YouTube Optimization vs. YouTube Videos to Improve Website SEO

Improving your online presence and driving more traffic to your site is crucial. While many of you understand the importance of using YouTube as a marketing channel, you may not know that your YouTube videos can also improve your website’s SEO.

Whether you’re just starting to use YouTube as a marketing tool or you’re looking to take your efforts to the next level, this post has something for you.

I’ll clarify the differences between these strategies and offer tips on how to effectively use both to your advantage. 

What is YouTube Optimization?

YouTube optimization is the process of improving the visibility and reach of your YouTube videos. It involves optimizing various elements of your videos and channel to make them more appealing to viewers and more likely to rank well in search results.

Some key elements of YouTube optimization include:

• Title — Video titles should be keyword-rich and accurately reflect the content.
• Descriptions — Descriptions must provide more information about the video and include relevant keywords for ranking purposes.
• Thumbnail — This is what users see when they come across your video in search results or on your channel page. A visually appealing thumbnail can help attract clicks and increase views.
• Tags — YouTube allows you to add tags to your videos to help classify them and make them more discoverable. Choosing relevant tags can help increase the chances of your videos showing up in search results.
• Closed Captions — Adding captions to your videos can make them accessible to a wider audience, including viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Optimizing these elements helps increase the chances of your videos being discovered and watched by more people. This can ultimately lead to more views and subscribers for your channel.

Does YouTube Optimization Improve Website SEO?

YouTube optimization is primarily focused on improving the visibility and reach of your videos on YouTube, but it can still have a positive impact on your website’s SEO. 

So yes, YouTube optimization can improve your website’s SEO. But it’s important to understand how these different concepts are related. 

YouTube is its own search engine. So your videos on YouTube won’t directly impact your website’s position in the SERPs on Google.

However, your YouTube presence can indirectly improve your site’s SEO. Here’s how it works.

When you optimize your videos and channel, you’ll increase the chances of your videos being discovered and watched by more people. If you include a link to your website in the video description, viewers may be more likely to visit your website after watching your video. This can lead to an increase in website traffic, which can improve your search rankings.

Another way that YouTube optimization can boost your website’s SEO is by increasing the authority and credibility of your website. 

When you have a strong presence on YouTube, with a large number of views, subscribers, and engagement, it can signal to search engines that your website is a trusted and authoritative source of information. This can lead to higher search rankings for your website.

How to Drive More Traffic to Your Website and Improve Site SEO With YouTube Videos

Now that we’ve established that YouTube videos can help your website’s SEO, it’s time to apply some tactics that will help accomplish this. 

Upload Your Video Content to YouTube First

Video SEO for your website all starts with choosing the right platform to host your content, and YouTube is an excellent option. 

Upload your content to YouTube first, and go through the YouTube optimization process. From there, YouTube makes it easy for you to share and distribute your content anywhere—including your website. 

Once you embed your YouTube videos on your site, those videos have a chance of ranking on other search engines. 

Google’s algorithms consider the amount of time that users spend on pages when determining search rankings. So if users are watching your videos on your site, it can indicate to Google that your website is providing valuable and engaging content—improving your search rankings.

Make Sure the Thumbnail is Engaging

Your thumbnail is crucial for driving clicks to your website in the search results. This is an opportunity for you to give more details about what your video entails, and stand out from other videos displayed.

In the example above, you can see that the thumbnail for Code With Chris is about designing an app with Figma, and BuildFire’s thumbnail is about creating an app in ten steps. 

Simply using a still shot from your video as the thumbnail won’t always be effective here. Creating a custom thumbnail with the sole purpose of standing out from other options in the SERPs will help you get more clicks and traffic. 

Include a Video Transcript

Earlier, we talked about the importance of adding closed captions to your YouTube videos. But for website SEO, you can take that one step further and include the transcript. 

Google can’t actually watch your videos. So it doesn’t know what’s being said.

