Hi Reader,

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What are some of the first things you do at a new content marketing job? I just started in a new role this week, and my priority has been mastering all the processes, understanding my team’s goals, and getting access to the tools I need to do my job. It’s been pretty busy, so today’s newsletter issue is going to be short and sweet.

At new jobs, you also try new strategies. As you switch target audiences in different roles, it gives you more experience crafting content marketing tactics across several channels. For the first time ever, I’m about to implement a YouTube SEO strategy that I feel pretty confident about.

In today’s edition:

• A beginner’s guide to YouTube SEO
• Google’s API leak

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes 40 seconds

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A beginner's guide to YouTube SEO 📹

YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. About 2.5 billion people visit the site every month, so there’s a huge chance that your target audience is on YouTube. Because YouTube works like a search engine, optimizing your content for search is super important.

Much like written content, your videos need to follow certain principles to have the best chance at ranking for keywords your target audience is searching for. Here are some things I plan to pay very close attention to in my strategy 👇

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Content quality

YouTube is pretty much like Google in terms of content quality. Your videos need to satisfy the search intent of your target keywords, and provide value for your audience. You don’t need to have super high-level production, but ensure your video has standard audio and video quality so your audience don’t drop off mid-way.

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Video titles

This is where SEO comes in. Just like in any written SEO article, ensure your title has your target keyword in it. With YouTube titles, you also need to include the value your audience will gain from watching. For example, instead of using:

It might be better to use:

The second title is slightly longer but still under the recommended 75 characters for a title. It also has the two important parts of a perfect YouTube video title.

• A strong hook communicating value
• Target keyword

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Video descriptions

YouTube video descriptions give you a lot of room but that isn’t always a good thing. Why? It’s easy to get carried away with the 5,000 characters and write a long blurb. People don’t always read the whole description so this is a great way to structure your description for the best results:

• A one-like description of your video in bold.
• A few more lines summarizing the key points/things to look out for in your video.
• Timestamps on each subtopic/concept covered in the video.
• Links to other relevant content & CTAs.
• Links to your brand’s social media.
• Hashtags

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Visually-appealing thumbnails

This isn’t really SEO because a great thumbnail won’t help your video show up in the top results. However, it will compel YouTube users to click on your video when it does show up.

When designing a thumbnail, make sure the images & design actually match your content. It’s also a best practice to include the title of the video as text in the thumbnail.

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Hashtags

Hashtags work on YouTube the same way they work almost everywhere else. They help users find the most relevant content for their search intent. For your videos, only include 2 to 3 hashtags to the topic and keywords you’re trying to target with your video.

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Video categories & tags

If you’ve been skipping adding a category and tags to your video when publishing, this is your cue to stop. Just like hashtags, they help YouTube know what content is most relevant to your user’s search intent. Make sure to always add a category and tags to your video while publishing.

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Video marketing is often expensive and harder to execute than a blog content strategy, but it can be very rewarding when done right. Before jumping in, ensure you do some research to confirm your target audience’s interests, and if YouTube is an effective channel to reach them.
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Google's API leak 🔩

If you haven’t heard of the API leak, check if you’re under a rock right now. Earlier this week, the API documentation that explains how Google Search works was leaked to the world. Since the leak, many SEO experts have written strong pieces analyzing the situation. A popular observation is that Google has been gaslighting us about certain ranking factors for the past few years.

Some ranking factors that Google claimed didn’t matter, actually do. There are over 14,000 ranking factors in the leaked document, but here are a few controversial factors we found that Google lied about.

• Google claims they don’t use a domain authority metric as a ranking factor (but they do).
• Google claims they don’t use search engine clicks as a ranking factor (but they do).
• Google claims that there is no sandbox for new websites with low trust signals (but there is).

14,000 ranking factors are a lot to go through. So as a resource this week, I’m not sharing Google’s leaked API documentation. Instead, I’m sharing a GPT bot that was built to answer ranking factor questions based on Google’s documentation. Cool, right? All you have to do is ask it if something is a ranking factor 👇
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As part of my efforts to create a pillar page for these newsletters on my website, I would love to know how you feel about them. Are they mid? (I hope not). Have they helped you out of a problem at work? Reply to this email and let me know what you think! Please note that your feedback will be included on my website. If you’d like to be anonymous, just indicate that in your reply. Thanks!
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Until next time,

Olohireme

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