Head of Product Management @ diva-e Products
Originally published in Danish and most links are in Danish The 2020 plan is dead! Long live the 2030 plan! We have looked deeply into the crystal ball for 2020 and the years to come to identify a number of emerging trends. Maybe you are already at the forefront of several of them. If not, it's time to get started. The Latest Video Content Trends It is no surprise that video is a constantly growing part of the Internet. It was already one of the big things in 2019, but we expect video and visual storytelling to be even greater in the coming years, with 82% of Internet content expected to be video by 2021. Already 72% of users prefer to learn more about a product or service through video. When talking video, it's not just the classic videos you know from YouTube. We will see more and more brands replace the traditional video format with live streams and live videos. Eighty-two percent of today’s viewers prefer live video over social media posts from a brand. But how do live streams benefit you as a brand, you might ask? The same survey shows 67% who saw a live stream bought a ticket for a similar event, and 45% of respondents would even pay for live videos of their favorite teams and influencers. Maintaining User Interest (Hubspot) How Can Video Impact Organic Traffic? The above shows that video users get the content they want and pay more attention to the content. It's win-win. The video quality of the latest smartphones is so good that you can easily use your mobile to make your videos. Video can increase organic traffic to a website by up to 157%. Visitors spend, on average, 2.6 times more time on a video page than one without video. And it's not just in the B2C market that video has a big impact. Seventy-three percent of B2B marketers say video has a positive effect on their ROI. Google has even taken a closer look at why we remember a YouTube ad. The video format itself has also begun to change. Vertical videos are becoming more popular. It makes good sense because we position our mobile phones that way 94% of the time. In other words, it is the natural way to use the mobile phone. YouTube still dominates when we look at the major video platforms with 1.5 billion users watching one billion hours of video every day on the platform. On Facebook 75 million users watch eight billion videos every day. On Twitter, 82% of users primarily use the app to view video content and on Snapchat, users see ten billion videos every single day. So video is already hugely popular - but its potential is even greater. Local content can go viral (globally) if you hit the right mix of content and optimization. How to Utilise the Latest Video Content Trends Using the video format does not automatically guarantee success. If you don't focus on the quality of the content, you won't get more than a handful of views on YouTube. This is where storytelling comes into play. Engage and entertain your users - and not just with video, but with all content. Share authentic stories and moments that matter. Users love behind-the-scenes content and personal narratives. Make it present, personal and transparent. The first ten seconds of a video are the most important, so make sure this is where you really deliver your message. After 10-15 seconds, users will slowly begin to drop off. Make videos that you can use and reuse on multiple platforms. You might have a longer video for YouTube, parts of it for Facebook and Instagram, and micro elements of it for Stories. Consider subtitles on Facebook (and YouTube) where 85% of viewers watch videos without audio while it’s just the opposite on Instagram where 60% watch Stories with sound. From Superficial to In-Depth Content Content will be a significant part of 2020 and the next several years when we will see a significant shift from superficial to in-depth content as brands realize superficial content produces superficial results. The first ranked organic search result has, on average, a text containing 1,890 words according to Backlinko.com. The same study reveals that pages with content that goes deep into a topic outperform pages that deal with the topic superficially. In short, it means that your content should be anything but short. To the contrary, you really have to go in depth with it so that you can turn every single stone. At the same time, it is important that you get into related topics. Your content should cover everything around the topic so that the user is not left with questions. Credibility and authority also play a big role when it comes to content. You can read more about this in the upcoming trends. Related topics you should mention in your content include those found at the bottom of the search results page. Below are, for example, searches that Google has assessed to be relevant. The search is "mortgage price." Years ago, search was all about keyword density, meaning how many times you could use the keyword in your text. Fortunately, that is no longer the case. Now, your text must add value to the reader, with keyword density playing a much smaller role, and even less so moving forward. It is still important for users and search engines to find your text. For many years, search engines have used Entity Salience to understand a page's content - places, people, topics, etc. You can use Google's Natural Language API demo to see what entities and sentiments your text has according to Google. Unfortunately, though, it does not support all languages. Of course, the primary keyword should be mentioned on the page - especially in headlines - but it is also important that you use naturally related words and topics in your content. We've published a blog post about Google My Business (GMB) that contains just