YouTube works similar to a typical search engine in terms of how it presents and ranks its results. Organic results are listed in the main area, with sponsored links from Google at the top and the right-hand side.

The key to ranking high on your desired keywords is understanding what factors the YouTube engine takes into account and make sure you apply best practices as it relates to them.

Like other engines, the YouTube search engine can't actually read the content inside of a video, so the engine uses a variety of different factors to learn about, categorize, and rank your video. The algorithm seems to employ what could be considered a version of typical on-page and off-page SEO factors.

For on-page, optimize your videos in a similar way to how you would typically optimize your page content and meta data for specific keywords. But instead of meta data and body copy, ensure your desired keywords appear in the title, description, and tags.

However, you also have to consider the off-page SEO factors, many of which are similar to those in traditional SEO. Chief among these are inbound links. As with any content, you want to make sure your YouTube video has external links with keyword-rich anchor text pointing to it for it to receive authority in YouTube's eyes.

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