YouTube SEO

7 Critical YouTube Ranking Factors You’ve Messed Up So Far

YouTube ranking factors? 

What are they and how can you optimize them?

I know there are a bunch of other blogs and better pages writing about this very topic. 

You might be wondering why I should read this page and from this guy, I never heard before. 

Well, you don’t have to if you don’t mind reading about the same old stuff like work on your description, find a catchy thumbnail, etc.

While we will shortly go over some of the basics of YouTube ranking factors which include those very things I just spoke ill off.  

However, In this piece, I will teach you about the YouTube ranking factors that are left out by even the biggest channels on the theme. 

  • I will go through the keyword research and how you can make the best of it
  • Explain how you can optimize your videos to not only rank on YouTube but Google and to keep the retention high. 
  • Teach how you can increase engagement by using some psychological tricks to increase engagement, apart from asking viewers to comment and subscribe. 
  • Plus, I will sprinkle in some tips to hack YouTube SEO. 

Let us dive right in. 

YouTube Ranking Factors #1: What Is Important For The Algorithm

Before we go through some of the basics of YouTube ranking factors which I mentioned in the intro even though with a bit of bad-mouthing. 

Let us find out what the platform pays attention to?

What does YouTube as a platform identify as important factors to recommend it to other people? 

YouTube’s algorithm considers these to be vital indicators of a successful YouTube channel: 

youtube ranking factors and vital indicators of youtube's algorithm
  • Average view duration
  • Watch time 
  • Audience retention/retention for various time frames of specific videos 
  • Relative audience retention to that of the platform’s weighted average 
  • Engagement rate, and relative engagement rate to that of the platform’s average

There are a few more indicators. But if you get these right, the rest will come in place automatically. 

For example, placing a card at the end enhances the retention rate, also the likelihood of someone continuing watching your videos. 

But we are going to talk about them a bit later. For now, let us dive into the basics of YouTube ranking factors and how you can fundamentally get them right. 

Some of the basics of YouTube ranking factors you must follow are: 

YouTube Video titles: which have to be catchy, intriguing, and bold. This, you probably know already or heard somewhere else, so I won’t go further. They should always include keywords that you will learn how to research later.

YouTube Video Descriptions: These are important for YouTube SEO and should accurately describe your video. Also must include the keywords!

Tags on YouTube: you know what they are and how to use them as well. But keep in mind that since the introduction of YouTube hashtag landing pages

Tags have become more important than ever before. Thus, you want to include as many as possible. Of course only the relevant ones

To find out what tags to add and what not, you can always use our free tag generator tool that will make that process simple with just two clicks. 

It goes without saying how significant YouTube thumbnails are. So, make them again, interesting and alluring, one of a kind that when eyes catch on, should paralyze to the point they can’t move to the next video unless it’s yours.

Captions are another one of those ranking factors that many skip, or pay less attention to. In fact, these are as crucial as the rest of the principal YouTube ranking factors. 

YouTube Ranking Factors #2: Keyword Research on YouTube

Before you engage your audience, you need to have one. To have an audience you need to find one. 

This is what this part is about. However, before you take this step, I hope you have already decided on your niche and category and are making videos consistently

Because, after all, those two points are also equally important as any other parts of YouTube ranking factors. 

When it comes to doing keyword research there are many ways, all of which I am covering in this article. 

keyword research on youtube

Ways of doing keyword research on YouTube Autosuggest

The easiest way is first to download Tubebuddy’s extension or Vidiq’s one. Then, search for the term you are about to make a video on YouTube search itself. 

Apart from it being easy, this you should do before you get your hands on more thorough researching tools. 

Once you install those extensions, doing the keyword research on YouTube becomes easier. Of course, you can do it without them, and we are in no way or whatsoever affiliated with them

I included only because I believe they will significantly alleviate your research process. 

So, you need to enter a keyword, let us use the same one that the article is written on “YouTube ranking factors”.

What you do is type the first word on YouTube and see what pops up next: for example, in my case, it was: YouTube movies/YouTube rewind, etc. 

