How to optimize a Youtube video like a pro Craig Murray DigitalI’m sure you have searched online on how to optimize your YouTube video and I am sure a lot of the points that I explain will have been discussed elsewhere. Reality is that I have so many videos for both myself and clients that rank on the top of both Google and YouTube search for my chosen keywords.

So I am going to explain to you the first steps I take In order to know my video is fully optimised and ready for the next step in my ranking process.

If you are a follower my blog then you will have read ” why it is important to optimise YouTube videos” if not then click here and go and take a worthwhile read as it will explain why we need to rank such videos , why we need to optimise them and the benefits of doing so. So now we are on post #2 which explains my step by step practice to optimising such videos.

Let’s not sit around. When we create a video we need to keep our keywords in mind. The file name of your video should always be keyword first. Ie: teeth-whitening-Washington-DC.flv as oppose to video65544.flv or whatever the case my be. Always and I mean ALWAYS use your selected keyword as the file name as it is said google use the name of the file in the ranking system!so now we have our video file and the name of it has been changed to incorporate our keyword, son now it is time to upload our video.

When we begin the upload process we are greeted with many options for us to make, it is here that we will add the most important optimisation techniques needed to rank your video and have it be found in search.

Title: this is super important! Your title is the first thing people will see other than the video icon(see how to create good YouTube video icons) when they search for your video. Your title must be informative and inviting and must contain your keyword! When updating a tile what I like to do is something like this using Washington dc dentists as an example.

Shine dentist | Teeth whitening | Washington DC |

Here I have included exactly what I am promoting. I have the name of my clients dentist for brand recognition, I have their keyword “teeth whitening” and I have their area of service also “Washington DC” this here is a short line but yet it tells the search engines and the user everything they need to know in a few small words. This is the key to ranking your video in Boole and YouTube. What you see is what you get!

Now we continue to the description. Here we want to again give a lot of information and a CPA. We are going to start by inserting the link to our primary domain at the top of the description. This is going to show up in the YouTube search listings and the google search listings. It will always be prominent when a user is watching a video without them clicking the “show more” button which means there is a higher chance of users visiting your website during or after your video. Not to mention when you begin ranking in google searches that display your video will also contain a link in the description directly to your primary domain.

Now for the rest of the description. Let’s keep it short and to the point. We are not going to spam it with a million keywords and a big content rich article. We want to add the same text as the title in on a new line underneath the link. Then we will add our clients address and phone number, and then a small piece of text about the service that the client is promoting in the video and who they are. These description never usually go over 600 characters.

Now for the tags. It is important here again not to spam the tag system. We need to add 4-5 tags only. These can be keyword rich. So we will add our main keyword “teeth whitening” then maybe “teeth whitening Washington DC” then I also like to add the companies name again in the tags for brand recognition. If all this is done correctly then we are ready to move on.

Choosing the category correctly is a huge importance when adding the video to the YouTube platform. Choosing the wrong category is like having a domain that says Washington plumber as oppose to dentist. Our category tell exactly what we do. As your probably aware there are not many options in the category section on YouTube that’s why we always choose “informative” as we think it best describes most videos that are promoting a service or a product.

One last thing that we can do is add annotations to our video. We usually add a number or website URL to the bottom of the video, so don’t forget to do that also!

Ok so now it’s time to submit our information. Make sure that you have chosen to make the video “public” so that it can be found in search results.