Have you ever noticed that while searching something online, Google shows a certain kind of YouTube videos in its search results, however, if you use the search term on YouTube, you would get different search results. This happens because according to a report from the Stone Temple Consulting, Google and YouTube rank the videos differently. As a matter of fact, the videos that you would yield on Google and YouTube search results for any given keyword would be different 56.8%.
Eric Enge from Stone Temple Consulting conducted a thorough research on the subject and some of the findings that he has pointed out has been outright startling. For a few the study may be a revelation in knowing how the two biggest companies function differently. Some of the key findings by Eric Enge is explained the image below:
Apart from discovering that nearly more than 50% of the time the Google search results show different YouTube videos that has different ranking on YouTube, Enge also figured out that even when Google showed up only one video, more than 55% of the time, the same video would not show up first on YouTube for the same search query. In his hypothesis, Enge suggested that the ranking of the videos is different because the different websites have different goals that they have their own KPIs.
Whilst the search engine giant, Google tires to provide the users the most relevant content for their search queries, YouTube has a different job to do, it is more focused on providing the best entertainment. The study conducted by Enge points out the approach of YouTube and Google in analyzing the videos as well as the differences in their ranking systems.
If you are a business owner and are looking for tips to get higher rankings for your videos on both Youtube and Google, the following optimization tips will greatly help you.
Optimization checklist for YouTube:
The most fundamental thing to do for optimizing your video on YouTube is to do a little bit of research on the keyword; you would need to determine the keyword that is related to your video and yet the ones that are used the most by the users. Make sure that the keywords you choose are relevant to your business. You can use the various keyword research tools to identify the most popularly used keywords and at the time, it would be make sense to type a few keywords on the YouTube search bar and see the autocomplete suggested terms.
Another important thing to consider is to check the top videos that appear on the search result for the keywords that you want to target. If you are a small business owner and if the top ranked videos have a large number of views and also have many subscribers, then the keyword might be very competitive and it would be difficult to get high ranking for your video. Once you have created, the next step would be:
- Provide a good descriptive file name for the video
- Provide a simple yet compelling title
- Choose a set of related keywords that have high rankings. It is best advised to use long tail keywords
- Write good, descriptive description of what the video is about; the description should have minimum 200 words
- Place the video in the appropriate category
Optimization checklist for Google
All the fundamental things that are used for optimizing videos for YouTube like providing a good description, having a good title and a description for the video are also applicable for optimization on Google. However, the keyword research process for Google is different. Since Google is a broad-based platform, its video usage is quite limited as compared to YouTube. Another important aspect optimizing videos on Google is choosing the right topic. Since Google is used to search a wide range of things, it would be best advised to do a bit of research to figure out the areas that have the most potential; there are certain areas where having one or more than one videos, the chances of getting your video ranked on the first page will be higher.
Some of the most popular areas where your videos can get higher ranking are:
- Informational videos
- Reviews
- Tutorials
- How to do videos
- Entertainment
From the keyword research perspective, it is imperative that you target only the keywords that have a good search volume and also are relevant to your business. Another important thing to consider for getting high rankings for your videos is to create videos to suit your business goals. For instance, if you want to build a strong reputation about your business, then having some information and tutorial kind of videos would be the best approach. This would help you create an impression that you are an expert in the field and it would help you build trust among the targeted audience.
To conclude, the ranking algorithm of Google and YouTube is different and the returns on your investment will greatly depend on the strategy you adopt for both the platform and how well you execute them.