Then we can add the next word–ranking!

It immediately shows “factors/tips/2021 etc.

This is one way of finding which keyword is the right fit. 

You can also type all the words till the end and open the first three videos and see the stats from the extensions. 

Remember this autosuggestion is vastly different for each person. 

Usually, Tubebuddy will show you all the hashtags used in that particular video. This will come in handy when you are writing your hashtags. But it is also helpful to understand the niche in general.

Regardless of which extension you decide to download. They will be crucial in your research of keywords on YouTube. 

Vidiq’s one I personally use has far more options like the stats of the video and SEO and many other important things that they analyze right on your YouTube page. 

YouTube Ranking Factors #2.1: Proper Keyword Research 

Proper keyword research means what you do outside the platform and with better tools to research. One that I recommend is Ahrefs

Again, we are not affiliated with them in any way, whatsoever. This is the one that we use collectively here at wiz.studio.

Among the many perks and the possibilities of this tool are that it lets you search for terms not only on Google or various other search engine platforms but on YouTube as well. 

And that is what we need to do the proper keyword research.  However, I mentioned those other tools earlier just because they make your job easier. You don’t have to choose one over the other.

So once you have a certain keyword. Type on YouTube, and pick the first video. Then on the right side, use the most searched keyword option from VidIq, or the hashtags from TubeBuddy. 

Copy the ones you think are most relevant to your topic into the search area of Ahrefs. 

It will show you the volume and the clicks and many other necessary data. For now, all you need is the traffic data, thus, volume and the clicks. 

Below is just an example of how the platform looks, for example, I just used the word javascript and this is what it shows.

the correct usage of ahrefs

Choose the one with the most volume and the highest number of clicks. 

However, there is one more important factor. Afresh will also show you something like KD on the top bar of the search results. That means Keyword Difficulty

The lower the number, the lower the competitors.  The higher that number, the higher it is to rank on top. 

You need to choose the most with the least KD and the highest volume. If you want you can pay attention to the clicks and other important data. But those are for later.

Proper Keyword Research With Other Platforms

Keep in mind that  I did not mention one of the big guys in the field. And it’s Google

What do I mean by Google? 

Although you are researching the keywords to make videos on YouTube, Google has a few free tools that will be as valuable as the rest above.

First off, Google Trends is one such tool that could help you decide between a few chosen keywords. Thus, this should not be the first stage. 

Actually, you could possibly make this your first stage as well. 

But it fits better for the later stages of the research. because the keywords you enter here can only be compared to the others you will also enter yourself. So this is a relative comparison. 

Google  Keyword Planner is another tool that is beneficial to your research aims. You need to have a Google ads account to access this free tool. 

However, creating an ads account itself can be achieved with just a few clicks. So this is not a big problem that could obstruct you from using this free tool. 

Apart from using the tools, you can also look for keywords with just common sense. For example, if you enter,  say “ YouTube ranking factors” on Google search. And it shows videos in the search you probably know that people are not just making blog content but video content as well. 

This means there is a demand for video content for this particular keyword.

Proper Keyword Research With Common Sense 

However, if you were to try other search terms like, Airdior Nikes then you might have a bunch of sites that sell the product, no written content. 

So, there is no one correct way that you should stick to it. The more you do this, the better you get and the more expertise you have. 

As time goes, you will discover more ways and start to understand better, more intuitively. Till then, follow our steps. 

  1. Type your keyword into google search
  2. See what else comes up at the very bottom
  3. Pay attention to what content is offered 
  4. Lastly, make your conclusion accordingly

Summing up the section on keyword research. Whether you do it with Ahrefs, or Google tools or just on the YouTube search itself, perhaps  you want to combine it all together. 

You now know various ways of doing it and understand that this is the most important part of YouTube ranking factors. 

However, if you don’t feel like using any of the tools I mentioned for whatever reason that might be. watch this video to learn how to find the hashtags directly from the videos.