around 7,000 words. In it we cover everything about Google My Business, as well as related topics such as Local SEO, tracking and reviews. Source: Backlinko Content Topic Authority As the charts show, the length does not do it alone. Content should be in easy and unpretentious language and, wherever possible, spiced up with video and pictures. It provides a much better user experience - and the search engines love rich media. Keep Your Content Up-To-Date and Correct Once you’ve written your post, don’t just sit back. Add ongoing content to the page, such as new, relevant sub-topics. It's also a good idea to keep the page content up-to-date and correct. This is especially true if you are writing about YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) topics in such fields as the banking world or the pharmaceutical industry. How to Succeed With In-Depth Content Good content takes time. Therefore, it may be a good idea to present it in small chunks. Make the sections a part of a sprint that you work on every week/month. Your first step is to make a skeleton outline that contains all the topics you wish to cover. Identify and describe the main theme. You can then add other relevant sections that fit the content. Start with the most important points and finish with details and background. Make it easy to scan the page with relevant and descriptive headings. Consider also placing anchor links at the beginning, which link directly to the following sections. Don't be afraid to include - and link to - external sources. It will strengthen your credibility in the eyes of users, as well as Google. Think about the best possible user journey. If there is someone else who describes something absolutely perfectly, you can, for example, summarize and link to their page. Then, interested parties can go in depth with it if they want. Remember to use more than text. Give the content more value with a descriptive image. It's true that a picture says 1,000 words, and many people prefer pictures and videos over text. Ultra-Targeted Content - Customized Content Based on Data Even though we live in the GDPR age, do not drop all hope of personalization. Of course, the data needs to be mastered, but there are still many opportunities to create tailor-made content for the unique user. Your website is not the only place where you can personalize content. Source: Evergage There is nothing more boring (and KPI-wiping) than completely dry, generic content. The more personal and relevant you can make your communication, the better. Google performs some personalization already when you do a search, producing results based on user search history and preferences. Source: CXL Data-Driven Content Data-inspired creativity is the future of effective marketing. We are all different - both in terms of preferences and needs. Some users need many touch points while others are ready to convert right away. Therefore, they must have different content. This also applies after the purchase. Specifically, data-based marketing is about using all the data you have about the users and comparing it with predefined variables. What devices are they on, what keywords have they used, are they first time visitors, have they purchased before (and what), time of day, etc. If done correctly, there are several benefits to ultra-targeted content. The user gets a better experience, revenue increases, and users engage more with content. SOURCE: Evergage There can be large increases in relevant KPIs with personalized content. The Evergage survey shows that 34% of respondents experience an 11-20% lift, while for another 10% of respondents there is a lift of 31-50%. How to Succeed With Tailor-Made Content It goes without saying that it is important for you have both the time and the necessary resources before you begin personalization. The website and other channels must also be geared to deliver personalized experiences. The biggest hurdle will typically be the data - both access to it and quality. It is important that you sit down and get an overview of what kind of data you require. What do you already have and what do you need? Don't invest your resources in collecting data simply because "it's nice to have." Moreover, this kind of data collection is also not GDPR compliant. Equally as important as access to quality data is the support you need from across your organization, from your colleagues in marketing to IT and management. Personalization requires investment and maintenance. Automate yourself out of as many things as possible Let users speak Remember recommendations The above is from Search Engine Journal, where you can find a more in-depth article on how to succeed with personalized content. CXL also has a good guide for this. Credibility and Authenticity Become Essential We cannot downplay the important roles credibility and authentic communication have in communications today. Credibility is what your business and my business are built upon. Without it, we have nothing. Ninety percent of consumers say authenticity is important. Confidence in companies and institutions is generally grounded. Dansk Industri (Denmark's largest business and employers organization) has said we must (re) build trust in companies . At the same time, a new study shows that confidence in businesses has declined over the past five years. Brands having a significantly different view than their users can suffer disastrous declines. They may develop blind spots where they cannot see the erosion of credibility and confidence until it is too late. Are you and your company authentic in your communication? The figures indicate that you will undoubtedly answer yes to that. The problem is just half of consumers will say the same. Source: Stackla There is a clear