How to Do SEO for YouTube Videos

Two people who type the same search on YouTube can see different results. YouTube’s explanation of how its search works says its system may consider a viewer’s search and watch history, if they have it turned on. YouTube presents that as an addition to three key elements its search system prioritizes: relevance, engagement and quality. It adds that their importance may vary by search type. YouTube SEO means working on all three. The advice that treats YouTube as “engagement only, keywords secondary” leaves out two of the elements YouTube itself describes.

What YouTube says it looks at

YouTube’s help page defines each element:

• Relevance. YouTube estimates it from many factors, “such as how well the title, tags, description, and video content match your search query.”
• Engagement. YouTube looks at overall user engagement, such as the watch time of a particular video for a particular query, to judge whether other users considered the video relevant to that query.
• Quality. The system is designed to identify signals that can help determine which channels demonstrate expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness on a given topic.

The same page says YouTube doesn’t accept payment for better placement in organic search results, and doesn’t treat Google-owned content more favorably than any other creator’s.

Relevance: say what the video is about, in the viewer’s words

The fields YouTube lists are the ones you write: the title, the description and the tags, along with the video itself.

• Title. A title has two jobs: name the topic in the words a searcher uses, and give the searcher something to click for. A title that is only keywords reads as flat; one that is only a teaser doesn’t say what the video covers. Write both into one line.
• Description. Describe what the video covers in plain language. Put the main topic in the first lines. Those are the lines viewers see before they expand the description.
• Tags. YouTube lists tags among the fields it compares with the query. Use them for the topic and its close variants, not for unrelated trending terms.
• The video itself. YouTube names video content among the relevance factors. A video that covers the topic its title promises has the other fields working in the same direction.

Engagement: earn the watch time a query deserves

YouTube describes engagement at the level of a query: how much a video is watched when people find it through that search. Three things you control shape how much of a video a searcher watches.

The opening. Viewers who clicked a search result came for an answer. An opening that delays it, with a long introduction or an early request to subscribe, risks losing them. Open with the payoff, the result or the question the video will answer, and ask for the subscription after the video has delivered something. The advice to “do the intro like every big channel” is survivorship bias. Established channels can afford friction because trust carries viewers past it; a growing channel has less of that trust to spend.

The retention curve. YouTube Studio shows where viewers stop watching, and reading its shape tells you what to fix:

• a steep drop in the opening seconds suggests the start isn’t delivering what the title and thumbnail promised;
• a gentle, steady decline reads as normal attrition;
• a drop in the middle points to a specific weak stretch, a tangent or a promise the video broke; rewatch that timestamp;
• a rise in the curve marks a moment people rewind to; check whether it is a highlight or a passage they had to hear twice.

Compare each video with your own channel’s curves, not with benchmarks someone presents as official. YouTube publishes no target retention figure on the page it uses to explain search.

The thumbnail and title as a pair. Watch time for a query starts with a click. The thumbnail and title work as one unit against every other result on the screen. Make the thumbnail legible at small size, with one clear focal point, and make it and the title say the same thing.

Also check where each video’s views come from in YouTube Studio. A video found mostly through YouTube search is doing a different job from one found through suggestions, and the search-driven ones are where the three elements apply directly.

Quality: build a channel that knows its subject

YouTube defines quality at the channel level and per topic: which channels demonstrate expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness on a given subject. That definition points toward a channel that covers a subject consistently and accurately, rather than one that jumps between unrelated topics, and toward showing who is speaking and why they know the subject. For example, imagine a channel about home electrical work, presented by a licensed electrician, whose videos stay on that subject. That is the kind of channel YouTube’s quality definition describes.

Chapters: one piece of work, two search engines

YouTube’s help page on video chapters sets the rules for adding them yourself:

1. List timestamps and titles in the description.
2. Start the first timestamp at 00:00.
3. List at least three timestamps, in ascending order.
4. Make each chapter at least 10 seconds long.

Chapters you add yourself override automatic chapters. YouTube can also create chapters automatically, but not all videos are eligible. The feature isn’t available if the channel has active strikes or the content may be inappropriate for some viewers.

The same timestamps work outside YouTube. Google’s video best practices say that if a video is hosted on YouTube, you can specify the exact timestamps and labels for key moments in the YouTube description. Chapters you write for viewers also give Google Search the timestamps for key moments.

When the video lives on your own site too

If you embed a YouTube video on your own site to rank in Google Search, Google’s video best practices apply to that page. Google recommends a dedicated watch page for each video, if it makes sense for your business, to be eligible for video features such as video results, Key Moments and other rich formats. A page with the video, a written summary of what it covers and the key points in text gives Google Search something to read beyond the player.

Frequently asked questions

Do titles, descriptions and tags still matter on YouTube?

Yes. YouTube estimates relevance from how well the title, tags, description and video content match the search query. They work alongside engagement and quality.

Is YouTube ranking all about watch time?

No. Engagement is one of three elements YouTube names, next to relevance and quality, and YouTube says their importance may vary by search type. Watch time matters as a sign that people who searched a query found the video relevant.

What are the rules for YouTube chapters?

Add timestamps and titles in the description. The first must be 00:00, there must be at least three in ascending order, and each chapter must be at least 10 seconds long.

Can YouTube chapters help in Google Search?

They can. Google’s video documentation says that for videos hosted on YouTube, you can specify the timestamps and labels for key moments in the YouTube description.