Why Longtail Keyword Phrases Boost Video SEO ... and Your Video's Search Rank

Every video you market online needs a title. The title is often the first thing someone looks at to decide if they are going to view your video or surf away to some other part of the World Wide Web. When your title includes the keyword or phrase you are targeting, the video follows up on

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The promises made in your title, and your description includes your target keyword as well, you give yourself a lot of firepower for the ongoing battle over Google page one search placement.

One of the major factors Google considers in its search algorithm is click-through rate (CTR). If your video appears in search results for a particular phrase 100 times and 10 people click to view your video, your resulting

CTR is 10%. If another similar video targeting the same keyword or phrase has a CTR of 5%, everything else being equal, your video is going to rank higher in search results for that phrase.

Going back to the earliest days of the Internet, longer keyword phrases have consistently produced higher CTRs than shorter 1 to 3-word keywords and phrases. The answer is simple. If you add the word"leprechaun" to your video title, description, tags, and in every other

an available field that accompanies the video, you are fighting every other webpage, image, or video on the Internet that has that word somewhere on it or in it.

A recent Google search for the word "leprechaun" produced a whopping 21.6 million results. That means you are battling more than 21 million competing sources for that word. Using longtail keywords is the simple fix

to dramatically lower the number of competition your video faces.

What Is a Longtail Keyword?

Longtail keywords are phrases of 3 or more words. They are generally very descriptive and sometimes ask a question. In the example we are using, a video that targets the longtail keyword phrase "stories about

leprechauns" is going to face very little competition compared to the keyword "leprechaun."

Here's proof.

A search on Google for the phrase "stories about leprechauns" yielded 493,000 results. By going after a longtail keyword rather than a single

word, you have eliminated more than 95% of your competition. Additionally, there is a greater chance your CTR will be higher, as well as your search engine results for that phrase because your phrase is very descriptive.

In a glance, someone quickly understands what your video is about. This longtail specificity simultaneously boosts your conversions while telling Internet search engines exactly what your video is about. As long as you

follow up with high-quality video and audio, as well as a video that delivers on your titular promise, longtail keywords are beneficial for video SEO in a number of ways.