How to Optimize a YouTube Channel: 15 Effective Tips

Optimizing your YouTube strategy is a wise idea for any company. You should know the fact that right after google, YouTube is the second largest search engine. This is why when you market your business on this platform and succeed in getting top search rankings, your business videos will be seen by many potential customers.

Here are the top 15 ways to optimize your YouTube channel:

1. Focus on the YouTube Channel Rankings

YouTube uses almost the same algorithms as Google. So you should have some knowledge about these algorithms before starting any channel on YouTube. Follow these techniques and boost your channel rankings on the platform.

Length of videos: Posting videos of different lengths will not get your channel a good ranking. To get a good rank on this platform, post videos of the same length.

User interactions: Get as many user interactions as you can. Getting likes, comments, and shares will boost your channel ranking on YouTube.

The number of subscribers: Try to get a higher number of subscribers. Getting a good number of subscribers will increase your channel community and help you get a good ranking.

2. Use Keywords in your Channel's Name

On-page SEO works the same as it works on websites.

Choose your channel name keywords very carefully. Try to focus on keywords that define your channel and business. This name will always be your YouTube channel name.

The best practice is to put your keywords right below your company name. If you put it in the way like this " Company name: keyword" then it will look great.

3. Fill Out the About Us Page

The 'About Us' page is usually underutilized in digital businesses. Marketers often seem unsure on how to use the about us section on YouTube.

The 'About Us' page is not only used to tell about the company or your channel but also plays an important role in improving the SEO quality. You need to fill out at least 48 words! YouTube uses these words to show your page in the search results. YouTube also uses these words to understand your channel, to serve you the best snippets.

Filling out the about us page is an opportunity for you to grab with both of your hands. Tell the audience about the videos you upload. Don't forget to add your target keywords. It will only help your channel to get ranked higher on YouTube.

4. Use Channel Keyword Tags Under Advanced Settings

Under advanced settings, there is a section where you get 100 characters to apply tags. It helps YouTube to round out the scope of your channel. These 100 character tags are equivalent to the metadata of websites. Focus on these tags cautiously as they will decide the section of your audience. Marketers usually don't give these 100 character tags much attention, which is not good for marketing YouTube videos.

The main purpose of these tags is to allow YouTube and google to index your channel for rankings. Always provide more detailed and contextual information. Only add relevant keywords which add value to your channel. These keywords are used in the on-page optimization of YouTube channels.

5. Focus on your Channel Trailer

The channel trailer is the first video anyone sees when they come to your channel. Trailers are like the red carpet you lay out to get visitors to subscribe.

The trailers are a visual way to tell the audience about your channel. YouTube channel trailers are just visual about us sections on a channel.

A cool feature of YouTube channel trailers is that it is only visible to the non-subscribers. It implies that your trailer doesn't require any information in line with the needs of existing subscribers. It has to be designed in a way that you can win over your non-subscribers. Creative designs on the trailer will attract the audience. Using YouTube banner templates to create the best design can be a great idea.

6. Publish Long Videos

You may not be aware that one of the most important factors to rank up your channel is the length of your YouTube videos. It is sometimes referred to as audience retention. Watch time is the total amount of watching time of all of your audience combined. So, if your 10-minute video is watched by 1000 viewers then the total watch time is 10,000 minutes. To increase your watch time, you have to create content that can stick your audience throughout the video.

7. Focus on the First 15 Seconds of the Video to Maximize Watch Time

According to the famous YouTube creator academy, you should focus on the first 15 seconds of your video. Most of the users decide in the first 15 seconds to watch further or not. Therefore, optimization in the first 15 seconds is very crucial. Once you succeed in getting their attention in the very first 15 seconds, then the rest of your video will naturally get a decent watch time.

8. Say your Keywords in The Video

Ranking algorithms nowadays consider a much wider content. Google's new algorithms are very dynamic. As videos, images, and transcriptions are now crawlable, these algorithms use web crawlers to seek information in your content.

Put your keywords in the title of your video and say these keywords throughout your video. It will help the algorithm to rank your video. Saying keywords on your video with the same keywords in the title is equivalent to the on-page SEO of websites where you put keywords on the blog.

9. Strengthen your User Interaction Signals

User interactions are a great chance to boost up your rankings on this platform. Try to get as many user interactions as you can. These interactions help your channel to improve your organic search presence. Nowadays, only creating great content is not enough.

There is a huge competition going on the platform. You have to ask your audience verbally and clearly to like, comment, and share your videos. Sharing your video increases your user interaction and helps you to pull more viewers to your channel. Make interactions easy by consistently incentivizing them to like, share, and subscribe to your YouTube channel.

10. Customize Video Thumbnails

Youtube thumbnails are a very important factor that draws viewers as well as subscribers to your channel. It is the first impression of the audience. Thumbnails should be eye-catching and beautiful at the same time. With a new YouTube update, YouTube videos show you instant video views to get the audience an idea about that particular video.

11. Focus on the Title and Video Description

YouTube video titles play a very important role in drawing viewers and subscribers to your YouTube channel. Many people only click on your videos when they find a compelling title on the video. Focusing more on the title of the video will only help you to improve your views.

Add keywords on your title to get it ranked higher. Another aspect that you should focus on is the video description. Fill out this section with all about your videos. Describe your video; also, don't forget to add keywords in the video description as well. It will increase your search rankings.

12. Create a Playlist to Increase Watch Time

Playlists are popular in drawing more viewers to your channel. A playlist boosts your watch time and helps you to get more viewers. The playlist has a feature to automatically redirect your viewer to the next video in it. Business channels should focus on creating playlists.

13. Use Video Cards at the End of the Video

The end of the video is the best time to add video cards to your YouTube video. When viewers complete your whole video, then it means that they are already satisfied with your content. Now it's time to make them subscribe to your channel. Video cards are used for the same purpose. It eases the process of subscribing to your channel that results in more subscribers.

You should also know that these cards play an important role in the SEO ranking of your channel. Don't just add subscribing options on your video cards. Use them to gain more interactions on your other social media accounts as well. These steps will ultimately increase your user interactions.

14. Upload Subtitles and Closed Captions

Working on your subtitles will only increase your domain to work on the keywords. It makes your content much more visible on the platform. Closed captions also improve the viewing experience for hearing-impaired audience members.

Uploading subtitles is not just to improve your SEO but also expands your viewers and subscriber base with different languages and accents. YouTube also offers some customization tools to limit the number of words seen on the screen.

Be sure to use this feature of YouTube subtitles and closed captions to use your keywords and make it more SEO-friendly. It will only help your channel to grow faster.

15. Embrace Live YouTube Videos

You will only succeed in growing your channel when you are not afraid of trying new ways to increase your user interactions. Live videos are one of the best ways of growing your interaction with your audience. Live videos are now becoming popular on many other social media.

You can try out many different things for your live videos, like holding a webinar, conducting a Q&A session, and running a contest on YouTube.

Here’s a bonus tip for you!

Concentrate on Introduction. As already mentioned, focus on the first 15 seconds of the video. Make sure you have a great introduction. Your introduction is the first impression - It has to be catchy, interesting, and informative.