A YouTube channel can be worthwhile in many ways. You can raise your profile as an expert, build a community and attract new customers. But how do your videos get as many clicks and views as possible? How are they more likely to be subscribed to? And what is YouTube SEO all about? I'll explain that in this article.

Planning and implementing videos and building a successful YouTube channel can be a lot of work. How much work? That depends on what kind of videos you want to create. And how easy it is for you to plan, record and edit. In any case, you should be clear about why you actually want to make this effort.

Your goals on YouTube

A clearly formulated objective will also help you to give your channel a meaningful direction and optimize your videos towards the desired end result. Some examples of things you could achieve with a channel on YouTube:

• Position yourself as an expert on a topic. The platform is perfect for this.
• Help your content marketing, see my guide to content marketing. Videos attract more attention because they also appear in Google search results and enhance your posts.
• Build a community from which new customers can also emerge.
• Pass on your knowledge and enjoy the good feeling of doing something meaningful.

A YouTube channel can be a good idea for these and other goals. Whether it is the best measure in each case is another discussion. That would go too far here.

I have written an article here in the magazine on how to choose the right social networks for you. Many of the tips in it also apply to your decision for or against video marketing or for or against YouTube.

How to get more attention for your videos

There are three ways in which your videos on YouTube can attract new viewers:

1. They appear in a search result. After all, YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. Some people prefer to watch a video rather than read an article. And for certain topics, it is actually better to see something with your own eyes and have it demonstrated.
2. They are recommended in another video. On the desktop, these appear in the right-hand sidebar. They are also displayed after a video has been played.
3. They appear as suggestions on the start page. In addition to subscribed and generally interesting content, YouTube tries to find videos here that match your own interests.

For your video to appear in these places, it must have been well received by previous viewers. And it must also be clearly positioned in terms of content. Let's take a look at how these two points work.

What makes successful YouTube videos

When it comes to search engine optimization or SEO, everything usually revolves around keywords: how to find the best ones, where and how to use them and much more. I'll get to that in a moment.

However, YouTube has a special feature compared to a web search engine like Google: the video platform knows exactly how each individual video is received by users, whereas Google has significantly less information about how well a search hit is rated. YouTube makes intensive use of this information.

What matters to YouTube

So what makes a successful video from YouTube's point of view? You have to keep this in mind: YouTube primarily earns money with advertising. Increasingly, the platform is also trying to attract users to its ad-free premium membership.

For these two sources of income to function optimally, YouTube needs two things:

1. Users should come back as often as possible. They must therefore like what they discover and are recommended.
2. Each time you visit YouTube, you should use it for as long as possible.

For example, the platform looks at how long your video holds the viewer's attention. Because "watch time" has become such an important criterion in the meantime, there has been a trend towards longer and longer videos. The challenge here, of course, is to make a long video interesting.

By the way: Don't let anyone tell you that videos on YouTube can't be longer than 2:30 minutes or similar. Such a figure is sometimes quoted because this is supposedly the average playback time for videos on YouTube. This figure is pointless simply because it indiscriminately mixes up all types of videos, all age groups, all topics, all user intentions and much more.

Generalizing like that is nonsense. There are videos that are 30 minutes long and hugely successful: Because they deliver exactly what the target group is looking for.

Watch Time: How long do you watch?

Your videos need to be interesting, sensibly structured, implemented well enough and suitable for your target group. Over time, you will learn when and why viewers drop out of your videos, as YouTube provides you with detailed statistics. For example, the first 15 seconds are considered particularly important, so don't waste them with a meaningless intro. Get straight to the point and arouse interest.

Session Time: How long do they stay on YouTube?

However, YouTube doesn't just look at how long viewers watch your videos. The platform also takes into account whether your video causes them to leave YouTube or whether they watch more videos. This is the "session time". For this reason alone, it's a good idea to link to other suitable videos from your channel and sort your videos into meaningful playlists.

Engagement: How many reactions does your video generate?

And last but not least, the engagement factor, which is already well known on the social web, also plays a role: How many users give a like or comment? How many new channel subscriptions does the video generate?

It is therefore a good idea to encourage a discussion or to be available to answer questions. The makers of a video often write a comment with the main question themselves and "pin" it so that it is always visible at the top.

Research on topics and keywords

Now that you know the basics of your videos, it's time to find the actual topic. Keyword research is an important step here. You should always evaluate the ideas that arise from this:

1. How well they fit your target group
2. To what extent they will advance your business and
3. Whether they are in demand at all

I've written a separate article on how you can test and refine content ideas in advance. You'll find lots more advice there.

Tools and tips

A simple step for research here is to enter your terms into the YouTube search and pay attention to what other keywords are suggested to you. Just like Google, YouTube also has an "autosuggest" function that aims to save searchers as much typing as possible: You start typing a search term and YouTube suggests several possible completions. You can assume that the terms and combinations of terms listed here are actually being searched for.

