A reader asks: “Is it advisable to search engine optimize my fitness channel’s YouTube videos? If so, do you offer a service like this?”
Back story: the person who posed the question is the owner of a Pilates fitness studio. She’s looking to expand her following by increasing the amount of fitness videos she shares, and by finding new spots to show up online.
Thanks for the question, and for thinking of me for your YouTube SEO fine-tuning project. Generally speaking, it’s always a good idea to search optimize any content you publish on the web. That said: the how and how often does change, according to whatever Google is emphasizing this year/month.
Because of this, we will revisit the topic of search optimizing your YouTube videos, just so we have the latest information.
YES: the internet has confirmed it’s a smart idea to optimize your YouTube videos. Let’s go into a bit more detail on that.
How to Search Engine Optimize a YouTube Video
Step 1: Do your keyword research.
Strategy: research which keywords work best for the subject of the video.
It’s a good idea to use a keyword research tool, such as WordTracker, Ahrefs.com, or Wordstream.
You can also spy on the competition to see what keywords they’re using. Just head to Google, type in a phrase that applies to the topic of your video, and see what websites come up for what phrases.
Step 2: Choose your keywords.
Choose a phrase that will likely get you some good search traffic. So if your Pilates video was created for people who have back pain, then use the phrase “Pilates for back pain”.
Step 3: Add your keywords to the video.
Type your chosen keyword phrase into the following spots of your YouTube video:
- Title
- Description
- Tags
Bonus Tip: Use Playlists to organize your channel’s videos.
I would also add each video to a playlist of yours (make one on your channel if you don’t already have them), organized by topic. The idea being that if someone finds one video of yours via the playlist, they’re more likely to explore other videos you’ve published on your channel.
Place them at the front of the video title. So it would look like this:
Pilates for Back Pain
Your YouTube video description should contain a minimum of 200 words of useful, informative text on the subject. You can make it longer than that, but I think if you make it too long, you could lose people on the lead capture part.
Step 4: Add lead capture to your video.
This is very important. The goal is to get viewers from the video to your site’s contact page and signup form.
If you have not already, you should sign up for an email marketing service, like AWeber or MailChimp. This will allow you to build a list by adding subscriber forms to your YouTube video descriptions, and other content you publish online.
Include a call to action, along with your live link that goes to a signup form.
In the description of each video, add a call to action, ie “Keep in touch!” “Sign up for updates via email” or something like this. Then paste in your contact link.
Successful YouTubers will say right in their videos, “I’ve included a link to sign up in the video description box below,” or something similar.
Cross-Posting Your YouTube Videos for More Search Engine Love
You may want to go the next step with your video content. This is to create a blog or content feed section of your site. Name it BLOG, or UPDATES or NEWS or something like this. This would be where you log in and post, same as you would on Facebook if you post there.
Embed the video code into the blog post. Include the same tips that you shared in the description of the video.
YouTube SEO Tune-Up Service
I’m assuming it would take an hour per video to write a description (if there isn’t already a post of yours on FB to pull content from and edit), search keywords, add them into all the right spots and add a call to action.
I want to emphasize that email marketing really works to get sales! It’s better than social media – no distractions, and you show up in the spot where people are getting down to business.
I will estimate the service at about $40 per video, for an approximately 200 to 400-word description, would be the current rate I’d offer for video content optimization.
Contact dinagio@dinagio.com for a custom quote on your project today!