This is the full MasterClass presentation for VidCon Amsterdam, on YouTube SEO, titled ’YouTube Ranking Factors Analysis and Optimisation’. The presentation looks at how various factors of the YouTube algorithm correlates with an individual videos ranking in the YouTube search results.
You can grab a PDF of the presentation here:
novelconcept.org/content/Philip_Zeplin-YouTubeRankingFactorsAnalysisandOptimization-VidCon_Amsterdam_2017.pdf
This presentation on YouTube SEO is a smaller part of a larger analysis of YouTubes ranking factors. For my presentation at VidCon Amsterdam, I only had roughly 20 minutes (20min presentation, 10min Q/A) to go through it all, and was pressed for time so I had to skip a lot of findings and other data.
The data for the VidCon SEO presentation is the same kind of data (simply more in-depth, with more data points, more results aka. “bigger and better”) as the analysis I put out last year titled YouTube Native Ranking Factors. You can read that full report here:
http://novelconcept.org/ranking-factors/native-youtube-ranking-factors-2016/
The VidCon presentation started out with a few audio issues, as the microphone I got had issues with connectivity (turned out a lot of speakers at VidCon Amsterdam had these problems, as I would later find out). Don’t worry though, the audio problems get fixed about 1 minute into the presentation as I decide to simply speak loudly.
If you liked this video of my YouTube SEO presentation as a VidCon Speaker, you might also be interested in the YouTube SEO Webinar I did for Reddit a while back, which you can find here:
The VidCon presentation starts off with briefly going through who I am (Hi! I’m Philip! 😀 I work as a YouTube & SEO Consultant at iProspect Copenhagen in Denmark – I’ve worked with over 40 different YouTube channels, in various capacities. Sometimes as an external SEO consultant, sometimes hands-on video optimisation, sometimes YouTube Analytics reporting and analysis, and more).
Then we move on to an important distinction, when talking about video SEO on YouTube. Looking at the YouTube ranking factors, we need to divide them into two parts: what I call the Native Ranking Factors (Watch Time, Retention, Shares, and more – determining how “good” your YouTube video is), and the Relevancy Factors (determining what your YouTube video is about).
After that, we first go through the Native Ranking factors, and how they correlate with video rankings in the YouTube search results. When it comes to SEO on YouTube, you can think of the native factors as “how well your video should be ranking”, and the relevancy factors as “what should it be ranking for?”.
The relevancy factors aren’t all too surprising, except perhaps how important keywords actually are to ranking your videos in YouTubes search results. Having your Broad Match Keyword in the title of your video, is by far the highest ranking correlation of them all – followed by the total amount of times, your keywords are mentioned in your video (title, description, and tags). If you’re not new to SEO, this shouldn’t surprise you too much – and if you ARE new to SEO on YouTube, or SEO in general, well now you know.
It was an absolute blast attending VidCon Amsterdam as a speaker there, and the only speaker to really talk about SEO YouTube as a focus area. I got the chance to meet a lot of cool YouTubers, such as FreddieWong and MatPat from GameTheorists, not to mention all the other cool attendees that just wanted to talk. I got to preach YouTube SEO to a bunch of people, got a lot of awesome contacts, and overall had a fantastic time.
I might also be a speaker at VidCon Australia, also covering video SEO on YouTube, but we’ll see. If nothing else, I’ll be sure to attend the European VidCon Amsterdam in 2018!