discrepancy between what we as businesses think and what consumers experience. Credibility and trust can create an opportunity to differentiate you and your business. If you dare to take a stand (and can endure the scrutiny that will undoubtedly come from consumers), you can positively stand out from the crowd. Consumers are ready to reward you. This applies both to recommendations and sales. A global study by Cohn and Wolfe shows that consumers are looking for a brand that is authentic. When consumers define authenticity, they talk about "high quality" (66%) and "keeping what they promise" (70%). CSR (57%) and environmental responsibility (55%) are further down the list. In 2019, Google made a blog post about one of their major updates and what it means to you and me. Here they emphasized, among other things, that you must focus on what they called E-A-T, or Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It is important that your content and website reflect expertise, authority and credibility which are measured, in part, based on the knowledge and skill of the author as well as the data and statistics you use to support your text. In addition, when you link to reliable sources, like we do in this blog post, you grow your own credibility. How to Create Credibility and Authenticity It can be a difficult exercise if your brand has already suffered damage due to falling or lack of credibility. Therefore, it should have your focus in 2020 onwards. We in the Dentsu performed an analysis, Rewriting the Trust Equation for the Digital Age, where we looked at how brands can build a trusting relationship with consumers. The work resulted in a specific trust equation that can be used to illustrate how brands can use digital marketing to create deeper relationships with consumers. The equation is quite simple: Trust = C + R1 + R2 C = Credibility, R1 = Relevance and R2 = Reliability. Brilliant basics are important and once you have those in place, you can build on them and take your confidence to new heights. The legacy of past decisions and communication also does not disappear. Embrace the past as it will always be part of your story, and turn it into something positive. The entire analysis resulted in a framework you can use in your future work: Reliability: the ability of a brand to deliver consistently Credibility: the extent to which a brand is recognized as legitimate and authoritative Consumer first: how a brand puts consumers' interests ahead of its own Transparency: how open a brand is with consumers Provenance: consumer understanding of the origins behind a brand Closeness: How close or intimate consumers feel to a brand Mutual disclosure: the responsiveness of a brand (e.g., to feedback or reviews) Established: the extent to which a brand is perceived to have a history or legacy. The analysis shows that different channels drive different forms of trust. The important thing is to choose the one that suits the market and consumers you want to contact. The above should not be seen as a fact list for all markets and brands. It shows the effectiveness of various media in Germany to drive different forms of trust. Consider user-generated content. The survey by Stackla shows that 79% say user-generated content is of great importance in the buying process. Consumers are 2.4 times more likely to see it as authentic. At the same time, it is 9.8 times more effective than influencers. Read more about authentic content marketing here. Want to know what confidence is in your industry? We have done an extensive trust study where we take a closer look at what confidence really is and how you can work with it. Use the link to request a calculation of trust in your industry as well as copy of our book, which addresses the topic in greater depth The World Is Becoming More Local Local results and Google My Business (GMB) will become major focus areas by 2020, or they should be. Google My Business is actually the part of Google that has received the most updates/changes in recent years. To think big, it is sometimes necessary to think small (locally). Google figures show that organic traffic increases after GMB optimization. Google completed an update in December 2019, which is of great importance to local search. Now, using neural matching for local results, they can better understand the meaning of the search and match it with the best local results. Featured local SEO facts: 4 out of 5 use search engines to find local information 46% of all Google searches have a local purpose 88% of users who do a local mobile search will either call or visit a business within 24 hours 18% of local searches on mobile lead to a purchase within 24 hours 78% of all location-based mobile searches end up with offline sales 92% of users will choose a business on the first page of local results You can read more about local SEO in our blog post. At the same time, you can learn more about the possibilities in a larger context in our Google My Business blog post. People using local searches spend more time in the buying journey, which speaks even more to an increased focus on this. How to Succeed With Local SEO If you want to succeed with local SEO, you should start by creating a Google My Business profile if you don't already have one. It is an "easy and fast" way to become visible in local results. 1. Update Your Gmb Profile First, update your profile with all relevant information. There is a lot of information about your business you can share with users (and Google), such as business hours, whether or not you accept NFC payment, have an elevator, and much more. If you are a restaurant or hotel, you can make a direct booking link through your GMB profile. It is especially important that you select relevant categories for your profile. This is where Google learns the most about your company and uses this information to display local results. The key is to share information that is truly relevant. Category stuffing can earn you a "penalty" from Google. 