YouTube Ranking Factors #3 Work on YouTube Retention

You have found the perfect keyword you want to make a video on?

What is next?

So, at this point, you need to start thinking of keeping the retention high. 

But how do you keep it high and is it easy?

youtube ranking factors

These are some of the questions we will discuss in this upcoming session. 

Before we get to that, you need to understand that these two sections are interrelated and cannot exist without one another.  

What do I mean by that?

It means if you found a keyword it means someone was looking for that keyword. 

But you don’t really know why and what their true intentions are, right?

You might even be thinking, wait, but it is impossible to find out the search intentions. 

It definitely is possible to find search intentions and that is what we are going to talk about now. 

Discover Search Intent

If you have been reading till now and might feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of information there is to digest, don’t worry. 

Finding search intent is easy and quick

Let us take an example of a keyword you might be thinking of making a video on. 

Say it is something you want to teach. Like how to play Dota 2?

If you want to make a video that is more like a tutorial and a guide, YouTube agrees.

youtube ranking factors

This is what the audience wants to watch. 

But what if you want to talk about a single hero. Or a general Dota 2 video.

YouTube would suggest then you make a listicle-type video. Because when you search Dota 2 only. The first three videos that are coming up are list-styled videos.

When you are trying to find out the intentions you can also pay attention to other YouTube ranking factors. 

For example, how long is each video?

Because if you look at the top three videos and they all are 10 minutes long.

This means people looking for that keyword are actually watching videos that are of that length. 

If you have installed the extension mentioned earlier in the article. 

You can look at the other information like the tags, shares, thumbnails, etc. 

However you can also use  our free youtube tag generator which gives you a complete list of YouTube tags and generates more for you to use in your videos. 

This is more convenient if you already know the word and know what you are looking for. 

Just an overall look and a keen eye for detail will tell you all about what the seekers of that keyword want and what they can’t stand. 

Also, make sure to do this analysis with the target country’s IP. 

High Retention Videos Matter For YouTube Ranking Factors

To keep the retention high, there is one thing you need to understand. 

It’s YouTube’s goal!

As the number of social media platforms increases, as is the competition and struggle to keep the people on the platform. 

As such, YouTube’s main goal is to keep your viewers and others online for as long as possible. 

If you help them achieve this goal they will handsomely reward you for that. 

To help them with that, you need to make high retention videos. I will give you some tips in a while. But for now, pay attention to the screenshot below.

youtube SEO secrets

Even if you are just starting out, you are probably familiar with the names like Backlinko or Brian Dean, and Ahrefs all of whom we mentioned before. 

Those two and a few others are like the experts that many turn to. Yet despite that,Cathrine Manning ranks on top. 

Why could this be?

Well, most likely she has optimized better for one of the YouTube ranking factors which is the retention

Her videos have been watched longer on average than those others on the second and third spots. Even though they themselves might be the masters of this field. 

Remember what YouTube’s algorithm pays attention to?

If you don’t mind, go back and read that section one more time

How do you make high retention videos on YouTube?

This topic alone we could be talking about in a totally different article with as many details as this one has. 

However, I will try to give you some quick tips you can start using now and grow your YouTube channel. 

First, let us break down this topic. Thus, I will introduce you to tactics of how you should be speaking throughout the whole video. 

Because when you look at YouTube and YouTube ranking factors. It is easy to compare it to science. Everything you do has an effect and contributes to how YouTube ranks your videos. 

Let us now talk about how you should make a video and how you should structure it so that it keeps the viewer’s attention involved. 

The first tips are what you would hear from Brian Dean from the Backlinko or Nick Nimmin from his YouTube channel with the same name. 

3 strategies to keep the attention focused on YouTube 

The topic at the start 

If you are a curious person or someone who has been trying to crack the secrets of the SEO world and YouTube ranking factors, you may have heard that humans’ attention span is lower than that of Goldfishes’. 

If you haven’t heard about it, here is the article from the Times on this. Read it after you finish my piece, ok?

