Hitting the wall

SEO is pretty complicated. I would not get a feel of SEO just by looking at what other channels do because

1) most other channels don't know anything about SEO
2) There's a lot of bad (against Youtube rules) SEO practices, such as using channel names to try to get associated with those channels, even when you're not that person, and you don't talk about that person, and you aren't collaborating with that person

This is made even worse if you look at bigger youtubers -- bigger youtubers often have horrible SEO because, to be honest, they aren't relying on SEO.

The idea is that YouTube really uses two sets of data to rank and sort videos: SEO metadata, and analytic data. So, popular youtubers rank highly because they have watch time (lots of active engaged viewers who will watch what they put out). Smaller youtubers can't rely on having an existing fanbase, so we have to be better and smarter at SEO than big youtubers need to be.

You ask if descriptions are important. I will say that the consensus seems to be that descriptions may be more important than tags. I think most guides would say that titles are most important, and then the first 3 lines of the description are the next important.

I don't think I have the ability to post links on this forum, but there are a lot of SEO guides here on YTTalk and elsewhere. So for these, you'd want to add yttalk.com to the front of these

To think more about long tail tags

/threads/how-to-get-more-views-by-targeting-long-tail-compound-keywords-for-tags.180270/

for descriptions, I guess something like this is a good start:

/threads/utilize-your-descriptions.142062/
 
subversiveasset said:
SEO is pretty complicated. I would not get a feel of SEO just by looking at what other channels do because

1) most other channels don't know anything about SEO
2) There's a lot of bad (against Youtube rules) SEO practices, such as using channel names to try to get associated with those channels, even when you're not that person, and you don't talk about that person, and you aren't collaborating with that person

This is made even worse if you look at bigger youtubers -- bigger youtubers often have horrible SEO because, to be honest, they aren't relying on SEO.

The idea is that YouTube really uses two sets of data to rank and sort videos: SEO metadata, and analytic data. So, popular youtubers rank highly because they have watch time (lots of active engaged viewers who will watch what they put out). Smaller youtubers can't rely on having an existing fanbase, so we have to be better and smarter at SEO than big youtubers need to be.

You ask if descriptions are important. I will say that the consensus seems to be that descriptions may be more important than tags. I think most guides would say that titles are most important, and then the first 3 lines of the description are the next important.

I don't think I have the ability to post links on this forum, but there are a lot of SEO guides here on YTTalk and elsewhere. So for these, you'd want to add yttalk.com to the front of these

To think more about long tail tags

/threads/how-to-get-more-views-by-targeting-long-tail-compound-keywords-for-tags.180270/

for descriptions, I guess something like this is a good start:

/threads/utilize-your-descriptions.142062/
Click to expand...
Thanks that clarified A LOT! It seems a little complex, but it sounds like you need to understand it to have a successful channel
 
Okami said:
Thanks that clarified A LOT! It seems a little complex, but it sounds like you need to understand it to have a successful channel
Click to expand...
yeah, the goal ultimately is to become big enough to where you don't need to worry about SEO anymore, but to get there, you either have to be really really lucky or you have to think hard about SEO.

This isn't the only thing to know about SEO, either. There's stuff like keyword research, planning when to post, SEO for google search (rather than youtube search), optimization for social media (e.g., when/how/how often is best to post on Facebook? Twitter? Reddit? etc.,). But the good thing about youtube SEO is that if you do it right, you will start to see a general increase in traffic if your videos are consistently seen in search results.
 
I know all about that wall son lol. It seems you need to be hax level SEO pro to even see some daylight. I had begun looking into the ''youtube course'' that teaches and explains all this but funny enough the information once again seemed like obvious tips. I guess I gotta find more for something new.
 
How much are you promoting your videos? Putting your faith in tags and SEO alone isn't enough. You really need to get out there an get the viewers. Make sure you do it in a positive manner. Don't go carpet bombing the comment section of 1m+ sub channels hoping to snag a viewer or two. Posting on forums like these and also forums and subreddits that are relevant is a good place to start. I'll give you an example of how twitter helped me a lot. I recently began covering an upcoming game that is in early alpha stages. I researched the crap out of any factual information I could get. After I compiled it all and presented it in a simple format. I shared the video via my twitter @(the games developer)
And BAM. 25 retweets in the first day. I firmly believe in using social media to promote your stuff. you will be amazed at the exposure you can get. Just remember to be humble, courteous, and really don't over do it.

Hang in there man
 
I've got twitter, Reddit, Facebook page, the Whole 9 yards! Believe me when I say I'm doing EVERYTHING I can to get out there! But Ill keep going for sure! thanks man
 
I've been very aggressive with SEO as well. The best advice I can give is I've been slowly growing views by landing in the top 3 of less popular words. It gets views but if your #1000 on a word with a million searched a day, or #1 or 2 on a word with 50 searches a day which one is better?

It's almost like flying a kite or launching a rocket. Get it up in the air (good early promoting) then keep it afloat (SEO ranking) after that. Or it comes crashing down !
 
Well recently I noticed that the views I receive somehow stall into a certain amount ( during the first 2 days it varies from 5 to 10) and I think it's pretty medium considering the 10% subscribers to views conversion that happens with LP channels.
I tend to get quickly discouraged if I stop thinking too much about the lack of views and I constantly think to ways on how to improve mi videos.
Maybe I'm not promoting so much because I use my social media (Fb page and the couple twitter G+ with the automatic tweet + hashtags). Until a couple of weeks ago I used to post also on reddit and a couple of G+ communities: technically I obtained some views more (not so much) but I noticed that especially the views coming from reddit had a low audience retention so I thought that maybe weren't so useful after all.
After a boost in the audience retention rate during last week ( 2:15 minutes, almost 20%) it started dropping again, maybe because one of the videos I uploaded the last week started to gather a loooooot more views than all my other ones (almost at 500 now, that is an huge amount for me) but with always decreasing audience retention.

Maybe for LP channels is a bit difficult but I actually don't know what to do to boost the visibility just a little bit. I don't want to complain because I don't like complaining, I prefer using that time thinking to ways to improve, but sometimes I feel a bit discouraged.
 
I think we all hit that wall. Although tbh I definitely can't say i've put everything possible into my channel despite going in depth with seo (google keyword planner etc).

I think all we can do is keep going at it.

Think of it this way (football analogies really put things in perspective for me).

Each month (quarter or year) is like a new season in football.

We may start the month at the bottom of the league after barely staying in it the season before, but what is to say that you can't be Leicester city of YouTube that season?

Leicester city title win = hard work, consistency and using weaknesses to create unbeatable strengths despite being an underdog nobody expects to rise.

I know it's not very technical but I think if you go into June thinking like that about your channel, you will smash it. Maybe not straight away, but you will have put the foundations in place.
 
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