YouTube has been one of Google’s subsidiaries since 2006 and it is the world’s second-largest search engine after Google. It is possible to help your YouTube videos rank higher on all search engines and that’s by backlinking the videos. Backlinks are the most important factor among 200 others in Google’s algorithm for website rankings. The chances of you appearing in search results are closely tied to the number of appropriate backlinks you could provide for your content. The process doesn’t require any complicated techniques or particularly comprehensive knowledge. In order to improve your link’s position on search engine result pages (SERPs), only a basic understanding of search engine optimization (SEO) will do. In this article, we offer some tips that show you how to backlink your YouTube videos.
What is a backlink?
A backlink is essentially a link that leads users to your website from another website. A relevant backlink that leads visitors to your page informs search engines that your website is significant, which could raise your ranking in search queries. It is somehow similar to when you share a link with a friend who you know would be interested in that content. Google will treat sharing a link to a blog, video, or other resources as a recommendation or stamp of approval that helps promoting the content. However, not every backlink is created same as each other. Let’s go over these important differences that need to be considered when blacklisting YouTube videos.
NoFollow vs. DoFollow links
Backlinks can be divided into two groups in terms of SEO: NoFollow links and DoFollow links. DoFollow links are the ones that benefit your search engine results while NoFollow links are generally ineffective. When these links are fed into Google’s and other SERPs’ algorithms, their ranking values are assessed. Google only considers DoFollow links as deserving of being ranked. Because of this, you should aim to have as many DoFollow links as you can while link building. Back in 2005, Google established this distinction to stop unethical link-building techniques. Nowadays, CMS software such as WordPress will automatically add the NoFollow tag to comment links. Any spam-related comments you encounter are NoFollow links.
Link building for social media Most of the links you create through a social media platform are NoFollows. Regardless, these links will still be effective. NoFollow links generate the traffic you need in order to appear on the first page of Google. Thus, they are still valuable. They’re simply a way for web designers to inform search engine bots that a link is “user-generated”.
How to find out whether your links are NoFollow or DoFollow In order o check a link: Right-click on the link and select “View page source”. A link is a NoFollow if it has rel=”NoFollow” in the HTML of the page. The link is DoFollow in all other cases.
Why it’s important to backlink to your YouTube videos Link building and brand awareness are closely intertwined in the modern marketing and SEO landscape, particularly when it comes to video content. You can acquire a significant number of relevant backlinks in a rather short period of time by using a strong content marketing approach.
Looking at video analytics to assess incoming traffic As previously stated, search engines will consider your videos to be credible when you have a higher “external” traffic percentage. And gradually, you’ll notice that your videos are receiving more organic search traffic. This occurs because YouTube wants people to continue using their platform. Therefore, Google and YouTube promote anything that draws in visitors and keeps them there.
How to backlink your YouTube videos Since Google defends its rankings and punishes anyone who tries to cheat and manipulate the system, it is crucial to build your backlinks ethically. Because their system continuously crawls and catalogs pages, it can detect websites that aren’t abiding by the regulations. Google algorithm is able to detect a natural backlink profile from an unnatural one. Suppose you received 5,000 links to your video in a single day, but only two or three over the following few weeks. As time goes on, suddenly your website obtains an additional 1,000 visitors in a month. This questionable activity will be flagged by the Google algorithm. You will annoy people if you spam your link in irrelevant places. Besides, the backlink is useless if the content on which you are spamming your link is unrelated to the video. If you don’t place your link where you know you’ll get interested viewers, people don’t watch the entire video, and this will inform YouTube that your video is “trash.” Therefore, watch time will plummet in addition to the SEO. Here are five ways to backlink your YouTube videos.
1. Share on social media Social media platforms have the ability to make your YouTube videos extremely popular and raise their engagement. That is, of course, if you have a good knowledge of content strategy. Millions of people are active on popular social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Reddit. If you decide to use social media for link-building, it is absolutely important to constantly stay active and post regularly. As more people watch and share your videos, your video generates more natural backlinks. Answering these questions will help you increase social media’s impact on your YouTube videos: Are you getting the results you wish out of the posts you share? When did you last analyze your social media process? Are you posting on enough platforms? Take the significant social media platform, Pinterest, as an example. There are more than 433 million active users on Pinterest per month. However, not many people use Pinterest when it comes to backlinking their videos. While in fact, backlinking your YouTube videos in Pinterest Video Pins will give you astonishing results. Pinterest Video Pins play in the user’s feed and attract their attention by using a cover image. GoDaddy Studio features a ton of free templates and tools to help you design a charming cover image for your video content in no time. If you have a hard time editing these videos for each individual social media platform, websites like Repurpose.io will do it for you. Once you post your video on YouTube, the website will automatically post it to other platforms with the appropriate editing.