But if you transcribe the video and add the transcript to your site, Google’s search bots can see what the page is about and pull out relevant keywords for different searches. 

Since transcripts are text-based, it’s much easier for search engines to index the copy and help you rank for a wider range of queries. 

Put Your Videos Above the Fold

If you truly want your videos to rank well in the SERPs, make them the start of the show. 

Burying your video content deep within a blog post or somewhere in the footer won’t get the same results as putting it front and center on the page. Not only does this tell visitors that the video is important but it also tells Google that the video is important. 

For example, let’s say you go to Google and search for something related to this particular blog topic—like, “how will videos help SEO rankings?”

If you click on the first video that appears, you’ll be directed to a Lemonlight blog post. 

The video is embedded at the top of the page, highlighting its importance:

It’s not a coincidence that this video ranks first on Google for that particular search. But if the video was buried somewhere else on the page, it may not have the same results. 

Only Add Videos to Relevant Pages

The content of the video should align with the topic of the page where it is being embedded. 

Google’s algorithms use the content of your website to determine its relevance and authority on a particular topic. If you add a video to a webpage that is not related to the content of that page, it can confuse Google and negatively impact your search rankings.

Adding videos to relevant pages can also help improve the user experience for your visitors. 

When users land on a page and the video aligns with the topic of the page, they are more likely to stay on your website longer and engage with your content. This can signal to Google that your website is providing valuable and engaging content, which can improve your search rankings.

Pay Attention to the Order You’re Embedding Videos on the Page

Google typically won’t index more than one video per page. So if you have certain pages with multiple videos, you should pay close attention to the order in which they appear.

Since search engines will typically stop crawling for videos after the first one they see, the video you want to rank should be first on the page. 

Here’s an example from ClickUp that shows multiple demo videos:

The “Product Tour” is first, as this is the most relevant on the page and would best serve people who are searching for related keywords on search engines. 

Don’t Embed the Same Video On Multiple Pages

While it’s ok to have multiple videos on the same page, it’s not ok to have the same video on multiple pages. Here’s why.

Google may not be able to accurately determine the relevance of each page if they all contain the same video. 

Furthermore, when users land on a webpage and see the same video that they have already seen on another page, they may feel like they are being served repetitive content. They won’t be as likely to stay on your site for long periods of time, which can lead to higher bounce rates and lower search rankings.

To ensure that your website is properly indexed by search engines and provides a positive user experience for your visitors, it’s best to only have unique videos on each page of your website.

Optimize the Rest of Your Page For SEO

Just because we’re focusing on SEO for videos, it doesn’t mean that your other SEO practices should be thrown out the window. You can think of videos as an enhancement to your site and its SEO strategy—not a replacement for it.

This means you still need to do all of the other things you’ve been doing to create SEO-friendly pages.

• Conduct keyword research
• Use keyword-rich titles
• Add keyword-rich meta descriptions
• Add alt text to your images
• Include logical internal links within your copy
• Add external links to relevant sources with high authority

The list goes on and on. I don’t want to go too deep here, as we’ve covered this topic extensively over the years. Here are a few useful SEO resources that we’ve recently published if you want more tips that go beyond video optimization:

• How to Make Your Website and SEO Recession Proof
• SEO is Like Organic Gardening
• Local SEO: How to Optimize and Rank
• 10 SEO Trends for Better Google Ranking
• The Beginner’s Guide to Building Quality Backlinks

Final Thoughts

While YouTube optimization generally applies to getting more clicks and views on your YouTube channel, you can still use YouTube videos to drive more site traffic and enhance your overall SEO strategy. 

Just understand that YouTube optimization doesn’t directly impact website SEO. There are other steps you must take to drive site traffic from your YouTube videos. 

You must also optimize the rest of your pages and ensure that the content of your videos align with the topic of each page.

Understanding the differences between YouTube optimization and using YouTube videos to improve your website’s SEO makes it easier to effectively use both strategies. Then you can boost your search rankings and drive more traffic to your website.