We all know that YouTube is a dynamic search engine that features video content and how it observes the SEO methods. In part 1, I discussed two of the important guide to gain a bigger traffic, which are adding descriptions and timestamps.

Today, I shall continue to discuss 2 more methods to optimize YouTube content. Also, I will share tips in increasing engagements on YouTube.

3. Title and keywords

• Now, YouTube allows clickable keywords. If you add certain keywords, viewers can easily click them on the video description. This will help you in ranking for keywords. As long as your titles are interesting, then your increasing the chances of developing your SEO.

4. Video transcripts

• It is the text version of the words used in your video. So, when you upload your video without the transcript, YouTube will have to guess what it is all about. Google can only see tags, keywords, and descriptions. So, it will be a waste of money, time, and effort to come up with a brilliant video that no search engine can understand.
• Video transcripts makes your videos reachable. It allows the search engines to grasp the content of the video. Thus, making crawling your content simpler. Just search for tools you can use. For sure, there many choices out there to do your video transcripts.

USER ENGAGEMENT

The game is not just numbers, it is engagement! No matter how many views get if your viewers do not engage with your videos, then it doesn’t help your SEO ranking. How the users react to your video is crucial on how the search engines will gauge your video content.

These are the benchmarks you should observe:

1. Watch time – If your viewers spent time viewing your video, it tells you that they like what you have uploaded. Meaning, it gave them satisfaction because they watched the video from start to finish.
2. Comments, Likes, and shares – Find out the likes, the shares, and the comments. It is easy to like a video or a content but to comment and share it to others means a lot more. It could bring more viewers to your videos. So, go ahead and ask your viewers to share.
3. Subscribers after watching a video – When people start subscribing to your channel, it’s a good sign. Of course, if a lot of people subscribe to your channel, you are becoming famous. It also tells you that what you are showing are engaging and interesting that people are asking for more of your videos. You have now reached a certain dependability that people can trust.

4. CTR – If you videos had only a few clicks, this means that it is not interesting to your audience. It could be your content, thumbnail, or title. To improve click-through rates, enhance these 3 factors. Just a reminder: do not make a title or thumbnail that will deceive your viewers because you may gets clicks. However, in the future, people won’t trust what you say anymore. They won’t bother clicking any of your videos.

WRAP UP

A great way to learn YouTube SEO is from looking at popular channels and videos. Look for topics that are compatible to your channel. Lastly, study what the other channels are doing to their thumbnails, titles, and descriptions.

Mostly everyone is aware that Google is after high-quality links. If your website is able to gain the proper links, then it would gain the highest ranking possible.  Having said that, you need to take your link building efforts seriously. Should you decide on enforcing links, do it well and do not easily believe baseless myths!

Believe me, link development has a lot of tales that could mislead you. Here’s a list that you should be aware of.

Myth #1: Guest posting is no longer alive.

• It was in 2014 that this approach surfaced. Matt Cutt, an American Google software engineer warned people that doing this has become a spammy practice. Most people think guest blogging is irrelevant!
• He clarified that it was the spammy blog posts that was a dead practice. Up to this day, guest blogging is still efficient. Just make sure your posts are helpful and informative!

Myth #2: Links that are not related to your field are of poor quality.

• This is definitely not true. In the end, content, that is appropriate or not, to your niche will still enhance your ranking. To have good ranking, you got to have the finest sites that could link back to your website.
• To do this, of course, you need to make content that is helpful content for your audience. If you do that, people will see your site as link worthy and an excellent source of information.

Myth #3: Adding too many links in one content is bad.

• A lot of people have this idea that it is not good to add many links to just one content because it could result to a low keyword rank. No, not true.
• If your links are poor in quality, for sure, Google could give you a penalty.

Myth #4: If you rank high in the search queries, you do not have to develop your link profile.

• This is so false! Despite the high rank, you need to be consistently developing your links. It is not just because of maintaining to be on top but because of various reasons such as:
  • Boosts web traffic.
  • Builds up your online visibility.
  • Displays your product’s worth and influence.
• Link development is not all about increasing the number of links to your website, but it is also showing your business to your would-be customers.