Unfortunately, what you don't see is how often it is searched for. You can find such information in tools such as Rank Tracker and others. These often make your research work much easier as they generate complete suggestion lists based on autosuggest.

With tools such as TubeBuddy and VidIQ, you can find out more about your competitors and learn from their approach. For example, they also give you information on how big the competition for a keyword already is. You can find many more tools for YouTube SEO in the following article.

Use keywords in the right places

Just as with search engine optimization for Google & Co., the next step is to use the keywords in important places. This essentially includes

1. The title of the video. Ideally, it should not be longer than 60 characters so that it is also displayed in full on Google.
2. The content itself. Think about correcting automatically generated subtitles or replacing them with your own.
3. The description text. YouTube recommends at least one or two paragraphs - not just a short sentence!
4. The keywords (tags). Both the topic with all its keywords in singular and plural as well as the type of video ("test report") can appear here.
5. Hashtags in the description text.

Other general SEO rules also apply here. For example, you must not overdo it with the keywords. It should still read normally for a human.

Also, it won't just be about a single keyword, but also related keywords and whole phrases. If you produce a good video on a topic, this should almost happen by itself. However, it is always a good idea to pay attention and research in advance which terms your target group uses and searches for. More on this topic in the article on keyword research mentioned above.

Further optimizations

When your video finally appears in search results or is recommended by YouTube's algorithm, you only have a fraction of a second to get users to click. You should therefore pay attention to the following things in your YouTube SEO:

Preview image

In any case, you should have a designed thumbnail for every video that attracts attention, arouses curiosity and makes the topic clear. Many YouTubers have now discovered what marketers and advertisers have known for a long time: Nothing attracts attention like a face. That's why you'll often see a person in the thumbnail.

It works with humor, but also with the tools of clickbait: insinuations, controversies, surprises ... You should decide for yourself how far you want to go here and, above all, keep in mind: What suits me and my target group?

And last but not least, you shouldn't overload it, because it has to be easily recognizable even in a very small format.

Title/heading

The title of the video should not only help YouTube, but also the users. Similar tips apply here as for the preview image: Among other things, it should clearly describe the topic and benefits of your video. And at the same time make people curious for more.

Beginning of the description

In some places, YouTube displays the first few lines of the video description, for example in search results. This can also be seen on Google. It is usually the first 100 to 120 characters. Make sure that your text starts with something interesting.

Additional tips

Chapter marks

YouTube had already made it possible to jump to a specific point in the video for some time. If a timestamp such as "2:13" is mentioned in a comment, it is automatically linked: After clicking on it, you land at exactly this point in the current video.

In the meantime, YouTube has further developed the procedure for chapter markers: You can divide your video into named sections that your viewers can jump to directly. This is useful if someone is particularly interested in a certain question or if a section is not so relevant at the moment.

You can simply add these chapter markers as a list in your description. It is important that you start with 00:00 and have at least three timestamps.

Share your own videos!

Don't wait for YouTube to bring you your new viewers. Distribute your videos via your own channels: social media profiles, newsletters and your website, blog or magazine.

This is also part of YouTube SEO: If you provide an initial boost of attention yourself, YouTube's algorithm will notice this positively: Videos that bring users to the site get a bonus in the ranking. They are also recommended more often on the homepage. Embeddings on other pages are also helpful.

Optimization of the channel

Collecting viewers with every new video is tedious. That's why your goal should also be to increase the number of subscribers. To make this work, pay attention to two things:

1. Your channel needs a clear theme: It should be clear who it is for and what this group of people will gain from subscribing to your videos. Show this through your cover image, through playlists of existing videos and through a welcome video ("channel trailer") that you can fix at the top of the page.
2. Publish new videos as regularly as possible: This doesn't have to be daily by any stretch of the imagination, not even weekly. But it's good if your approach conveys the feeling: It's worth sticking with it.

Many YouTubers indicate in one form or another in their videos that viewers should subscribe to the channel. Of course, you can do that too. However, as always, there are also counterexamples that never point this out and are still successful - simply because the videos are so good, interesting and special that you don't want to miss them.

In addition: Ultimately, you should not be interested in "managing a channel", but in building a community. It is important that your YouTube videos bring people together who have a similar view of things. They should understand what you stand for and why you run this YouTube channel. What drives you?

Conclusion on the topic of YouTube SEO

Over time, your videos will also develop recognition effects. This could be a certain greeting, a certain style, your face. Once you've reached this point, you've already come a long way.

I hope this article has given you a rough overview of the key points you should pay attention to when making videos for YouTube. At the end, I would like to give you a "secret to success": Be an active YouTube user yourself. See what is already out there on your topics. Look for role models in other subject areas. Think about what you like yourself. And gradually develop your own style from this.