YouTube is the second largest search engine and a great resource that you can take advantage of when you want to get your videos out to the public. Your video might be amazing, however that is not enough to get people to click on it. With the overwhelming amount of videos available on YouTube, you need to take advantage of YouTube’s SEO options.  Here are a few tips that will help you generate more viewers through improving the SEO.

Make sure the name of your video file reflects the topic of your video. If you upload a video about how to make a power point, then you would want to title your file how-to-make-a-powerpoint-presention.avi or something similar. This may seem obvious, but you would be surprised at how many video files are titled something like video123.mov, which does nothing to help your SEO. Think of how someone would search for a YouTube video and apply these keywords to your file name.

Tag your video with plenty of key words. One or two won’t do it, the more the better and there’s no limit so take advantage of this! You should use unique keywords and quote phrases (ie: “short educational video”)you think people would use when searching. People often misspell when searching, so you may even want to use misspellings of your company or product to appear in even more search results.

So many people forget to take advantage of the description section. Don’t. It’s there for a reason, so put it to good use!  Use your description to explain what your video is about and make sure that the first 25-30 words explain concisely and clearly what the viewer can expect as these are what will be shown first in the search results.  Again, be unique in your description to get people to click on your video. It may be a great idea to put your company’s link in the first part of your description to get people to click on your website.

Lastly, it’s very important to respond to your viewers when they leave comments. Make sure to reply soon because these viewers are your main audience and will likely be inclined to watch more of your videos.  The more comments you have, the higher your video will be ranked. By responding to comments, you are encouraging even more to come your way.