5 essential YouTube video SEO metrics you need to check now

Creating and uploading content to YouTube is only one step in the process of your marketing strategy. If you’re not sure if your video is actually achieving your marketing and sales objectives, then it’s not very useful. Once you are certain you have created quality content, it’s time to get it out there and measure how it performs. It’s vital to track and test the video SEO metrics and analytics to ascertain if you are on track to achieving your campaign’s goals and intent.

You can measure your video marketing success by tracking the data collected in the YouTube Analytics Dashboard to see where your video’s strengths and weaknesses lie, and where you can make changes to increase your reach on YouTube. Start by analysing the following five key YouTube video SEO metrics:

  1. Views – Who’s looking?
    Your video needs an audience and you’ll achieve this by creating quality content with a clear purpose, and optimising it effectively across all your media channels. While increasing your total number of views is important to convey the popularity of your content and increase SEO results, it’s not the only component of measuring your video’s performance as it doesn’t indicate conversion rates. Ensure you dig deeper by using video metrics to analyse geographical location and age groups of viewers to check if you are reaching your intended audience and desirable leads.
  2. Watch time – How long are they sticking around?
    How long are viewers watching your video? Is your content engaging enough to hold their attention for the full length of the video? YouTube’s algorithm will suggest videos with a longer watch time over a higher view rate. This tells us that a video that can engage a viewer for longer is performing more successfully and has a higher reach. If viewers are clicking on your content but not watching for long, consider creating a more engaging opening hook or rearranging your information.
  3. Audience retention – Will they come back?
    Once you’ve analysed your views and watch time, you can see which of your videos are keeping your viewers’ attention the longest and at which point they choose to stop watching. If they are disengaging halfway through, you’re not keeping them interested, but if they disengage as soon as the video starts playing, your title, descriptions and tags may not be in line with your content. Ultimately, you can see where you need to make changes and discover why your content may not be performing as well as you hoped.
  4. Search rankings – Can you be found in a crowd?
    Making the most of your content by analysing your video’s views, watch time and audience results and conducting tests to improve performance rates in these areas, will improve your SEO rankings. In addition, you can ensure your video’s title, description and tags adequately reflect your content and the goal of your campaign. You want to reach and increase your audience, but you also want your content to have its intended effect: to create and convert leads. When testing your SEO, ensure your tags are putting your best foot forward, as these are the labels YouTube is looking at in relation to your video.
  5. Engagement – Do you have an effect?
    If your content elicits a desirable response, then you’re on the right track. You want viewers to like, comment and share your content so you can see that your video is having an effect/saying something/achieving your goals. Analysing just what that effect is, is incredibly valuable in ascertaining the success of your overall campaign strategy. The more your viewers engage with your content, the better your reach and the more favourable your video becomes to YouTube.

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