YouTube Secrets

When you think of search engine marketing, we live in a much bigger world than just Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

At the Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago, I sat in on sessions for YouTube and Facebook search optimization.

Answering what it means to be a search engine optimizer is more complicated than it used to be.
According to Alexa, the top three sites are:

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. YouTube

If you are looking to get the most exposure to the biggest audiences, you probably want to seriously consider some sort of campaigns with these sites.
In this column, I wanted to give you five secrets that you might not know about YouTube search engine optimization. Understanding these secrets could have a big impact on your ranking.
I got most of these from Greg Jarboe at his session on video optimization. I wanted to give credit where credit is due.
Secret #1
Get key phrase ideas from autocomplete suggestions.

These are currently searched key phrases at YouTube. If you are looking to make a video about something people are interested in, you definitely want to check out the autocomplete function at YouTube.
This is incredibly easy key phrase research to do. And you'll likely find some interesting topics to get your video making juices flowing.
Secret #2
Use the YouTube Keyword Suggestion Tool.
This is another great place to find ideas for key phrases for your video. You can also put a YouTube video ID in the tool and it will give you suggestions for key phrases to add to your video.
Secret #3
Use all the allowed space for titles, descriptions, and tags.
Titles should be about 100 characters.
Descriptions can include up to 5,000 characters, tags can be 120 characters. Make a goal to use every one of these limits for each of your videos.
From this YouTube blog post, "The more words you include in your description, the higher your chances of being discovered by searchers, which means the larger your audience can grow, and the more potential revenue you can earn."
Secret #4
Use annotations from this blog:

• Encourage viewers to subscribe with an annotated subscribe button.
• Use annotations to link to videos, playlists, channels, and more.
• Use annotations to encourage feedback.

OK. Annotations aren't specifically for search optimization. But they are a great way to get people to either subscribe to your channel or watch another one of your videos.
Secret #5
Try YouTube Promoted videos.
This is paid search for your videos. These are the steps:

• Choose one of your videos, write some promotional text, and tell us which keywords should trigger your promotion.
• Using your keywords, your video promotion will now appear next to contextually relevant search results.
• When a YouTube viewer clicks on your promotion, they see your video. You only pay when people click to see your video - not when people see your promotion.

YouTube is a huge opportunity for new traffic. Hopefully these tips will help you navigate that space in a more effective way.