2. Create Local Content Not only do you get local results with Google My Business, you also need to have some local content on your site - and link to it from your GMB profile. On-site SEO is often hyper-local as it involves cities or areas. We recommend that you use Schema for your local pages. You must (1) use local keywords for your local pages. (2) You will use them to create unique quality content. (3) Feel free to add great photos and videos to the content. (4) Ask yourself does it make sense to make an international edition. (5) Optimize against Rich Snippets with structured data. (6) Get positive reviews. When it comes to local content, it's also worth working with Micro Moments by adding information you can naturally include, such as knowledge of an area, exciting places to experience, and where to find cheap food or good museums, to name a few. Search Engine Journal has published a great article on Local SEO Strategy. The Amazon Prospect - Will Amazon Arrive in Denmark? The jungle drums have long been sounding with rumors that Amazon is right at the door. First it was supposed to arrive in 2019, but that didn't happen. While nothing is official yet, there are many indications that 2020 will be the year Amazon Denmark sees the light of day, and Danish e-commerce will have yet another major competitor. Of course, the platform is already big in Denmark, where we typically buy from the German or English divisions of the company. With Danish warehouses and a local presence, Amazon will probably gain a large market share quickly because they are already known for low prices and extremely fast delivery. New figures show that 49% of all product searches in the US begin on Amazon, not Google (which accounts for only 22%). Many users both start and end their journeys on Amazon, which means that it is worth considering whether you as a company should be present on the platform. Even though these are American (only) numbers, it can be daunting for any company to think that users never leave Amazon. eMarketer has also looked at how often users use Amazon Prime. If you decide to become part of the platform, you will need to know more about SEO on Amazon, which is different from traditional Google SEO. The Pinterest Prospect: The Overlooked Social Media We’ve already talked about video and visual storytelling, but we need to talk a little more about something related to this, namely Pinterest. Pinterest is the often-overlooked little sister of the very big media brands. This may be because it is not, in fact, a social media in its true nature. However, this should in no way deter you because Pinterest users are looking for inspiration, not specific brands. The platform has hidden potential for you to reach many users without having to pay a lot of money if you go about it properly. Twenty-three percent of Danes have a Pinterest profile - which is a 9% increase over 2018 - but only 4% use it daily. According to Pinterest's own report, 82% of users have made a purchase based on brand content they have seen on the platform. In 2019, Pinterest actually overtook Snapchat in the US in terms of monthly active users. Furthermore, it doesn't look like Snapchat is catching up with Pinterest right away. On the contrary. The big difference between Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter is that the primary features on Pinterest are pictures, not words. Here, the medium differs significantly from most others. Many marketers follow interest and traffic on Pinterest, but traditional SEO metrics such as keyword search volume do not exist. For those who can create successful brand experiences, however, there may be a pot of gold at the end of the Pinterest rainbow. It's easy to get started. Simply create a company account, verify your domain, and link an ad account to get ready. Ads on Pinterest are still very new, but this means there is great opportunity if you dare throw yourself into it and invest time and money in the medium. Much of the content is typically already found on your website in the form of first-class images. BO BEDRE is a brand that has successfully established itself on Pinterest where it reaches a lot of users. They share, among other things. quality content from their other channels. Quality is an important parameter on Pinterest, both in the eyes of the platform and users. Discover Our SEO Solutions Do you already have control over the various content and SEO trends? Cool, then you are well on your way to succeeding in the years to come. If you would like to hear more about how to make the most of the various trends, please feel free to contact us to hear more. Download Future Focus 2020, where we go in depth with what's going to happen in the next ten years. 