Myth #5: Google will give more importance to websites that has a substantial amount of back links.

• There are more or less 200 ranking factors that Google considers for ranking. True, link development is essential in ranking.
• However, saying that it is the basis is totally wrong. Google algorithms value other factors such as user experience, relevance, content quality, keywords, performance in fulfilling users’ intent, and many more.

Myth #6: All the contents of your website have the same worth in ranking

• People conclude 2 things when this point:
  • That all your posts have an identical authority or
  • All the links have the same value.
• These conclusions are incorrect. As for the links, Google algorithms consider the position of a link on a page. SEO experts tells us that you should put your links in the higher part of a page because it carries more weight.

Myth #7: Internal links are useless in ranking.

• True, external links is vital, but it does mean internal links aren’t helpful. In fact, internal links can assist you in achieving a higher website rank.
• When you link to your website’s “weak” pages, internal linking gives these pages a much needed boost.

This is a fast-paced life and online users would like to find everything they are looking for in a snap.

It was in 2010 when Google made public the PageRank algorithm and page speed is the biggest ranking element. Not only that, there are also studies that states: 53% of mobile users quit if the page cannot load within 3 brief seconds.

There is an obvious connection between visitor retention, the speed of your website, and the bounce rate. The speed of the website helps to gaining more visitors.

This is the reason why page speed should be the top concern for your site. If you have a slow loading time, the search engines cannot crawl the pages. There are a lot of advantages of increasing your page speed.

The 3 main reasons are listed below:

1. Boost user experience

• Google studies show that even just a tiny problem in terms of loading time of will affect the users’ satisfaction by 16%. Meanwhile, 79% of users will not purchase your service or product if your whole website is slow.
• Users will leave the site specifically if the loading time is too long. Having a swift loading pages can allow users to lead and search the content of your website.

2. A finer and complete marketing performance 

• There was a study that reported that 67% of online shoppers will leave their basket if loading takes time. Nevertheless, if there is a one second improvement, your conversion rate can go up between 10 to 20%.
• If you want to have a huge traffic, then your page speed should be fast enough. The studies done by Google tells us that a deferment of only one second can decrease your web traffic by 20%.
• More than ever, you need to improve the speed of your website if you want to enhance your site’s conversion rate.

3. A better SERP positioning

• Let’s go back to the improved Google’s PageRank algorithm. As discussed earlier, the entire website speed and the page loading time are all important.
• Additionally, website speed will be influential in the number of views a site gets. Considering all these factors will surely give you a better rank in the search results.
• The great thing about fast web page loading is that Google’s crawlers can look at your site faster. Because of this, a lot of individual pages have an opportunity to rank in SERP.

Numerous Ways to Speed Up Your Website

There are many ways of speeding up your page for you to see the real possibilities of your business site.

• Compress Files:

  • For you to accomplish this, try using the tool Gzip. This could lessen the size of HTML OR CSS files. Take note, you should not use Gzip when it comes to images as the quality may not be retained.

• Lessen Redirects:

  • Do not allow a great number of redirects on your website because there will be more HTTP requests. In turn, this will slow down your page speed. Also, repair your broken links because this will affect your users’ experience.

That’s it for now. I will cut the discussion short and I will share more tips on Useful Pointers to Increase Website Speed (Part 2)

SEO is pretty much about helping crawlers to find web pages and carefully linking it to authoritative websites.

There are other factors why content does not rise in ranking, but let us not go to that first. Take away those keyword research and content optimization tips. First, let’s discuss about the mechanics of SEO-friendly content.

If these will be executed properly, your content has the possibility to be in the no. 1 spot. Now, read the things you should do:

1. Increase the Variation of Your Content

• Searchers are people with different preferences. There are some searches that prefer dense text. Meanwhile, others just needed interesting reasons. Majority would like images, videos, and audios. However, a few may find it bothersome.
• At the end of the day, it is still good to have images and videos along with some text. The point here is “variety.” Reminder, do not fill your page with unneeded files. The more variety you have, the more you will target a wider audience.
• A grander standard time on page is a good sign that you have been producing great content that people stay in your site. Therefore, giving them a wonderful search experience.

