YouTube Shorts have stormed onto the scene, captivating viewers with their vertical, short-form content capped at 60 seconds. As a rapidly rising content format, Shorts present a prime opportunity to get ahead of the latest search engine optimization (SEO) trends.
This article explores how to utilize YouTube Shorts to boost your website's visibility and traffic. We'll demystify this new medium, analyzing the mechanics behind Shorts' meteoric growth. You'll learn best practices for optimizing your Shorts to reach wider audiences while driving streams of engaged visitors to your site through strategic linking.
Understanding YouTube Shorts and How You Can Benefit
Cutting through the noise requires a consistent, compelling message that resonates with your audience. This is where YouTube Shorts come in. With their abbreviated format and mobile-first design, Shorts enable brands to tap in and get views. In just 60 snappy seconds, you can reach viewers around the clock from the palms of their hands.
Obviously YouTube can give your brand much needed exposure. I'm sure you've heard the classic content creation rules, make your content engaging, post 3 - 5 times per day, and so on. But it's important to remember that if you are a new channel, gaining traction takes with the algorithm takes time. So what are some best practices for getting more views on your YouTube Shorts?
Tips For Growth With YouTube Shorts
Here are a few YouTube Shorts tips that might help you get some traction for future content uploads.
1. Upload your content through the desktop app. Uploading your content through desktop gives you access to so many more features such as: the category of your video, adding tags, hashtags. This will help get your video pushed out to some extra people.
2. Adding tags to your videos. Adding tags to your videos, specifically 500 characters gives the suggestions and search rankings a better idea about what your content is about.
3. Link yours shorts to a main channel upload. If you also create longer full sized videos on YouTube, in your creator settings you can link shorts to that video. So when people are watching your main uploads they can easily find some related shorts.
You can do this by accessing your creator settings, finding a video you want to link to, then choosing the corresponding Short that you want linked to that video on the right side settings panel. It's that easy!
4. Add relevant keywords to your titles. If you want to be found you need to have the right keywords to get found. Don't keyword stuff of course but, get a few relevant ones in towards the beginning of your title.
5. It pains me to say this but clickbait! Don't bait them into an entirely different video but give people a reason to click! With your title and thumbnail you have a golden opportunity to draw the user in. You might need to be a little controversial at times. For example, if you make HR content you could say something like, "This is why your resume sucks". Well, does mine suck? Now I'm curious to know what they have to say about it.
And once they are there and watching you need to keep them hooked with.. a hook! Start your video with an ultra intriguing first sentence or two that keeps the viewer engaged and make them want to stay around til the end.
6. Longer Shorts seem to perform better. The 45 - 60 second range is the sweet spot from advanced analysis. You could even use a YouTube Short as a kind of lead in to a full sized main channel video. There's nothing wrong with shorter 10 - 30 second Shorts, but if you're not an established channel yet, try out longer videos to gain some traction and give people more about who you are as a brand.
7. Use trending sounds. Even if you keep the sound muted in your video, having the sound selected will get your in the trending algorithm for a chance at more exposure.
8. Ask questions in your video to promote engagement in the comments. More comments equates more relevance to YouTube about your video.
Final Thoughts
But at the end of the day, it really is about the content you post. If you post a 60 second video with low quality lighting, a bad sounding mic, no structure, it's likely it won't perform well. And after several videos of that same low quality, viewers and Google are going to paint your picture for you and it won't be nice one. Be relevant, be creative, and be persistent. Social media can be very rewarding if you use it the right way. And if your SEO needs some extra juice, here at Open World Digital we specialize in all things marketing from SEO to content/social media marketing. We're always available to chat if you have any questions.
Comments