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You have probably heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) before. But not many people have heard about YouTube SEO and channel and video optimization on the world's second largest search engine. The more a video is optimised, the better it will rank and the more positive its effect on the rest of the channel. In this YouTube SEO guide, you can learn a lot about how to optimise your presence on the video platform. I will take you through all the important steps. Why work with video and YouTube at all? In 2021, video will account for 82% of total internet traffic. At the same time, video consumption on mobile is up 22% YoY. And there is nothing to suggest that growth will stop any time soon. Four times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. Source: Search Engine Land We also pay more attention when we are on YouTube. This is especially important to those who are running advertising on YouTube. Source: Ipsos/Google, Think With Google, Google Video plays an important role in the user journey because it has become a natural part of the way we search for products and services. Accordingly, YouTube has also become an integral part of the user journey before, during and after the purchase. You can read more about how to work with your YouTube SEO and strategy in the following sections. How to Create a YouTube Optimization Strategy It is important to have a clear strategy for your YouTube channel and content. As with all other marketing, having a clear strategy helps you make good decisions. There are two main types of content on YouTube. Hygiene content is by far the most frequently used and it is likely this is the kind of content you want to maximise. But there is also hero content, which can be quite extraordinary. Examples of hero content are Volvo's Epic Split and Nike's video with Colin Kaepernick. What is the purpose of your channel? Would you like to raise awareness about your brand? Or are you using the channel as a customer service extension? Are you going to run YouTube advertising while doing organic YouTube optimization? There are many options. Typically, it takes 24-48 hours for a video to be properly indexed on YouTube once it is uploaded. Therefore, it may be a good idea to wait a bit to start advertising, as YouTube does not initially know what your video is about and its relevant audience. Starting advertising right away can have an effect on your ROI. Once you have made your YouTube strategy, you can start breaking it down into smaller - and more manageable - goals and sub-goals. Give each goal a clear KPI so you can see if you are successful with your YouTube optimization. End with identifying audiences. By doing this you go from having a typically generic strategy to having multiple direct measurement points and actions. It is easier to do YouTube SEO when you know how to be successful. Need help with your strategy and goals? Keep track of your KPIs here. What can be optimised on your videos? There are a lot of things you can optimise with YouTube SEO. This applies to both the channel itself, playlists, and videos. On some things you can have influence directly, while you can only indirectly influence others. You can read more about the most important things to optimise later in the blog post. This word cloud highlights many of the factors affecting your SEO ranking. Some aspects, like channel age and video age, cannot be changed or optimised. Yet an older video and channel can have an advantage, just as the age of a website also has something to say in regular SEO. The sooner you start with YouTube SEO and optimizing your content, the sooner you can reap the benefits. You can optimise several of the factors that you cannot directly influence. We will tell you more about this in How to grow your channel with YouTube SEO. How to do keyword research for YouTube Finding relevant keywords for your YouTube SEO can be a little difficult. This is because, among other things, there is no direct access to search volume on YouTube keywords, as there is on Google. But fear not. It is still possible to find keywords and learn more about the keyword volumes. To do this, use the following tools: · Keywordtool.io · Keyword Planner · Google Trends · YouTube You identify relevant YouTube keywords with Keyword Tool and YouTube. Keyword Planner and Google Trends will help you determine how big your potential search volume is. Keep in mind that Keyword Planner gives you the number of monthly searches on Google - not YouTube. How to find YouTube SEO keywords? As you can see, there are many steps in a YouTube keyword research. However, it is important that you spend the time to find your relevant keywords as they are crucial to your success. Ahrefs.com also has a YouTube keywords explorer for you to use. Bear in mind that there are many other keyword tools out there. It is important that you constantly think about your keyword relevance. If your keywords are not relevant to the video, your work will be wasted. You cannot cheat your way to relevance. The users and YouTube will decide this swiftly and without hesitation. Do not solely look at volume. At first, go more for niche keywords that are not dominated by major international channels. The content and quality of the video has a lot to say, but it is virtually impossible to compete with the very large channels - especially if you are a new channel. Keep in mind the value of Google and video views. Some Google searches naturally return video results while others do not. By spending some time checking this, you are better equipped to have your YouTube video appear in a Google search result. Rich media, such as videos, takes up an increasing amount of space and provides a good user experience. Therefore you should embed your YouTube video on a related page of the website whenever possible – and relevant. You can get the embed code for a video by right-clicking it. You can do this with all videos, not just your own. The addition of videos helps make your site more valuable to users while increasing watch time - which is even more important. There are several different tools that can help track YouTube placements and find relevant keywords. I focus on the free tools in this blog post. How to grow your channel with YouTube SEO It may sound simple, but there are just a few steps to growing a channel. But, as you have probably guessed, that does not mean it is easy to succeed in creating a successful YouTube