How to Rank First in YouTube Search
The key to YouTube growth is being found in search – especially if you’re a new YouTuber. Today, I’m going to teach you how to rank first in YouTube search.
How to Rank First in YouTube Search | My proven strategy to ranking #1 on YouTube Search
Want to watch a video version of this post? I’ve got you covered!
A lot of people will discount showing up in search as a valid method of growth – and I call flat out B.S. on that. Especially if you are a small YouTuber, you absolutely have to show up in search. Otherwise, people won’t find and watch your videos, and YouTube won’t recommend your videos to others.
You absolutely CAN show up in search! There’s a proven formula that works. Here’s all the tips about how to rank first in YouTube Search.
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Do Keyword Research
Keyword research is CRITICAL. Just putting videos out into the internet and hoping that people are searching for them is not a good strategy. You have to do research to know what keywords and phrases you should be targeting with your videos to attract the right people!
It’s not enough to do keyword research. You need to go after keywords and phrases that you can actually rank for. Keywords that each person can rank for are so different based on audience size and other factors. You need to pick ones that will be helpful to your growth. You can use Keywords Everywhere or TubeBuddy to find the right keywords for your channel size.
I have an entire video about how to pick keywords – you can watch that one here!
Focus on the Three T’s! Title, Tags, and Thumbnail
The three t’s tell YouTube what you want to be found in search for.
Title. Your title is one of the most important pieces of being found in search. Use your title to capitalize on your keywords and phrases you want to go after. Make sure your keywords are prominent in your title!
Tags. Your tags will help you make the most of your keywords. You should add the keywords that people who want to watch your video will be searching. My tagging strategy is to start with the main keyphrase, break it down as much as I can, and then throw in other keywords people might use.
I have a whole video about my tag method – you can watch it here!
Thumbnail. We’ve all heard the old adage, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover.” That is exactly what people are doing with your YouTube video. You can have the best tags, the best title, and the best keywords, but if your thumbnail is bad then no one is going to click on your video! Your thumbnail needs to make people want to click on your video. Your thumbnail can be more creative – it should emote a feeling that makes someone want to click.
We need to have a heart-to-heart about content.
You could do keyword research and know exactly which key phrases to go after, have the perfect title, and an interesting thumbnail. But if your content is crap, YouTube will not continue to show your video in search.
You could do all the work to post a video and it will start serving it up to people searching for those keywords. But, if people are clicking it and then leaving because they decide not to watch your video, YouTube will stop favoring it in search.
You can do everything right, but if you don‘t have quality content that makes people stay and watch, YouTube will stop serving it up in search.
YouTube’s algorithm is smart. It knows what people are going to want to watch. You have to do your due diligence to make sure it shows up in the right place and keeps people interested.
Here’s the thing with search: In order to have massive growth on YouTube, you need to get YouTube to serve up your videos to people who weren’t searching for your video. YouTube will not do that until it sees that people have engaged with, watched, and enjoyed your video. It can’t see that until you’ve ranked in search. And you absolutely can rank in search if you follow these steps!
