When you search for a video on YouTube, do you ever wonder how the top results get there? It isn’t always because they’re the best videos, and it most certainly isn’t by accident.

From the video title to a custom thumbnail, the videos that have the most visibility are also the videos that are strategically optimized.

Best Practices for YouTube SEO

1. Research Your Target Keywords

Just like Google and Bing, YouTube is a search engine. It’s important to know the high-volume terms that people use in order to find videos related to homebuilders.

One simple and easy way to conduct keyword research is to search for videos yourself! See what videos are already out there and how much engagement those subjects are getting. Google’s Keyword Planner tool and Google Trends are also efficient, free tools that provide measurable data on the volume of specific search terms.

2. Video Title

As a home builder, you know that first impressions matter. Once you know the focus keyword for your video, make sure work it into the title of your video. It’s also important to ensure that titles are at least 5 words long and can grab a potential viewer’s attention.

As mentioned for keyword research, always take a look at other videos that are ranking for the title you’re creating. If you want to rank #1, your content needs to be better than your competitors’!

3. Description

Make sure to utilize your focus keyword in the beginning of the video’s description in order to double down on your video’s relevancy to the topic. However, like all content, keep your primary focus on making the description readable. Don’t just “keyword stuff!”

4. Encourage Engagement

Engagement is a huge ranking factor for YouTube content. Just like Google, YouTube prioritizes popular content. This is where commenting and subscribing come into play.

Ending a video with a question is a great way to get responses (as well as a discussion going!) in your video’s comment section. However, driving users to subscribe to your channel is king, as it indicates to YouTube that users will continue to find valuable content on your channel. Try to end each video and description with a call to action, encouraging viewers to like, comment, and subscribe!

5. Custom Thumbnail

Video thumbnails are one of the largest contributing factors to click-through rate. Even if every other aspect of your video is optimized, it won’t matter if the potential viewer doesn’t click on it.

YouTube allows you to create a “custom thumbnail,” which gives you full control of your search appearance — this way, you can use your own high-quality image instead of a video still. Adding fun text or attention-grabbing icons to the image can also help increase clicks.

6. Closed Caption

Helpful for those with hearing impairments, video captions can also benefit your SEO efforts! YouTube and search engines can crawl the transcripts of your video, which can impact your rankings by providing more content to be indexed.

Because YouTube offers the ability to caption your videos through automated means, errors are almost guaranteed. Either be sure to proofread and edit the captions that YouTube creates or utilize a third-party transcription service.

In conclusion…

There are many factors that determine the visibility and search engine ranking of videos on YouTube —

with these optimization tips, you can get the exposure that you’ve been looking for. Additionally, YouTube has excellent resources on creating and optimizing video content for their platform. More questions? Group Two is always happy to help with your home builder SEO, whether we’re talking Google, YouTube, or beyond!