By now you’ve probably heard of the almighty keyword, it certainly seems like everything internet based runs off of a keyword algorithm these days and you’d be right in thinking so.
Facebook’s new trending system can track the variations of keywords you use in your posts to feed you the fastest breaking news. Twitter can now track a subject with or without a hashtag, and even YouTube has slowly improved how its base keyword algorithm searches through its cache of content over the years with its popular video search optimization tools. So let’s take a look at the steps you should take to improve your keyword video optimization and find a quality keyword.
How to Determine if your Keyword is a Quality Search Term:
It’s time to begin that very harrowing keyword search journey, and while the process is lengthy, it’s easy than you think. Let’s look at what makes a good keyword. There are two factors to determine if a keyword will be successful, the number of searches it receives and the amount of competition on those searches.
If a keyword has a high amount of searches but high competition, this means that your content will have to fight to be heard. If it has low search numbers but low competition, your content will easily rank but your audience will be significantly smaller. Striking the right balance will be key to a quality search optimization campaign. While there is no perfect keyword with a high search rate but no competition, your goal is to find the perfect balance of searches and competition that works for your content to bring in customers.
Researching Keywords Outside of your Main Keyword Goal:
So you’ve decided on your content subject and come-up with a keyword, your job is done right? Wrong! The biggest mistake you can make in your optimization strategy is failing to determine if there aren’t better options out there on the interwebs. Tools like Google Adwords and popular keyword search sites (Wordstream and SEO MOZ just to name a few) can tell you the likelihood of your keyword succeeding, the amount of searches it has, and even if you have a high competition rate, but these tools can’t tell you what’s being searched right now. Using websites like Google Trends (https://www.google.com/trends/), you can search to find what the most popular keywords were relating to that subject for the day. You can also determine if people are searching for your keyword in your area. It always best to build a system of check and recheck into your strategy to make sure it stays current and search viable.
So What Does that Mean for YouTube?
Now that we’ve gone through all of that, let’s look at the mecca of video marketing… YouTube. Keywords on YouTube work very differently than search terms on Google Search, even though they are owned by the same mega-company. YouTube’s goal is to keep an individual on their website moving from video to video as long as possible. This is why their ‘what to watch’ feature is built so heavily into the user experience. The chain of videos that the user is taken to is not determined by the initial keyword they might have typed in but instead on the content of the video that they just watched. This is very different from Google Search’s catch-and-serve approach where users are served the highest hits for the their chosen word. But keywords still play a big part in the YouTube strategy, even if they aren’t the front runner for getting searches to your content.
Keywords in YouTube instead take the form of categories, tags, descriptions, titles and so much more. Let’s say that a user is searching for home design inspiration, an
d you’ve got a video for home design trends that your company specializes in. Your video probably won’t come up in the initial search especially if your video doesn’t have a lot of views yet, but by using the video optimization features YouTube searches through like a title or description, you can relate your content to the video the user might find. This way when the user is done watching the initial design inspiration video, you will have a higher chance that Youtube will recommend your video in the what to watch column which aims to widen the user’s initial search parameters by suggestion what the website thinks they might be interested in next. It helps the user cast a wider net to find new content they might not have known about originally.
Next Steps for the Next Level:
For this reason, having a cohesive keyword strategy is only a small part of the Youtube experience. Successful content creators understand how to utilize those keywords as a part of the optimization tools YouTube has in place. Keyword usage and variations in the description and title help the websites algorithm pick on on your content in more places, and in the end make your company more successful as a content creator!
Taking your keyword strategy to the next level might seem like a daunting task without prior know-how, experience or time to dedicate to it. That may be the case, but it is becoming more and more necessary to have these things in the business wold and FIM can get you up and running in no time – so when your are ready to take the first set or just get a bit of knowledge, head over to our website, http://www.thefreshink.com/connect/ and connect with one of our team members!
Good Luck!
Resouces:
https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research
http://www.reelmarketer.com/10-ways-to-optimize-keyword-tags-for-video-seo/