Showing up in Related Videos on Youtube

[Oren.]

I notice that that on YouTube, the related links that show up at the end of our videos are a smorgasbord of our competitors and other videos similar in theme (which makes sense, as those are truly related videos).

What I'm curious about -- and have had difficult finding, is tips and case studies for improving and maintaining appearance in the related video sections, and perhaps some insight into how those videos are rated for for related videos.  Correlation on YouTube seems to be spotty at best, I know keywords and user metrics are key, but any more specific advice or clarification on the issue would be appreciated.

[PhilNottingham]

I don't think that, right now, It has a huge amount to do with G+. However, you can bet that the integration will be there at some point in the near future.

[Oren.]

Thank you for the clarified guidance, even if it is just speculation.  It seems that I may have been looking for a new under-researched development, where none yet exists.

[Oren.]

Interesting -- Thank you for a great response.

For this question I'm just focusing on YouTube.com specifically.

I have one followup question to your answer, when you say results are highly personalized, does it also have to do with connections on G+? (eg. pages you are connected to, or perhaps even people that the video itself is connected to)

[PhilNottingham]

So, there are a number of factors here.

The first thing to recognise is that related and recommended videos are highly personalised. What you see will be based on things you've seen before and videos that YouTube think may be of interest to you. So, if you've watched your competitors videos before, it's highly likely that you'll see more content from that channel again, or content targeting similar topics and keywords.

That said, there are a few other factors at play. YouTube seem to generally only recommend videos within the same broad category as the video you just watched (e.g. science and technology) and click through rate on recommended videos also seems to be a big factor in determining which ones continue to be offered vs those which are offered less.

So, to optimise for that, you should look at keyword targeting for the topics you want to be seen as "related" for, and then generally optimise the performance of the video by ensuring you have good audience retention (look through your YouTube analytics to understand how your performance shapes up) and that you're getting traffic and views through embeds/referring links.

I'd recommend having a good read through http://www.distilled.net/blog/social-media/youtube/youtube-seo/ which, despite being three years old, remains fairly accurate.

Not sure if you're speaking mostly about videos watched on YouTube.com or videos embedded on another site, but with videos you embed on your own sites, you can adjust the settings in the embed so that related videos do not show up. Just unselect the button that says "Show suggested videos when the video finishes" when you go to select your embed code.

[crackingmedia]

Sorry about that Oren. I've not ready anything more recent either which would tend to suggest, until now at least, that the game hasn't changed much.

My best guess going forward as to what might change would be that we will see the same principles that Google is applying to regular search applied into YouTube. So the steady progress to search being more query based than keyword based to seek to answer the intent of the searcher's question will apply.

The other related factor is the development of semantic search and the knowledge graph. It seems reasonable if these same developments are applied to YouTube that we will see related videos providing more of the background story and associated data related to the video just displayed. Whereas up until now related videos have been chosen, for example, based on keywords in the Title, tags etc, the next evolution will see videos more related on topic.

For example, a video about the soil types need to successfully grow roses, may then offer a related video on pruning roses or the history of roses, whereas now we may more likely see just further videos on the same subject..

So, the above is not answers as such, just my speculation trying to look through a not very clear crystal ball.

Peter

[Oren.]

Hey Peter,

Thanks for the link.  I've actually read that one -- I was hoping for something a tad more recent but it's good to know I'm not the only one who is noticing how tricky this can be.

[crackingmedia]

Hi Oren

You are right, YouTube can be tricky to optimise for and I think with its closer integration with Google+ for a time at least it may even get trickier whilst the dust settles.

There was a YouMoz blog post on this subject last year, but whilst it's a little while ago now (in terms of how fast moving online marketing can change), I think you might find it helpful:

Dominating Youtube Search and "Related Videos" Results (Case Study)

I hope that helps,
Peter