As most of us would readily agree, half of the job, when it comes to optimization, is making quality content – text, visual, audio or video- whereas the other half of it is the steps you take after uploading the content and how you facilitate its discovery. The key is to make your website search engine friendly as well as user friendly.

In the previous post, we have touched upon several important aspects to consider before you go ahead and upload your video to YouTube. Some of these are meticulous attention to YouTube Metadata; an interesting and informative title; usage of relevant keywords specific to your domain and not necessarily to your brand, as well as inserting tags relevant to your video. Now we shall discuss a few other vital elements of making your video content ‘YouTube’ friendly.

Here, are some helpful guidelines to optimize your video content in context of YouTube and make sure that it shows up prominently and easily during relevant searches:

• Use keywords in file name, title, tags, URL and link text. Make use of peculiar variations of keywords to account for common misspellings, plural forms and geographical connotations.  Ideally, use up all of the space you can while adding keywords.
• As far as optimization is concerned, it is a good idea to list out your tags in the very order they would appear in the title. So if your title happens to be ‘Batman and Joker Fight’, your keywords might be listed in the same order – Batman in the beginning, whereas ‘fight’ will be listed in the end.
• While writing description, remember that only a part of it will show up in actual search results.   Hence, put the most important bits of information in the beginning itself. Try and use as many of the core keywords included in your tags within this key portion of your description. You may include links relevant to your video. An ‘SEO Tagline’, describing your video, inserted into all your descriptions is handy for optimization.
• Thumbnails should be clear and interesting so as to compel users to watch the actual video.  Even if you don’t have the option to personalize your thumbnails, you can choose the most appropriate one from available options.
• Once viewers find your video, via specific search or randomly, help them discover other videos from you by using annotations.  These can also be employed to prompt people to favorite, comment and subscribe your videos. YouTube Annotations is a great way for maximizing your subscribers, more viewership  and increased visibility. You may also post new videos as an extension of your existing videos.

In essence, higher visibility is all about enhancing the user experience and improving search friendliness of your videos. For this, optimize your videos with core keywords, distribute them on popular video-sharing sites, follow a linking strategy, encourage sharing of your videos and re-purpose them across the Web and on your site.