How true this article is not what I am concerned about. But whichever is the case.  

The experts mentioned above, and we ourselves have seen a remarkable increase in our videos when the topic was revealed within the first 10-15 seconds of the video

While the drawback to it is that some people might immediately leave. 

The rest who remain are far more likely to remain till the end. Because they know from the start what the video is about. 

Content from the start  

Once you introduce the topic, you should immediately jump right into the content. 

I know you might have seen many people introducing themselves as to what they do and why you should listen to them etc.. 

While in some cases introducing yourself might work, especially if you are doing it right. 

The guaranteed way to keep the attention is to start with the content. And give them what they came for. 

However, don’t just give everything away all at once and without a proper structure. Because, then, you will have nothing left to teach by the end. 

Open-loop it all the way through the video 

So to not run into this problem you should structure your videos beforehand and know at which minute or seconds what you will be speaking about. 

Thus, if you have an important thing that you must speak about. Don’t just go over it without mentioning it before. 

And this actually is how you do loops. It is when you say you are going to talk about something a bit later in the video and you do talk about it when the time comes. 

But till then the viewer will be listening to you and patiently waiting for you to say that. 

Now that we got some of the tactics you should do within the video out of the way let us get to the overall strategies you can use to keep the retention high. 

As Mark Twain once said “ tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then repeat what you have told them’ in regards to the proper  structure of storytelling. He knew something more than we mere mortals do. So, take his advice!

YouTube Ranking Factors #4 Viewer Retention Strategy

Before we set out on this journey of telling you how to make high-retention videos from a technical standpoint. 

I did what I am going to teach you here. Outlined and planned what we are going to learn going forwards. 

  • Outlining the structure before the video 
  • Hooking the reader or the listener from the start 
    • Relate to them
    • Recognize the problem 
    • Offer solution 
  • Ask your audience to engage e.g. comment like and or subscribe 
  • Strategic video making 
    • Jump cuts / other effects
    • Focus on what is important e.g. numbers, stats whatever you want them  to see
    • Story and narrative 
  • Feedback 

Let us dive in again.

youtube ranking factors

Outline and planning 

Outlining and planning is in fact not just important for when you want to talk about YouTube ranking factors but with pretty much everything else. 

If you want to write an assignment or school work, you need to plan it. If you plan to accomplish a certain project at work, you need to plan it.  Well, I could just bring a bunch of useless examples. 

But let us not waste your time and my words and get straight into how you can plan your videos

Scripting 

We all know movies scripted. We also know that many of the successful YouTube creators script their videos. 

Okay, sure, perhaps you didn’t know about the second one. 

Though scripting doesn’t affect YouTube ranking factors directly, it does indirectly

That is why I am writing this part of the piece so that you can know and learn from the best of the best practices on YouTube. 

Scripting your videos gives you actually more of a structured approach to making films, be it on YouTube or elsewhere. This is especially true if you are in an educational niche. 

It is not necessary if you are Mr.Beast because his niche is more on the entertainment side and it needs fun more than anything else. 

If you are not Mr.beast or in any other niche. That means you need to have a planned approach. 

You don’t have to write it all out and make sure to read every word. At least make some pointers and mark them at which time to say. 

Do you remember the tactics from the previous section

Planning makes it easy to do loops and incorporate other tactics you know by yourself. 

Script it however you want, but make sure to script it and know what you are going to say before you open your mouth. 

Video Length 

Video length is also something that you should know more or less before you start making the videos. You cannot just start ranting on some topic you know and end up making it too long. 

But how do you know if it is too long and when it is not ?.

Now let us go back to the chapter where we talked about the keyword research and there we quickly mentioned paying attention to the videos and their lengths. 

When you are picking a certain keyword to make a video on you can look at other creators and how long their videos are. And plan yours somewhere between the longest and the shortest to have the highest chances in your YouTube ranking factors. 

Also, if you think this is too much stuff to pay attention to and find it overwhelming. In fact, it is almost certain that you do find it overwhelming because there is so much to keep in mind. 