2. Answer forums and Q&A sites People discuss different industries on online forums like Reddit or Quora. They give their opinion on different subjects and provide links to help support their arguments or answer questions. You could use these forums to backlink your YouTube videos. This way, you will get numerous viewers that are actually more valuable than others because they are searching for answers and are prepared to watch your videos completely, or a good chunk of them at least. What would really be smart is you going on and detecting those questions, then creating YouTube videos answering them if you have the knowledge or abilities to do so. Afterward, you can backlink your videos by sharing them. Voila!
3. Embed YouTube videos to your website and other related websites Adding a YouTube video to your website does not technically count as “link-building”. However, it still provides you with a chance to improve the SEO of your video while also increasing its views, even if users don’t watch the video on the YouTube website itself. Imagine you have a product demo video on your YouTube channel, and you decide to embed that video on a relevant webpage on your website. When someone goes to your website and watches the video there, the video’s viewership and engagement continue to rise. This informs Google that your video is relevant to the information on the website, and as a result, their system justifies a higher ranking for your link.
4. Make a separate blog post for each video When you can create a video on specific content, you sure can write about it as well, right? Write content around your YouTube video in addition to producing the video and optimizing it for YouTube. Then post the written content on your blog. Backlink to your YouTube video by embedding it on your blog. Blog postings can include instructional, how-to advice, or interesting reviews. This kind of information is useful and valuable for your viewers. Pro tip: Summarize the main points of your video and elaborate on them in your writing. This strategy is particularly effective because people mostly tend to view short videos. Additionally, you can upload your summary on YouTube and link to the extended version.
5. Collaborations Collaboration videos have been a thing on YouTube since the early 2010s, and they are still very much in vogue. If you are a content creator in a particular field, try to guest post for a business or individual that uploads material that is comparable to yours. Take REI’s YouTube channel for instance. They collaborate with various influencers who advertise their products in their content. Clearly, the brand itself has thousands of YouTube subscribers. However, these video collaborations give the business a more personal touch while also increasing SEO traffic to the influencer’s personal channels. The idea is intended to attract potential customers who otherwise wouldn’t view your content. The collaboration will also gain views from other creators’ subscribers and visitors who could end up following you as well.
We’re not done yet! Your YouTube channel itself is fantastic for adding backlinks since there are numerous spots on your channel where you can add backlinks to drive traffic and raise the backlink profile score of your website.
Backlink on your channel Firstly, let’s talk about your channel banner. Link your website and those social media platforms that you’re most active on in the channel description. Provide some relevant links for the About section as well.
Include links in the YouTube video Next, include a link in the first line of the video description. This is highly recommended since the link would be “above the fold”, meaning users don’t have to expand the description to see or click on it. For your next step consider cards and end screens. Cards are a fantastic option that shows users clickable content such as other videos, links to other websites, playlists, and polls, while the video is still playing. End screens are similar to cards only they pop up at the end of the video. Again, you can use them to link to other channels, videos, and different playlists, and add links to a custom URL. Although, you would not be able to add custom clickable links unless you are accepted into YouTube’s Partner Program. To join the Partner Program, you must get 1,000 subscribers with 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months, or get 1,000 subscribers with 10 million valid public Shorts views in the last 90 days. The fact that the links you include come from a website with some of the highest domain authority will also give them some SEO power.
Final thoughts Understanding how to backlink to your YouTube videos will significantly increase the number of views you receive. Start with methods that you think might be easier for you to get done. You can keep including more sophisticated ones in your content plan as you gradually improve and become more familiar with the process. For example, having a corresponding blog linked to a YouTube video and vice versa might be an easier step for most people. The blog doesn’t always need to be something fancy. It could be as simple as explaining the video alongside some additional information or including a few related photos that pique the audience’s interest. Your uploaded videos need to be optimized, of excellent quality and include pertinent links. When you run a successful YouTube channel offering your audience valuable material, you will gain more direct traffic and organic backlinks.