channel. This is a simplified user journey on YouTube. Sometimes it can be a long time from when a user first sees your video until she subscribes. And it can happen in minutes in other instances. It is all about creating relevant content that engages the user and adds value for that user. You may ask: · How do I get discovered? · How do I maintain my target audience? · How do I get subscribers? · How do I get my users to see even more content on my channel? The answer to each of these questions is quite simple. You do this by making good and productive videos and subsequently optimizing them. Just as you would do with a website. You can have the best content in the world but if the website is not optimised (both on-page and technical), no one will see it. Great content is the foundation on which all successful YouTube channels are built. With YouTube SEO you can take your users through the entire user journey from discovering your video to watching your video and clicking "subscribe" to seeing even more of your content. There are a lot of ways you can optimise your videos in terms of both visibility and CTR as well as guiding users further along, when they discover you. It will be a great waste of effort to get users to watch your video and not retaining them afterwards. As I wrote earlier, there are many factors that influence your rankings and YouTube watch time and retention. The number of minutes and hours users watch your videos is one of the most important factors. You can increase this by creating great content and optimizing it to have more people discover and watch your videos. It is helpful to provide viewers with sneak peeks that entice them to continue viewing other videos on your channel. Never write something in your title or thumbnail that you cannot live up to in the video. Using cards and end screens, you can keep users in your YouTube universe (see example of a good end screen below). Once your video ends, serve new and relevant content to the user. Many people discover and watch new videos that are presented to them directly, so remember to make playlists - and optimise them. I wrote earlier that it is important to have relevant keywords because relevance promotes retention. Yet there will always be some users who will drop out after about ten seconds – especially if the video is not relevant according to the title and/or keywords. Your goal is for each user to watch as much of the video as possible. It is a clear indicator of quality. If most people quit after a short time and no one watches through to the end, it is likely a sign you have either the wrong keywords or a poor-quality video. You can optimise the channel itself (layout and tabs), playlists and videos. Next, I will take you through the most important optimizations for YouTube SEO. Get control of upload, optimization, and subtitles I am not able to address all the possibilities for optimization in this blog post. Some, such as cards and end screens, I will only mention in passing, as entire blog posts can be written about these optimizations alone. Sizes and dimensions of banners, files, and thumbnails are important to keep in mind. The optimal size for a YouTube thumbnail is 1820 x 720 pixels. It all starts with the channel. Step-by-step Guide to YouTube SEO 1. Create your channel In fact, YouTube SEO starts even before you upload your first video. If you do not have a YouTube channel, create one. 2. Give it a good name Give it a good name. The name is not visible on the page, but it will be used in the channel URL. You can change the name afterwards. The name should be easy to remember and include the brand or company name. If possible, include keywords in the name as well – but do not keyword stuff it. 3. Create a Brand Account Next, you need to create a Brand Account - not a personal one. If you already have a channel but have doubts about the setup, you can easily check it out. 4. Apply for the YouTube partner program Once the channel is big enough, apply for the YouTube Partner Program. You must have 4,000 valid public watch hours and more than 1,000 subscribers before you can apply for the partner program. 5. Upload your video Before uploading your video, provide a filename, thumbnail, and subtitle/closed caption (CC) file with a relevant filename that contains your keywords. It is not the most important factor when we look at YouTube SEO, but even if it is a smaller ranking factor, you should include your keywords. It can be the deciding factor in the competition with other videos. Video quality also plays a role. It is important that the quality is good enough - preferably HD or above. Many cameras and cell phones today can film in such high quality that you can use the videos on YouTube. 6. Optimize your video’s title Title is the most important part of video optimization. You can use up to 100 characters and include your primary keyword as early as possible. Secondary keywords should also be used here, and they do not have to be an exact match. It is worth noting that if you stay below 70 characters, your title will not be truncated by YouTube. The most important thing for a title is that it makes the user curious and awakens some kind of emotion in her. A good example of an effective title is this one from REMA 1000. 