Yes, you can still attract viewers by posting on social media, doubling down on your YouTube marketing efforts, and buying YouTube views from platforms like Stormviews (many YouTube channel owners get their brand exposure this way; you can check out Stormview reviews to learn about their stories).

But there is something unique about ranking high on YouTube. And that is the fact that it exposes you to random YouTube visitors - YouTube searchers - many of whom come to the platform to search for items. 

Unfortunately, if your ranking is poor (bad YouTube SEO), there is no way these random YouTubers will find you when they search for things relevant to your niche.

So here are the seven steps you need to follow to make your videos rank better!

Step #1 Do keyword research

Ranking on YouTube is all about keywords. That is, how relevant are your videos to the keywords people are searching for? 

If your videos are still way off the mark in terms of keyword relevance, you might struggle to rank high, meaning that you won't get the views you desire. So to get high on the rankings, you need to first conduct your keyword research.

To generate this keyword, head over to YouTube and type in a word or phrase relevant to your niche. YouTube will respond to you in the form of a bunch of keywords related to what you've entered. 

These suggested keywords are what you're looking for because for YouTube to have suggested them; it means they're the most popular. 

Alternatively, you can go to some of the most popular channels in your niche. Then, sort their videos by "Most Popular." This will show you the videos that have generated the most views. Check out these videos and see which keywords they've been optimized around.

These are your keywords!

Step #2 Make your videos high-retention

YouTube itself once said, "If your videos have a high retention time, they will rank you high." In other words, if your videos keep people on YouTube, YouTube will repay you by ranking your video higher in the search results.

The question then is, how can you create a high retention video? The answer is fairly simple: just make sure your video covers the subject you're trying to discuss in as many details as possible - that is, make sure your videos are long; longer videos rank better. To further convince YouTube of your videos' high-retention qualities, you can start encouraging people to comment, subscribe, and share your post. 

Step #3 Optimize your videos

Optimizing your videos to rank high is all about appealing to the algorithms of YouTube. And trust me, YouTube has plenty of those. 

To get around these algorithms, you can follow these tips:

  • Say your keyword more often in your video: You've probably noticed that YouTube now automatically transcribes your videos. If they see that you mention a certain word/phrase more often in your video, they will know your video is about that word and rank you for it.

  • Video title: Make it brief (at least five words long) and use the target keyword at the beginning of the title.

  • Video description: This is the most important piece because it is the part that best explains to YouTube and Google what your video is all about. Make sure it is at least 250 words long and contain the keywords in the first 25 words. To avoid keyword stuffing, you can use words/phrases that are synonymous with your target keyword more often in the description.

Step #4 Optimize your videos for Google's search results

You've heard it before. YouTube is the second largest search engine. Blah, blah, blah. But why not tap into the world's largest search engine - Google?

Right now, it's tough to browse Google for more than 10-seconds without seeing a video result. So, to be amongst these videos that appear on Google search results, you need to optimize your videos for YouTube. 

Trust me, the more recognition your video gets on Google, the better your click-through-rate on YouTube will be. And what better way to rank on a platform than to get traffic?

To optimize your videos for Google:

Search Google for your target keyword

Type a search query in Google from your list of keywords and hope to see a video carousel or dedicated video SERP feature. It seems obvious, but I can bet that most creators don't do this before creating a video. Pay attention to video length and titles to get an idea of what Google wants to show.

Step #5 Promote your video

To help more YouTube searchers find you, you need to rank better. But to rank better, you need YouTube algorithms to find you. These algorithms tend to do that when they notice actions (views, subscribers, shares, mentions, etc.) on your page.

To get this promotion, you can start with Quora, forums on Facebook, and other Q&A sites. To execute this step, just go to Quora, for example, and search for a keyword that best describes your video's topic. Then, find a question that you can answer. Answer this question and then place a link to your video.

Step #6 Use your email signatures

Don't like Quora and forums? Why not use your email signatures. At least by now, a ton of businesses, friends, websites, and blogs must have gotten your email details so that they could send you emails. So why not add a link to your latest video in your email signature? That way, you will have set up a pipeline of high-retention views.