YouTube SEO How-To Guide:

Optimize, Socialize & Analyze Your

YouTube Presence

gShiftLabs.com | @gShiftLabs | facebook.com/gShiftLabs | [email protected]

How-To Optimize, Socialize & Analyze Your YouTube Presence
FACT: YouTube has become the third most popular website in the world, and the second largest search engine,
right behind the juggernaut that is Google. In addition, videos are ranking extremely well in Google, gaining
placement at the top of Page One. The potential for visibility in the world of YouTube videos is incredibly vast.

In short, if you are not on YouTube, you might be missing out on today’s SEO marathon.

There are so many benefits to your organization for having a presence on YouTube. One major benefit is the
extensive visibility of the YouTube community itself. Using this medium shows that your business is current and
embraces a very popular form of communication. Another benefit is that the video content published on YouTube
is social and easy to share across multiple other social networks and mediums. When done correctly, a well-
optimized video can reach a significant audience, increase your organic search results and drive more traffic to
your site.

A viewer can like, link, embed, share, tweet, +1 and more, all from within the YouTube interface.

Link
Share on
major social
Embed networks

How do you ensure your company is winning the race?

There are three main steps to remember when promoting your business on YouTube: Optimize, Socialize and
Analyze. It is a simple strategy that, when executed effectively, will help solidify your web presence and organic
rankings.

Overview
In this guide you will learn how to get the most out of your YouTube content by developing a start to finish
strategy aimed at increasing your organic rankings and getting your videos found. This YouTube How-To Guide
covers the following points:

1. Optimizing Your YouTube Videos and Channel

2. Socializing Your YouTube Videos to Increase Visibility
3. Analyzing Your YouTube Results and ROI

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1. Optimizing Your YouTube Videos and Channel

When optimizing your YouTube presence, you need to consider both the videos and the channel itself. Know and
understand your organization’s keywords and keep them in mind when entering in all your data.

For videos, optimize the title, description and tags.

It all starts with a great keyword-rich Title. Try using unbranded keywords rather than branded. The viewer will
be able to identify your brand by your username, which appears next to the video in the search results. The title
cannot be any longer than 100 characters and should be plain, direct and descriptive, versus clever.

Your Description is where you can be more creative. Although not everyone reads the full description, it is heavily
used for search ranking. This is where you can be witty and clever, while keeping your keywords in mind. Hook
people with a great first line and encourage them to click the ‘more info’ button, which extends the collapsed
view so that the full description is visible. It is also good practice to include your website URL at the beginning
of the description. This will ensure that it is seen even in the collapsed view and will create a quality backlink to
your website. You can also include other URLs within the description, which reference pages on your website that
are relevant to the video. Include the full URL (including http://) to ensure that YouTube converts them to live links
when the description is published.

The Tags section of your video upload can be up to 120 characters long and should be as detailed as possible. You
can include tags such as your brand, topic, descriptors (funny, helpful, etc.) and most importantly, one or two of
your main keywords.

Suggested tags can be a

good resource for finding
related keywords.

Tip: Creating a YouTube playlist is a great way to collect and link relevant videos together. To add a new playlist,
click the “Add to” button below the video. Name your new playlist appropriately and then revisit all of your other
videos and add them as well. This will group all of your company’s videos together and encouage people to view
more than one.

Fact: The success and effectiveness of any online content is dependent on quality. YouTube will rank a video
higher if it is frequently watched from start to finish. Keep your videos short with quality, relevant content that
people are more likely to watch past the first click. This will help increase the chances of your video being
displayed in the recommended videos section on the right hand side and immediately following
other YouTube videos; perhaps even those of your competitors. (http://support.google.com/youtube)

gShiftLabs.com | @gShiftLabs | facebook.com/gShiftLabs | [email protected]

For the channel, optimize your profile, customize your design and engage in the community.

In your YouTube profile, optimize the title and description, as well as assign tags to the channel.
1. Ensure that the title is descriptive, using either your brand or key product for people to identify you.
2. In the description, highlight who you are and what products or services you offer. This is one of the
places where you have a chance to sell yourself and convince people to click through
to your website.
3. Complete your channel profile by selecting a good range of keywords that are specific to your business.