Good news for you!

YouTube’s Creator Studio tracks it all. You can easily understand how long to make each category of your videos. 

To understand this pay attention to the time when people left your videos and at which point. 

Analyze at least 5 videos with the same category or sort of similar content

If it is just a few seconds before, this could be that you are not organizing your videos well. 

But if it is right in the middle you need to look into how well you have adopted the tactics we talked about earlier and how organized it was and pay attention to how much value you gave away. 

Hooker sentence from the start 

Among the many ways of hooking listener or reader’s attention the things you can do are;

  • Tell a quick story 
  • Ask a question 
  • A shocking quote 
  • Tell the reader/listener to imagine 
  • Share an interesting fact
  • Have something unique to say

The list goes on, the idea is to be different and bold so that you catch the attention all at once. 

However, this is not enough to keep the retention of your videos high. 

The quicker you grab the attention, the more chances they may stay longer, which will eventually impact YouTube ranking factors. But you also need to learn to keep on the site, which will cover later.

We are going to cover other aspects as well, but for now, you use those above or these below:

Relate to them 

This means to sympathize with your viewers and understand what they are facing. 

For example, if you are teaching something related to WordPress and there is a problem you used to encounter on a regular basis, which can be quite frustrating.

Relate to this experience of their frustration and anger or helplessness they feel when they can’t find a proper source with the proper information. 

This should immediately make you feel more like a person who understands them and is ready to help them rather than some random dude on YouTube. This affects youtube ranking factors indirectly by appealing to their emotionality.

Recognize the problem 

Here you do recognize that the problem you used to encounter did not seem like a big deal at first till it took all your time and effort to figure it out. 

You also can simply state that lack of knowledge in that certain area means you lose more time looking and finding ways to do that. 

While all you could do is to watch/read someone who has done the information research and gone through the first few testing stages. 

This is the only step where you can accept your faults and show your vulnerability to connect better with those watching, meanwhile increasing the youtube ranking factors. 

Irrespective of how you do, make sure to be genuine and authentic. Because this is one of the main things that make a huge difference no matter which platform you are located at.

YouTube, Instagram, blogging, vlogging, literally whatever that is on the net is something that requires total honesty and an original approach if you want to be successful. 

Offer solution 

Once you relate to them by showing you have the expertise on a similar problem, you should offer a solution. 

The best practice to do is to retell what you do or did to solve that particular problem. Also, as I mentioned earlier, don’t give away all the solutions. Simply saying this is what you are going to find out will be enough. 

This is also a perfect place to say, if you want to find out the solution or learn how to do X, keep watching as we will cover X and more. 

So, your main goal here is once you grab the attention, to try to keep them longer and show them that you are the person who understands and knows the problem and has a solution to that. 

Ask your audience to engage

Once you grab the attention of the visitor. And offer a possible solution that you will be uncovering. You can now ask them to engage. 

The best practice is to reveal what you do and how you can provide more value in the future. If the visitor is interested in finding out more than just the topic of your current content. 

Then subscribing and turning on notifications should appear as something that they want to do. 

Asking for subscriptions this way is in fact the best way to increase your subscriber count, and improve youtube ranking factors. 

Because from the viewer’s side, subscribing doesn’t require anything difficult except clicking a button. 

If they think it is worth clicking that button, they surely will. 

This goes back to the point of the value proposition and how much value you provided. This is the topic of another article.

But remember to be as useful as you can be in as much honest tone as possible.

Do you remember the open loops?

If you don’t,  go back to this chapter to read about them again. 

If you do remember this is the perfect place to include it. 

For example, it could be anything from what you are going to cover or one of the main points that you will be talking about later in the video/article. 

Most people ask for a subscription at the end of the video. You can also opt for that strategy as well.  However, asking at the start and in the end brings the most results. 

Don’t shy away from asking viewers to subscribe and like, comment on your video, if you have provided enough value, and…

If you followed all the tips and tricks in this piece, the chances are they will. 

