For a content creator, ranking the content on top is one of the most common concerns. The ranking of a YouTube video is determined by a variety of factors and making changes considering those factors can ultimately help you to rank YouTube videos.

In this blog, I will reveal 11 crucial factors that affect the rank of your YouTube videos. And after this, you will have a clear picture in your mind of what you need to do to rank YouTube videos and top the search results.

1. Upload Frequency

Optimising the YouTube channel can increase your ranking on YouTube and as well as on search engines like Google. The upload frequency shows how often you upload videos on your YouTube channel. It shows how active a channel is.

Higher upload frequency means that your YouTube channel is active and it has a positive impact on the YouTube algorithms, and ultimately increases the rank of your YouTube channel and as welll as rank YouTube videos.

2. Video Title

The video title leaves a great impression of your YouTube video on the viewers. This will help attract more traffic and will ultimately help you in get views on YouTube videos. The title should be short, as longer titles can be a disadvantage for you to gain the interest of the viewers.

A video title should not be more than 5 words. The keyword should be placed at the start of your Youtube video titles and should always be relevant to the context of the video. This is one of the most simple ways to improve the ranking of your Youtube videos.

3. Video Description

As we now know that the YouTube video title carries a lot of significance of the video, and so the description is also one of the most important YouTube ranking factors. There is a need for a text description that describes the content of your video. If the video description is absent then it will affect the rankings of your YouTube and you won’t be able to gain more traffic.

The YouTube video description should be at least 200 words and it should be just like your titles. It should include relevant and suitable keywords. This is one of the main factors to rank YouTube videos.

4. Video Tags

Apart from the video title and video description, the video tags are also really important. They don’t impact the rankings as much as the video title and video description do but still, video tags are an important element to rank YouTube videos.

It leads to a better understanding of your content by the users. The tags that you use should be relevant and should not go overboard. It should be unique and catchy.

5. Video Quality

Video quality is one of the most crucial factors to rank your YouTube video. YouTube videos with high-quality rank better than lower-quality ones. The video quality has a long-lasting impact on the viewer’s experience. That’s why it becomes very important to produce High-quality videos.

The main focus is on video quality. It sends a pretty strong message to the viewers. If your videos are not of high quality then this may affect the reach and rank of your YouTube videos negatively.

So, while producing a YouTube video, one must not underestimate the video quality so that your YouTube videos can reach more viewers and have a better rank on YouTube.

6. User Experience Metrics

There is a lot of user engagement on the YouTube platform. When it comes to ranking your YouTube videos there use multiple user experience metrics to determine the quality of your videos. The User experience metric includes comments, likes and dislikes, and shares which determine the quality of your content.

If someone likes your video and watches the full video, likes it, comments on it, and subscribes to your YouTube channel then it will send YouTube a message that your YouTube video is excellent and people are enjoying it. One of the most common and simplest ways to get more comments on your YouTube video is to ask questions during the video.

Now, what will happen next is the viewers will reply to your question in the comment section, and hence your mission is accomplished, you have successfully improved the rank and reach of your YouTube videos.

7. Watch Time

Watch time plays a very important role and is one of the most crucial factors to rank YouTube videos. The watch time is essentially the length of each viewing session. Nowadays there is a lot of value in watching YouTube videos.

One of the best ways to increase the length of users’ viewing sessions is to use annotations and also leave the links to the other videos in the description box. It will lead to more watched time and hence it will have an impact on making a better ranking of your YouTube videos.

8. View Count

As watch time is a very important factor to rank YouTube videos, views are still a vital YouTube ranking factor. The more views are equal to the higher rankings. If you want to achieve higher rankings in that case you need a lot of views on your YouTube video.

It is a very difficult job to have a lot of views on your YouTube video. One of the best ways to get more views on your YouTube videos is to mention them in your blogs and also share them on social media platforms which will definitely help you increase traffic on your YouTube videos and ultimately improves the ranking of your YouTube videos. The principle of the watch time applies not only to YouTube videos only but also the entire channel.

For that reason, the watch hours of the videos on the channel get counted collectively. If the channel has a high watch time on a special subject matter, it gets a so-called authority from YouTube. Because of this future content on this topic might be ranked even better.

9. Using Thumbnails

Importance of thumbnails cannot be denied and also have a big impact on click-through rates. It means that the use of thumbnails in the right way could increase the click-through rate of your YouTube videos and thus it leads to higher rankings. You should always use custom thumbnails to make your YouTube videos stand out from others.

The Click-through-rate shows in percentage the number of users who click on the video in any respect after they see it inside the search. This set of rules can recognize how relevant a video is for the user whilst the thumbnail and video name appears to seek results or recommendations. Since, it will grow the Click through Rate, you have to consider a great name and a properly-designed thumbnail.

You can use free tools to create well-designed thumbnails for your YouTube video. The thumbnail should be so pleasing and it should be eye catchy and be able to grab the viewer’s attention. It should be relevant to the content of your YouTube video. Thumbnails play a very crucial role in ranking your YouTube videos.

10. Session duration

YouTube wants to make its audience stay on the YouTube platform as long as possible, the session duration shows exactly that. Longer duration has a positive effect on YouTube algorithms. The session ends show the stats of when the user leaves the YouTube platform, a shorter session end creates a negative impact on YouTube algorithms and the last is the session start.

The session start affects the YouTube algorithms most, the higher session start value leaves a positive impact on YouTube algorithms. Session start shows the stats of your video session time if the video is opened via external links.

11.  CTR ( Click through rate):

Whenever a video appears on the search results, the user has two choices either to click on that or not. If a user chooses to click on your YouTube video it positively impacts your YouTube video ranking and if not then it negatively affects your YouTube video ranking.

The CTR stands for click-through-rate, it shows the data in percentage of the total number of clicks on your YouTube videos by the users, whenever your videos appear on the search result. Higher CTR has a positive impact on the YouTube algorithms and all the above-mentioned factors can help you to manipulate users’ decisions in your favour. Always try to maintain a higher CTR.

Conclusion

These were the 11 crucial factors that affect the rank of your YouTube videos. There is no count of the content that is uploaded to YouTube every single minute. Getting your videos to rank highly is a tough job. So, we discussed the top 11 factors to rank YouTube videos that will help you to improve the rankings of your YouTube videos.

Everyone faces problems when it comes to ranking YouTube videos highly. And the ultimate solution for this is all the factors mentioned above. Keep these ranking factors in your mind when you create your next YouTube video.