YouTube gives you a good level of control over the look and feel of your YouTube channel. Use this feature to
highlight your branding: select a profile picture, background design and colour theme that will be recognizable as
part of your organization. Within your channel profile you can also include links to your website, Facebook page,
Twitter profile and any other relevant links. This is a great way to optimize your web presence by connecting all
accounts wherever possible. On a related note, and to Google’s credit, they also offer this functionality on Google+
Company Pages.

Tip: When designing your background image, consider including text that shows other ways people can connect
with you, such as your Twitter handle, website, Facebook Page, etc. While these will not be clickable links, they
will help to promote your additional web presences.

gShiftLabs.com | @gShiftLabs | facebook.com/gShiftLabs | [email protected]

2. Socializing Your YouTube Videos to Increase Visibility

The second step to video success is to ensure that it is widely distributed.

Socialize the video on your website, blog and across as many social media networks as possible.

Use the embed code provided with the video to place it on your website and/or within a blog post. This will
create a valuable way for other visitors to see the content, and can also increase your organic page results for
those sites in search engines. Many of the popular blog sites, such as Blogger, WordPress and Tumblr, provide
easy steps and plugins to quickly embed videos, complete with a still shot from the footage and the ability to
watch it directly within the post.

Sharing video content across your networks is how social signals are created. Both Google and Bing now factor
your organization’s social signals into their algorithms. This means that every like, share, and retweet your
content receives can provide you with added authority in the major search engines. High quality content, such
as videos, can motivate people to share across their social networks, creating an amplification effect.

Facts: YouTube reports that 500 years of YouTube videos are watched on Facebook every day, while 700 videos
are shared on Twitter each minute. (www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics)

Users can watch full YouTube

videos from within their
Facebook feed, then use
traditional Facebook buttons
to ‘like’, ‘comment’ or ‘share’
the content. This activity is
then seen in the news feed of
their personal network and
the ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ are
social signals.

gShiftLabs.com | @gShiftLabs | facebook.com/gShiftLabs | [email protected]

One aspect of YouTube that some organizations overlook is that it is a social community within itself, and a very
large one at that. Instead of just using the site to host your videos, make sure that you take a few moments
each week to engage within the community. Rate and comment on other users’ videos. This will also create a
hyperlink from your user thumbnail and user name back to your channel.

Also, the more you engage around you, the more likely people are to rate and comment on your videos, which
are both factors that impact your rankings within YouTube. Ratings, comments and likes within the site all
count towards your total social signals.

Tip: To build social signals, include a like or share call to action within your video, as an annotation added to
the video in YouTube, or in the video description.

3. Analyzing Your YouTube Results and ROI

The final and equally important step in optimizing your entire YouTube presence is to analyze the results of your
efforts. You should be tracking how your videos are ranking, the number of views of your videos and channel,
and what kind of traffic is heading from YouTube to your website. You will also want to see how much of that
traffic became full conversions.

YouTube provides some indepth analytics data including traffic sources, demographics and viewer retention
levels for how your videos are performing within YouTube itself. This can help to clarify who your audience
actually is and how engaged they are with your videos.

Be sure to take a deeper dive and look into the keywords that are important to your business. Are you ranking
within YouTube for those keywords? What kind of traffic are you receiving on your YouTube channel based on
each specific keyword? You can use this data to continually optimize the content around your videos to improve
your position within the search engine and gain more visibility.

YouTube video rankings by keyword

within gShift’s Web Presence Optimizer TM

gShiftLabs.com | @gShiftLabs | facebook.com/gShiftLabs | [email protected]

Conclusion

With the growing popularity and authority that YouTube has shown within the world of social marketing, it can
be a valuable addition to any organization’s online strategy. However, as with anything else in business, if you
are going to take the time to do it, make sure you do it right.

Taking the time to optimize both your videos and your channel can help to increase your visibility on YouTube
itself.

Likewise, socializing that video content can have a significant impact on the reach you have with your
message.

Continually analyzing your results to understand what is working and where opportunities are will pay off in the
organic search engine results over the long term.

About gShift Labs

gShift Labs provides Web Presence Optimization Software giving SMBs and agencies control over their
organic search campaigns. Companies across North America are achieving top organic rankings in search
engines using gShift’s Web Presence Optimizer™ (WPO), which simplifies, demystifies and standardizes
the way a website gets found on the internet. Organizations of all sizes benefit by reducing the time and
resources required to analyze and improve organic search optimization.

For more information, please contact us at 1-866-743-5960 or [email protected].

gShiftLabs.com | @gShiftLabs | facebook.com/gShiftLabs | [email protected]