Editing Matters More Than You Think 

We have been talking mostly about how you should structure and what you should say. So, more tactics of how to make a video. 

It wouldn’t have been a complete piece of work if we didn’t stop at the editing part. As most of the YouTubers work alone or can’t afford to hire an editor or extra help on their videos. 

When it comes to editing there is a whole bunch more than we can cover in this article. 

But I will quickly mention some of the things that you must know which will bring huge results not just in your YouTube ranking factors but overall success with YouTube SEO and more. 

Jump Cuts/ Other Effects 

If your video is just monotonic and has no effects, it will come off as boring. 

Not only that, it will decrease the retention rate that you have tried so hard to increase.

To fix this: 

Include jump cuts and many different effects. 

For example, when you have been talking about a point for more than 30 seconds. And you are not finished explaining. Add jump cuts

Not necessarily jump cuts, but make sure to bring a change within the video. 

Particularly jump cuts save a lot of dead air and make the utilization of time more efficient.  

You can add fade-ins, fade-outs, or a few mixes of effects you think best fit your video. 

The point is to make sure to not leave a second blank.

Highlight Main Points in the Video

Apart from jump cuts. Include some highlighters. Of course digital ones. 

If you are talking about website traffic and showing how to analyze it with Google Analytics or something, there is a certain section of the video that is the topic of your video, for instance like the Traffic. 

Highlighting it makes it easy for the audience to see and pay attention to. 

Highlighting itself can take different forms and shapes. 

You can underline, or put the text in a box, or indicate it with an arrow, zoom. Whatever you think best fits your video again. 

The idea is that you need to make sure that the thing you are talking about is highlighted and easy to understand. 

The same goes for if you are showing them a number, say you are talking about how much you made through affiliate marketing or something. 

Highlighting the sum of money makes it not only easy to see and understand but pulls viewers’ attention to that specific area of the video. 

Story and Narrative 

The story is everything. These days, the story is about selling and moving the product. Because this is what moves the hearts of the people. 

Whatever moves and affects the human emotions affect their wallets and actions too. 

What I am talking about is not some sort of well-kept secret or something. 

It has been well-known and openly discussed for ages and decades. 

However, what has been a secret is how to do it. 

Unfortunately again, we can’t go over that story aspect as well for it itself is a huge topic and requires the writing of its own article. 

For now, you need to understand that structuring your video like a story with a narrative to tell is what not only keeps retention and increases engagement.  But also what will eventually make you a successful YouTuber. 

There is no other thing that affects the YouTube ranking factors than the story alone. 

This doesn’t mean however that you need to narrate just the introduction part or the part after and leave the rest of your video on its own. 

It just means use the storytelling to your advantage. This can be done in each and every part of your videos. 

Feedback

Creating a video that has all the YouTube ranking factors is difficult but knowing if that is the one that will rank is even harder

So to alleviate that task and to know somehow beforehand. One such crucial thing you need to do is to create a feedback loop. 

Just make sure to ask your friends and family and people around you to rate your video with brutal honesty

This should be the first stage of your feedback, this won’t create a lot of hassle for you because usually it is general and won’t include any specific points. 

However, to get specific advice or honest feedback. You might need a team of people that work with you. 

If you don’t have one.

You need to turn to social media. Specifically Reddit. 

Among the many useful subreddits for YouTubers, there are ones that give feedback on the technical aspects of your video. 

You need to ask the Redditors before you publish or after you publish. Makes little difference. 

But what is important is that you need to get feedback and consider that before you leave the video alone. 

One such subreddit is PartneredYouTube. We are not affiliated with them in any way, it is just one of those useful subreddits that are worth sharing. 

All the others you can find by googling. 

YouTube Ranking Factors #5: End-Product Strategy 

Let us just imagine that you found the perfect keyword to make a video, and you have found out the true search intent and made one heck of an engaging video, that you planned and scripted and hooked the attention of the viewer from the start and did everything else right! 

What is next?

