Website SEO is a fairly common online marketing strategy in recent years. From “unboxing” and introducing new products to testing and comparing different brands of products, videos have become one of the main channels for consumers to discover new products and learn about brands. As the most popular social media platform in Hong Kong – with a whopping 86% of internet users being YouTubers – YouTube videos allow brands to reach a large number of target customers. In addition to making videos rank higher on YouTube, they are more likely to rank on the first page of Google search results, killing two birds with one stone!

Why do you want to do YouTube SEO?

YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine – more than 4 out of 10 respondents said they had purchased new products discovered on YouTube. (Source: Think With Google) Like Google, YouTube uses algorithms to sort video search results and push videos to users that interest them. YouTube SEO makes it easier for the YouTube search engine to understand the relevance of the video to the keywords used by the user by optimizing the content and relevant information of the video, such as the title and description of the video, so as to improve the ranking and reach of the video in YouTube search results.

From YouTube rankings to Google search rankings

In recent years, Google’s search results have become more diversified, and different formats of search results will be added according to the searcher’s intentions, such as images, videos, product descriptions, etc. Google adds YouTube videos to the search results page for certain types of keywords, as shown below:

Google Search Results: Keyword – “youtube seo”

When searching for “youtube seo”, the second most popular search result is an instructional video from YouTube. And the first place in the search results for some keywords is already the movie!

Google Search Results: Keyword – “ketogenic bread”

Of course, not all Google keywords will show video search results. Google will determine whether users searching for the keyword will be interested in the video, and then decide whether to include the video in the search results. Since most people searching for “ketogenic bread” want to search for ketogenic bread recipes, and most people who search for recipes prefer to watch videos, Google puts ketogenic bread recipe videos at the top of the list.

Is YouTube SEO right for your brand?

YouTube videos have a lot of potential. To determine whether YouTube SEO is worth doing, you can consider two things: (1) the demand for industry-related videos and (2) the Google search results for industry-related keywords:

Demand for industry-related films

If there is a demand for YouTube videos related to your industry, you may want to consider doing YouTube SEO. Some popular video genres include:

● Beauty – including beauty education, beauty product unboxing, measurement and comparison, etc

● Food & Beverage – including recipes, kitchenware unboxing, measurement and comparison, restaurant tasting, etc

● Consumer electronics – including digital product unboxing, measurement and comparison, e-sports games, etc

● Travel & Hospitality – Including videos of Staycation experiences that hit the scene after the outbreak of the pandemic

If you want to know the highest number of views on industry-related videos, you can make good use of the YouTube search filter. Once you’ve entered popular keywords related to your industry, you can filter your search results by the number of views. Take the search for “staycation Hong Kong” as an example:

Click on “Filters” in the top left and select “Views” in the “Sort by” section, and the YouTube search results will show the relevant videos from the highest to the lowest views:

YouTube search results: keyword – “staycation Hong Kong”; Sort by – Views

If you’re searching this way, be sure to look at the region, genre, and relevance of the video in the search results. Because if you filter by the number of views, the search results may include videos from other Chinese-speaking regions, or videos that are less relevant to the industry/product, such as song music videos.

Taking the above search results as an example, the average number of views of the top 10 most-watched videos in the YouTube search results for “staycation Hong Kong” is as high as 313,000 times, which shows that there is a huge online demand for hospitality-related videos, and the regions, genres and content of the videos are directly related to local hotels.

Google search results for industry-related keywords

As mentioned above, an added benefit of YouTube video SEO is the chance to rank on the first page of Google’s search results. If the Google search results for popular keywords related to your industry include video, YouTube SEO can help your product reach more target customers. You can search for industry/product-related keywords based on your knowledge of the industry, or use online tools such as Google Ads, SEMRush or Ahrefs to search for industry/product keywords with high search volume, and then Google to see if the search results include videos. For example, the first page of Google search results for “staycation Hong Kong” already includes YouTube videos:

Google Search Results: keyword – “staycation Hong Kong”

Other examples include “air fryers”:

Google Search Results: Keyword – “air fryer”

and “Liquid Foundation Recommendation”:

Google Search Results: Keyword – “Liquid Foundation Recommendation”

Industry-related keywords can cut across multiple categories – they could be directly related to a product or brand, or a keyword that doesn’t include a product but is related to it, and so on. If you have limited time resources, you can start with a searcher’s perspective to determine which keywords searchers will be interested in video search results, and then focus on those keywords.

YouTube SEO Tips

Finally, here are a few tips to help improve your YouTube video’s ranking:

● Optimize titles, video descriptions, and tags – Appropriately and naturally include target keywords and other directly or indirectly related keywords

● Interpolation – Subtitling a video helps YouTube understand what the video is about

● Add a timeline – The timeline is like a table of contents for a book, which not only allows the audience to see the key points of the video at a glance, improves the user experience, but also helps YouTube understand the content of the video (if you are interested, please refer to the official YouTube tutorial video)

● Improve audience engagement – In addition to content relevance and views, audience engagement is also a key factor in ranking a video. Ensuring that content is entertaining to increase watch time, adding questions or call-to-actions (e.g., Giveaways, sweepstakes, etc.) to encourage viewers to leave comments and like shares are all strategies to increase audience engagement.

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