Here we go. The March Ready Spaghetti SEO Challenge starts today.
Our goal is to get at least one video ranked on the first page of any Google search.
It’s not too late for you to join. If you want to stop learning and start earning with us – leave a comment and declare yourself a part of the challenge.
So far, Tom Brownsword and Johnny Walker have both chosen to participate. Andy Wilson is playing hookie and will sit out this challenge for whatever reason.
BUT… Andy did do some poking around for us – even asking questions about ranking videos at John Carlton’s event last weekend. So a big hat tip to Andy and I’ll be posting some of his insights tomorrow.
Ok, first things first.
What’s A Ready Spaghetti Challenge?
It’s DOing rather than learning. And it’s also a way of wading through crappy advice and finding out what really works. Because you can only find that out by doing.
So below you’re going to see my strategy. And you’re also going to see an article that I’ve been studying.
The biggest mistake you could make is taking my plan and that article as gospel. For all I know, they’re crap!
But we do need a plan or model to follow. Throwing darts around in the dark is a bad idea.
It’d be great if we could get Keith Baxter to write up a 5 step plan for us to follow on his blog, but for now all we’ve got is my plan assembled from various sources.
Feel free to add to my plan or critique it in the comments. Here it is:
- Make 3-5 videos and try to rank them all. Kind of like shooting for the stars and reaching the moon – if 4 fail but one makes it, I’m a winner.
- Pick a handful of search terms with under 100,000 searches per month. And make sure there’s at least one with video results all ready.
- Optimize my Youtube video with a keyword in the title, description and tags.
- Match the videos tags to other popular videos.
- Comment on Channels that relate to my video, so that I get the link juice back.
- Get several links pointing to the video, as you would with any other SEO endeavor.
Have anything to add or subtract? Please let me know in the comments.
And here’s an article I found insightful and worthy of further study.
The Key To Top Video Rankings On Youtube And Google
Let’s get started today. How about searching for keywords to target?
Good luck and I’ll be in touch.
I’m in.
And your action plan parallels what I’ve been pondering as far as ranking videos since you announced the challenge.
I still owe you an email. Shingles is not cool, but I’m starting to perk up.
The addition I’d make to your list is to check the number of backlinks and the views/age of the videos that currently rank to decide whether it seems reasonable. I.e. I’m not likely to go after a kw with a 3 month old video with 1M views (Hide Yo Kids, Hide Yo Wife). I’m much more game for a term that’s got a 3 year old video with 1000 views.
HTH
Hey Stephen,
I’m not a big video SEO person, but one tactic I’ve seen used well to get views is to post a video response to a high traffic video. That way your video gets listed as a response below the video.
Obviously it needs to be relevant and “on topic” to the original video.
The way to do it with the new Youtube interface is to go to the comments box and click in it. You’ll then see an option appear on the right saying “or Create a video response” which you can then click on and upload a video of yours which responds to the orginal.
Each video can only be a response to one other video btw.
Ian
Thanks Ian! I’d forgotten about that. I plan to make 4 videos, and I’ll probably try this with two of them to see what effect it has. Thanks!