7. Write a strong video description Your video description must be unique and can hold up to 5,000 characters. We recommend you use them all. There may be some cases where YouTube determines your text is too long, even if you have not used all 5,000 characters. So always keep a few hundred characters below the maximum. In your description, you must describe what the user sees. Feel free to link to products and other videos so there is a natural next step in the description. Also, consider using questions to drive engagement. Be aware that less than 1% of viewers read the description. Even so, you should write in a natural language - not just an endless stream of keywords. It is a good idea to link to your other social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc., and encourage users on those sites to subscribe to your YouTube channel by providing a link. You should use your primary keyword more often than you would in a plain SEO text as keyword density still matters in YouTube. 8. Create video tags You can use up to 500 characters in your tags. Just like with the description, you should keep a few characters clear of the maximum, since YouTube does not always let you use the maximum number of characters. Tags should be based on your keyword research, video topic, relevant searches, etc. and are an important part of YouTube SEO. You should keep your tag strategy as tight as possible in terms of subject matter. Otherwise you end up confusing the algorithm. The image under Description earlier in this article also shows an example of tags for a video. It is the words on the right side of the picture. In this example, there are various flæskesteg (pork roast) keywords combined with sprød svær (crispy crackling) keywords. 9. Add Thumbnails Thumbnails play a huge role in YouTube SEO. 90% of the best-performing videos have custom thumbnails. That is because they can multiply your CTR if used properly. YouTube makes it possible to select between three screenshots when uploading your video. However, you should always make a unique and custom one and it does not have to be from the video. Your thumbnail should: · Make a user want to click / watch the video · Be unique · Clearly tell / show what the video is about · Be consistent across channel and brand These are two good examples of thumbnails. The first clearly shows the video is about flæskesteg (pork roast) in both the image and applied text. Typically, this will be the kind of thumbnail that works best. The second one is from a gamer, Welyn. It is a unique style to him and makes it easy for fans to spot his videos. 10. Add video subtitles - Closed Captions (CC) Subtitles help users know and understand your content, and they also help YouTube robots understand your content. While you must specify the language of the video, it is certainly possible to create your video in one language, for instance English, and have subtitles in different languages. You can add your own subtitles rather than relying on auto-generated subtitles which are not available in some languages. Because speech recognition is not working 100% yet, the quality may vary, so you should always check your subtitles. Use subtitles even if your video is in your audience’s native language. Bear in mind there are many who watch videos without audio. Therefore, subtitles are generally a good idea and they can be switched on/off in the video player if they are not hard-coded. Have you considered live streaming? YouTube is much more than pre-recorded videos. For example, you can also create live streams where you give your users new content while interacting with them directly. Live streaming does not require a large setup and you can live stream with a regular webcam or mobile device. Live streaming basics The most important thing is to use adequate technology. You will not be successful if your internet is too slow or there are problems with the software. As a rule of thumb, you must have the following internet speed if you want to achieve the following video qualities: · Standard Definition Video - 3 Mbps · 720p and 1080p High Definition Video - 5-10 Mbps · 4K Ultra High Definition Video - 25 Mbps There are various encoder software products you can use for live streams. Several are verified by YouTube, and it may be beneficial to test a few of them before making your first live stream on YouTube. The easiest way to live stream is to use a webcam - no encoder is needed for this. You can also live stream directly from your mobile from the YouTube app if you have more than 1,000 subscribers. With an encoder however, you have additional options that are not available for webcam or mobile streaming, including the option to use multiple cameras. Keep in mind that if you have not streamed before, it can significantly change the way your users view and interact with your content. You make it easier for them (and yourself) by clearly communicating future live streams (also on your other platforms) as well as letting them know, what the subject of the live stream. Live streaming is a golden opportunity to have a more meaningful interaction with your users. You can find answers to most YouTube live streaming questions on Google's support pages. Use the integrated YouTube Studio analytics YouTube has its own analytics called YouTube Studio. Here you can see the reach, engagement, audiences, and revenue for the videos separately and for the channel overall. You can also see how users find you and how successful you are at converting them. So dive into the analytics data to learn how your videos, playlists and channel perform. Get a YouTube SEO audit of your channel today If you already have a channel and would like to get started with YouTube SEO, it might be a good idea to have a channel audit first. That way you get a clear idea of where you are right now. When we perform a YouTube SEO audit, we look at videos, playlists, and the channel – the whole package. We then provide recommendations on how to optimise each part. If you need help with the optimizations themselves, we have many years of hands-on experience with YouTube. Contact us today to help you optimise your YouTube performance. 0
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