How to Dominate YouTube Search
A simple trick, yet I've never heard it taught.
One of the perks of consulting with creators of all categories is learning from them. Despite my 16+ years on YouTube and inside the company – I'm still learning. I'm still picking up little tips and tricks.
What I Learned From a Top Food Creator
I recently consulted with one of the biggest food creators on YouTube. He does extremely well with SEARCH traffic. Pick just about any dish recipe, and there he is, front and center with a tutorial video. It's like he's got some magic marinara sauce that the algorithm just loves. He does SO well in fact, that he's taken long breaks from YouTube and HARDLY SEEN A DIP in performance!
Can you imagine? That's a creator's dream life right there. Well, he employs a very smart thumbnail trick that he said I could share with you.
But first –
A Quick Lesson on Thumbnail Science
When viewers use YouTube's Search function, they of course type in a specific query and hit "go". What's the first thing they see in the results?Thumbnails. They don't see titles first; they see thumbnails. IF they find those thumbnails compelling, THEN they read the titles. It looks like this –
thumbnail: Epic Gardening
If the thumbnail and the title are both compelling, they click into the video.
The whole flow is:
See the thumbnail
Read the title
Watch the videoWhen viewers skip over new videos from a channel, deciding not to watch, it creates a negative signal to the algorithm. With enough skips from each specific viewer, the algorithm will stop recommending your content to that person.
So, The Trick
is incredibly simple – you put the targeted search query as text on the thumbnail. Preferably, it's five words or less, and you make the text nice and big and bold, thus allowing the viewer to see that your video is exactly what they're searching for. Of course, the thumbnail should also be colorful and dynamic and beautifully made – with your face or some other visual element.
But if you can install the query right onto the first thing viewers see - the thumbnail - you will put yourself in a highly optimized position for your video to be found, and watched.
"OK Koval, so what then should be in the title?"
You can repeat the query in the title as well, but you should add a bit more detail to the front and/or back, just so the viewer doesn't see duplicate information. Sticking with the Epic Gardening theme from the image above, let's take a query like:
"How to grow cucumbers at home"
Your thumbnail could include text of "Growing Cucumbers at Home” and your title might be:
"How to Grow Cucumbers at Home - 6 Easy Steps"
Pro Tip
Wanna take this a step further? (My own advice this time.) At the very start of your video, say the search query out loud. Why? Because YouTube is listening. Their systems scan the transcripts of every video, and use that as metadata to help understand what the video is about. So, in the cucumber example above, the host might start the video with:
"How do you grow cucumbers at home? This is a question I get every Spring, so in this video I will teach you..."
“Wait, so is this all it takes to get on the first page in YouTube search results??”
Nope! It's unfortunately the easy part. The hard part is making a video that is better and more helpful than those currently on the first page of search results for a given query. After all, Search ranks the videos that viewers have found to be the most "satisfying", so the tougher job here is making a video that beats all or most of 'em.
Of course, don't forget that you don't have to try and win for the most popular search queries like "How to tie a tie". You will likely have better success with long-tail and lesser known terms. If you can manage to do that, do yourself a favor and display that search query on your thumbnail itself.
How has your own success been from Search? Feel free to reply to this email – I read all replies!
-Matt
If it’s ever of interest, 3 options:
Book a quick call or channel deep-dive with me to get a fresh perspective on your channel, from a veteran strategist and former YouTube employee.
Try VidIQ for $1 through my personal affiliate link. It is a very effective tool, so again, just choose your ideas carefully!
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-Matt