YouTube ranking factors expand far beyond this and could go on and on. 

But there are just a few things we need to tell you before you go out and get YouTube famous. 

Although if you follow it all and make sure to not skip a step, you are already damn close to making a perfect YouTube video that fills all the requirements of YouTube ranking factors but also will simply entertain and give a good time for your viewers. 

However, after all this work you should also consider adding cards, end-screens, and transcripts

Closed captions /transcriptions are now a necessary part of the successful YouTube channel because more and more international audiences are tuning in for videos. 

English by the way is not their native language for most of them. So, closed captions not only enhance their time on your channel but also helps them to understand you better. 

youtube ranking factors that help you rank

Cards 

In regards to the technicalities of how you can incorporate cards, we won’t talk. 

But off the benefits and the opportunities, it presents to increase the watch time and not just one video but all other videos as well. 

Include at least two cards at the end of each video. You should make one from the playlist and the other is just the most related to the topic discussed in the video. 

When you add a card from a playlist, the next video on the right side of the YouTube’s recommendations will always be the next video from the playlist. 

It will not only help YouTube to keep the view on the platform but also you to keep the viewership of your videos high.

Although we are not talking about watermarks, it is also a good idea to include watermarks in your video. And the technicality of this you can learn here

Adding a watermark will simply make it seem more professional. 

Transcriptions 

Adding transcription  not only helps viewers native and non-native alike to understand your videos better. 

It also helps YouTube’s algorithm to understand your video better. One of the key elements the YouTube algorithm pays attention to is the transcript. 

Although YouTube’s own transcription algorithm does a pretty good job of translating the sounds into words. They also do a good job of mistaking some words for others. 

The best practice is to submit your script to the subtitles section. By choosing the option “transcribe and auto-synch”. 

This option lets you put the transcription while YouTube figures out where you say which word. 

To be on the safe side, watch the video one more time afterward to make sure it doesn’t make that pretty good job of mistaking some words for other words. 

End screens

End screens may not directly affect YouTube ranking factors, but they will indirectly affect your ranking as the viewers tend to stay longer on your channel. 

As I said earlier, the platforms’ aim is to keep the viewers for as long as possible, and if you help them do that. They help you make more money. 

Also, end screens give additional value to the viewers. For example, you talked about one part of the problem you solved. And to talk about the next part, video length is going to be longer than necessary. 

Thus, dividing the video into two parts is a wise decision for you in the first place. Because you won’t be spending way too much time prolonging the video to unnecessary length. 

But also good for the viewers because they won’t be getting bored watching that one-hour tutorial. 

While length is another topic we should go in deeper another time. But for now, you can just identify the length by looking at the other videos in your niche and the keyword target like we said earlier. 

YouTube Ranking Factors #6: Promote your video 

end-product strategy of ranking factors on youtube

If you think your job is done after you do all those things, you are mistaken. The hassle is just starting after all this. 

This part is the most crucial part of your YouTube ranking factors. Because just posting and following some SEO tips won’t get your videos viral. 

Except some may go viral depending on the content and the value of it. In the majority of cases, videos will need an initial boost especially these days when the market is saturated and more competitive than ever before. 

There are few ways you can promote them. 

  • Quora 
  • Reddit 
  • Socials

What you need may seem obvious here, but tactics and strategies apply even to these here. 

For example on sites like Quora and Reddit, you mustn’t just spam out your links and leave them wherever possible. 

Instead, think about how you can provide value to the community or the person interested.

Quora 

On Quora, you need to navigate and find questions to which you have a direct answer. 

Then write at least 300 to 500 words as an answer, at the end of which you can leave your link as a means to fully cover the question.

Learn this from the pros like Brain Dean from Backlinko or the Ahrefs associates. 

Although they have quite the reputation and the authority in this field, they won’t just leave their links to their blogs and vlogs. 

They also answer the question and follow it up with their link. 

The idea is not just link-farm, although that is a big part of your promotion strategy, doing it subtly providing as much value as possible is the perfect path. 

