as a content provider. Steer clear of bribing for reviews, stuffing keywords, and buying views. YouTube can remove your content and/or suspend your account if they suspect you are guilty of any of these offenses. You can, however, utilize paid ads in order to promote your content so long as you are not directly paying individuals or groups to do the promotion.
Make sure that your approach to content creation is wide-ranging and is thought out from all angles. Never divert from the goal of keeping users watching by creating a quality experience. This will mean a huge payoff for both you and the search engine.
Did You Know?
According to Statista YouTube is the second largest social network.
Video SEO Ranking Myths
Now that we have gone over the official proven ways to go about achieving high rankings among video SEO, we will cover some myths floating around. Although the myths may provide some levels of success in the short term, the end result may be damaging to your optimization campaign.
Shortcuts are in and of themselves a myth when it comes to doing video SEO and achieving high SERP rankings. If creating content is done right and easy, then you will be making it easy for the search engines to classify your content and this would be the best route to take.
Work to build an organic and natural audience interest in your content from the ground up. Make sure to take note of and perfect your best practices that prove successful and video SEO can be a formidable traffic driver.
Be skeptical of shortcut methods to get high SERP rankings that are billed as “easy”. They are mythical!
We’d love to hear your thoughts on the comments, please let us know if you have studied any video ranking factors that we are missing!