There are plenty of tips you can use to improve your SEO strategy. An often overlooked tactic is using YouTube for SEO. Learn why in this article.
SEO takes your website from being completely unknown to getting a high volume of relevant traffic every month.
It is a practice that is constantly evolving as Google’s algorithm continues to get better and better, and although there are plenty of tips and hacks to improve your SEO, they won’t take you far unless they’re bound within a cohesive strategy.
A lot of factors play into a strong SEO strategy. You need to conduct keyword research that’s optimized for user intent, create and implement a link-building strategy, and of course, push out amazingly valuable content.
But one often overlooked component of SEO strategy is YouTube.
I’ve been using Cloudways since January 2016 for this blog. I happily recommend Cloudways to my readers because I am a proud customer.
Not YouTube SEO, per se, but rather the practice of using YouTube to improve your website SEO.
The goal of this piece is to help you understand why YouTube ought to be part of your SEO strategy and how doing so will put you a step or two ahead of your competitors who aren’t already doing so.
What You Miss Out on by Ignoring YouTube for SEO
Many people are either unaware or take for granted the fact that YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet.
But it’s not only that. Hitting over 3 billion searches every month, it’s also the top video platform and the second most popular social media site.
Ignoring the potential benefits YouTube could have on your website SEO would be like ignoring an opportunity of the decade—and you should know that it is an opportunity that will pass, given time.
In the same way that everyone wishes they’d started a podcast or blog back in the early 2000s, current website owners who don’t take advantage of YouTube now are going to be scratching their heads in a few years as the platform becomes further saturated by opportunistic first movers.
Outside of the market advantages of breaking into YouTube, there are also user experience benefits that come with the medium itself.
Human beings are naturally visual creatures. The easier it is to visualize what we’re reading, the easier it is to comprehend.
If your website pages only utilize text and images to communicate your ideas, you’re probably missing out on increased user engagement via video.
Why Your Website Needs Videos
Having YouTube videos on your website also gives your users more freedom to choose how they consume your content. After all, who said blogs need to be all about writing!
Many content creators have already taken advantage of YouTube by pairing their articles with complimentary videos, and others have taken a step further by adding audio options as well.
Creating engaging content for your audience is one factor that contributes to positive user experience, and if you’ve been paying attention to Google’s updates, you’ll know that UX is going to start impacting rankings in the coming year.
Why not get ahead of the curve and start delivering a better experience now?
The Technical SEO Benefits of Creating YouTube Videos
The idea that YouTube is good for SEO is not a matter of opinion. It’s a fact. There are technical reasons for this.
YouTube Videos Decrease Bounce Rates
A best practice for creating YouTube videos is to have call-to-actions (CTAs) that link to a page you want to take the viewer to.
If you make videos that promote your website’s pages, their CTAs can link to other parts of your site, thus encouraging viewers and website visitors to explore more of your content.
This, in turn, decreases your website’s bounce rate, which is a metric that indicates what percentage of your website visitors leave your site after viewing a single page.
The lower your bounce rate, the better.
YouTube Videos Increase Dwell Time
Dwell time measures how much time a user spends on a particular webpage. A popular way to increase dwell time is to write longer blog articles, but why not use video as well?
After all, someone can easily skim a blog post, but if they want to consume the content of a video, they have to watch the whole thing.
YouTube Videos Can Increase Click-Through-Rates (CTRs)
Another best practice when creating YouTube videos is to take advantage of the video description.
This looks like adding in time-stamps, linking to your social media, and including relevant links to your site.
This in part relates to the way YouTube videos can complement your blog articles.
If you have an article about How to Create Great Instagram Captions, and then you also have a YouTube video on that same topic, it only makes sense to link the article in the description of the video.
This drives traffic to your site and increases your website’s CTR.
YouTube Can Improve Your Keyword Research
SEOs understand the necessity of keyword research, but unfortunately, not all keyword research tools are freely available.
There are some free options to choose from, like Google Search Console, Keywords Everywhere, and now Ubersuggest from Neil Patel.
But don’t forget about YouTube!
When you type a keyword into YouTube’s search bar, you immediately see recommendations of what other people also search for in relation to that keyword.
Keep in mind that YouTube tries to cater suggestions to your account, so to get a pure look at the search suggestions, go into an incognito tab.
Since YouTube is the second largest search engine, you can be certain that it’s recommended suggestions are coming from a reliable data set.
If you use a paid Keyword Tool like Ahrefs, you’ll be able to streamline this process with their YouTube keyword research tool.
A Good SEO Strategy Doesn’t Ignore YouTube and Neither Should You
As a website owner or an SEO consultant, you understand how difficult it can be to rank for your primary keywords.
And if you eventually do rank, you quickly realize that the top 10 positions are not built on stable ground; you are always at risk of being usurped by another site that better serves internet users.
This is why, when an opportunity like this comes by, you shouldn’t just pass it up. We can’t afford to be picky about how we rank (so long as we don’t cross the bridge into black hat territory).
Solid opportunities don’t last forever–eventually, someone rises to the occasion and triumphs over the competition.
I want that someone to be you.
Once you begin creating videos and implementing YouTube as a part of your SEO strategy, you can measure the difference the initiative makes by examining analytics from your content management system, whether you use Wix or WordPress or some other popular option.
The important thing to keep in mind is that there will be a difference. As they say, “Seeing is believing,” so start creating YouTube videos to see the results for yourself.
About the author: Hey, I’m Dale! I’ve helped tens of thousands of people just like you from around the world create beautiful blog, portfolio, and business websites with our easy to follow guides and tutorials over at CreateAProWebsite.com.