Again, to have Quora affect your YouTube ranking factors, just leaving the link is enough. But providing value goes far more than affects your rankings on YouTube. 

It builds trust and good-will between you and the reader or the listener. That is a key element as well.

Reddit 

Strategies and the tactics that apply on Quora pretty much apply here too. However, Reddit demands you to become even more serious and careful about sharing your links. 

Bear in mind regardless of how careful you are, you might be banned from sharing content or posting in some of the subreddits. Talking from experience. 

For example, to grow this subreddit onreplaytv, I have been to hell and back and I still only have less than 100 followers. And most of them don’t even engage with my content. Got banned from a few of the subreddits as well along the way. 

Growing subreddit is also another topic for another time. But I do it with one main purpose. 

It is to get the link juice. You can use the same strategy in the beginning. 

Socials

Focusing on one social media is what most people advise for. However, growing on YouTube requires you to be present in all of them. 

You don’t necessarily have to put an extra effort to grow your Facebook group or your subreddit to have much of an effect on YouTube ranking factors.  

But having those channels and sharing your link there already sends the message to YouTube’s algorithm that your video is somewhat of high quality. 

However, if you do really make your content as valuable as possible. When you share on any of the social media platforms, there is a high chance of it going viral. This part just depends on how well you made the video. 

It also depends a little bit on the type of people you put this in front of. As I mentioned in just the beginning. If your links appear where no one is interested. Not only won’t they go over to your page, but might even report it as spam. 

You want to avoid being reported at all costs. On way to avoid being reported is to first do the research, another way is what we are going to discuss next

Youtube Ranking Factors #7: Collaborate 

I am sure you have seen many YouTubers showing up on channels of other  YouTubers. Unlike many platforms, YouTube is very much collaborator-friendly. 

It means if, in real life, Tesla wouldn’t really consider collaborating with other companies that are in the same category. 

On YouTube, this is common and is in fact encouraged. After all, the goal of both channels is to grow. So why not help each other grow together. 

However, you want to be strategic with your collaborations as well. If you shout out to a channel with a million subscribers and you only have just 10k, the chances are they decline. 

However, if you send to a channel with 100k subs, with the same amount of subs you have higher chances. Also, try to make it more beneficial to the person you are asking for help from. 

Because, if there is no value for them, they simply won’t help. When you grow your channel, you can adopt different strategies if you don’t like the capitalistic ones. But till you get there, you need to play the game by their rules.

youtube ranking factors

Buy views and ads 

If you don’t want to, or can’t find a person to collaborate with. You can always go back to the platform itself, back to YouTube.

This means you can buy views from YouTube, or advertise your videos on Google. Either way, this is a good way to get started. 

However, there is also this way of buying views from third-party sellers. 

As Wiz Studio is also considered within this business, you can use our services. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.  However, we have prepared many free tools for the dedicated YouTuber to come and use fully free of charge. Like the YouTube rank checker which will help you remain competitive and check the ranking of other YouTubers. 

To Wrap Up

I started by promising you to give you 7 critical YouTube ranking factors you messed up so far. Yet, the article covered way more than seven and way more in-depth. 

Now, imagine if you were to do a video where you underpromise and overdeliver. This is the bonus trick, I didn’t discuss within the article.

However, it is one of the tricks that works not just when you think of YouTube ranking factors or social media businesses, but something that fits in every type of business and builds trust and satisfaction. 

Also, I am not pointing this out to show off, but just as an example, of how you should always underpromise and overdeliver

In fact, this is a psychological trick that I promised way back in the intro and that many people use to keep their customers happy. And you should too. 

In regards to learning about YouTube ranking factors and/ or other YouTube SEO, head over to our blog where we explain it all in much detail and in as simple of a language as possible. 

Before you leave, remember!

If becoming famous in Hollywood is an art and requires talent, becoming famous on YouTube is a science and requires wits.

3500cookie-check7 Critical YouTube Ranking Factors You’ve Messed Up So Far

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