YouTube optimisation (optimization), How to rank higher at YouTube

The other night I was watching a local TV show on Australia's ABC network, The 7.30 Report. It reported about how Leader of the the Labor Party, Kevin Rudd wasn't ranking very well at YouTube for a search on "Kevin Rudd". Those 'crazy, mad-cap' comedians, The Chaser's Video had the number one rank.

That's not good for Kevin! It also has serious 'reputation management' implications!

YouTube itself quotes the following about how it determines its rankings...

"YouTube's members rate videos they like, and we review highly-rated and recent videos for consideration in the "Featured Videos" section of the home page and the featured videos on the "Categories" page. In addition, our programming team takes suggestions from members at editor@youtube.com and scans the site for videos of interest."

None of the above really makes sense though, because you can see by the YouTube ratings that there are other video's which have been rated higher further down the results than ones above.

The search for 'Kevin Rudd' at YouTube shows his speech at the Press Club (when he broke into speaking Mandarin) also has a 4.5 star rating, yet videos which have user ratings of 3.5 stars rank higher. It's all very mysterious.

Throw into the mix the 'views' (i.e. how many times the video has been viewed) and you'll see that doesn't correlate to good rankings either. The Press Club video mentioned above has had more views than the Chaser's Video. Still pretty odd.

So there doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason for good rankings at YouTube, so let's stick with what we know...

There are two issues to keep in mind when it comes to YouTube Ranking Optimization (or optimizing YouTube Videos for a better rank).

1. The first is at YouTube itself. Since there's no current way for YouTube to know what the actual 'content' of the YouTube video is, make sure your Title, video Description and Tags have the keywords 'Kevin Rudd' in them. A Lot.
   


2. The second is the Google Universal search. How do you optimize your YouTube Video so that it ranks at Google?
   
   The answer (according to Bruce Clay) is to link to the video from lots of other websites using optimized anchor text, like this:
   
   Kevin Rudd
   
   This fits in with Google's standard ranking algorithm. Links = popularity. Anchor text = "what other people think your web page/site is about". Remember, Google doesn't trust you! One of the ways Google can independently measure the veracity of your 'content claims' is by analysing the anchor text used to describe the links to your web page.
   
   If it all fits, i.e. Page content is matched by Anchor Text content, then Google says to itself, "Houston. We have a match!". "The page (or YouTube video) is about Kevin Rudd. The page says so and everyone else thinks so. They're telling us this with the anchor text they're using."
   
   The problem we have analysing this result for Google Universal results is that right now, Google isn't returning YouTube videos for a search for Kevin Rudd at Google. It will for "Darth Vader" though!
   
   However, at the time of this post, there were Google Universal News results showing for Kevin Rudd.

So how can Kevin Rudd improve his rank at YouTube?

I guess part of the answer is above. More text content, try linking to the video from more websites (with good PageRank if possible, ideally using optimised anchor text).

Get labor party members (Kevin Rudd fans) to rate the video highly and add the video to their favourites!

If you perform a "back link check" on the Chasers video at YouTube, you'll find there are about 32 other websites linking to it (at the time of this post).

The 2nd video at YouTube has 16 back links.

Could there be something there?

Your thoughts?