2. Your Writing Should Be Refined

• On average, people will only read 20% of a page. This is why your word choices should be appropriate.
• Of course, this is not easy but you do need to edit well to have that SEO-friendly content. Use programs that can edit your work like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor.
• You can consider loosening up and put an extra confidence. Also, you can do the following:
• • Instead of paragraphs, utilize bullets. It is easier on the eyes.
  • Unrestrained and vibrant prose.
  • Look for an exceptional appealing voice that characterizes the statistical language.

3. Adjust Your Content

• While it is true that there is a bigger opportunity that an article containing 2,000 words has the likeliness that can gratify the searcher’s intent. However, there are times that a 250-word article can address the issue.
• Well, it would be wise to see what works depending on the situation. Run through your content and add (or subtract) words if needed. 

4. Find the Balance Between Originality and Authority

• You were always told to value a lot of things like authoritative links, expert advices, original research, and many more. That is good, but don’t just elaborate research and links.  Instead, throw in something that is fresh and original that your particular audience would like.
• A handful of great links and a captivating story will assist your content to mark the boundary between originality and authority.

5. Mobile First, but Don’t Forget the Desktop Users

• Bear in mind that the mobile traffic is a huge business. The searches on mobile are more definite and planned as compared to the searches in desktop. Why? Because the searches in mobile are more cohesive in the users’ lifestyles and their day-to-day activities.
• If people enter the desktop, zero in the long-form. Do the short, but educational answers for the mobile users. You just have to serve both well.

6. The Form Should Complement the Content

• Form is about the:
  • Word count.
  • HTML tags.
  • Title and meta tags.
  • Style and structure of the piece.
• Take Google’s recommendation seriously, which is to “make web pages for users, and not for search engines.”
• Developing a great outline before creating the actual post will make sure that the cohesion is still there.

In part 1, I talked about the great advice on how to develop a non-spammy link. One is through advertising while another way is through social media. If you need to recap, just click on 5 Link Development Tips to Help Build Backlinks (Part 1).

Today, I am still going to discuss backlinks. After all, building the backlink authority is essential in achieving a higher ranking. You can’t deny that Google considers backlinks are one of the top ranking factors. Of course, you can’t just ignore content because backlinks and content work closely together.

So, here are 5 more tips for you:

1. Use the skyscraper technique.

• This is courtesy of Brian Dean from Backlinko.com. He formulated a technique to develop link building. To summarize, he mentioned of looking for a “linkable content.” Then, you try to work around the idea. You create your version and you can even add more content if you want. The point is to make your own and share it your target audience.

2. Interview an important person.

• Look for a person who is prominent in the field and ask if you could interview him/her on your site. Most likely, the person will be honored to be chosen. Surely, that person will easily grant to your request.
• The only qualification here is that they have great social media following. Once you have done the interview, share it on your social media accounts. Also, tell the interviewee to the link to their followers as well. Optimistically, you will have a few backlinks from the followers of the person you interviewed.

3. Give away a free tool.

• Once you give something for free, surely, it will return to you. If you try to make a free SEO tool, that will surely gain the attention of the public. They will try to use it and recommend it to other people since it is available for free.
• See, you really don’t have to come up with an extravagant gift to give. Just as long as you have addressed the users’ needs, for sure, people will appreciate it.

4. Do your very own research.

• If you are worried on how to collect data, then, look up for online surveys. For example, there’s Google Surveys. This free tool will help you make your own survey form. Then, you can easily ask people their opinion. From the data you get, you can definitely come up with something interesting.
• After, you could go to Reddit (or any discussion board) and see if someone would be interested. If not, go on social media and share your survey there. For sure, someone will somehow get to participate.

5. Make video transcripts.

• Video content is harder for Google to grasp. So, this is where you come in. Look for a current video, and then, come up with a transcript. This could be any video as long as it is from a famous person.
• For the final step, flatter the influencer on Facebook, Twitter, or wherever. You can say that you made a transcript for a video and offer the link. If they respond to you, that’s like an indirect endorsement. Once they share you tweet, for sure, it will have positive ripple effects for your website.