How Businesses Can Dominate YouTube Search Results This Year

YouTube is beyond just a video platform. 

It’s the second-largest search engine in the world, next to Google, making it a necessity for businesses that aim to connect with customers and enhance leads, sales and engagement. 

However, with 2.6 million videos uploaded daily, it becomes competitive for businesses to dominate YouTube search results. But, it’s possible if you pull the right strings. 

First off, this isn’t about spammy YouTube strategies such as keyword stuffing or clickbait thumbnails. These are data-backed YouTube SEO strategies that have proven effective through months of research and experiments by the Adilo research team.

Adilo, a video hosting platform, carried out a comprehensive YouTube SEO study. 

The research team analyzed 300 videos ranking in the top 3 search results. The research uncovered actionable strategies that will help your business dominate YouTube search results this year. 

Let’s dive in.

Why Dominating YouTube Search Results Matters

YouTube has more than 2.70 billion monthly active users. This makes YouTube a key digital marketing channel that can bring your business goals to reality. 

However, to get discovered by potential customers,  your business needs to dominate YouTube search results. The more visible your business is on YouTube the more it attracts higher clicks, views, subscribers, and even a loyal customer base. 

Besides, unlike social media platforms, YouTube videos don’t fade away quickly, they stand the test of time. This means, your well-optimized video will continue to generate views, leads and engagement months and even years after its upload. 

In other words, your video works for your business round the clock, which guarantees sustainable long-term business growth.

Additionally, ranking on YouTube search results as a business isn’t about the views, but the conversion. When your business is consistently visible, potential customers will trust your brand, engage with your content and make purchases. 

Plus, if they like what they receive, they will keep coming back, become loyal customers and refer your brand to their friends and family. 

However, you need to put in place key YouTube SEO strategies to dominate YouTube search results.

Data-Backed YouTube SEO Strategies to Dominate Search Results 

With the change in digital marketing strategies, YouTube search dominance isn’t an option, but a must for every business. 

However, if you want your video to rank on top searches, you need to comply with YouTube algorithm metrics.

Here is how to get started:

Invest in YouTube Keyword Research

Keywords are like maps that the YouTube algorithm uses to understand your video content and match it with search intent. 

Quality video content without a defined keyword would get lost. 

So, you need to invest in YouTube keyword research to know what keywords are trending in your niche. You can’t just guess a key phrase because you like how it sounds and expect it to rank on YouTube. 

In contrast, you need access to what your potential customers need and create videos to solve their needs.

YouTube algorithm prioritizes user experience and only ranks videos that answer their queries accurately. That said, the one key question remains, how to know what keywords to use?

There are 3 key ways to discover potential ranking keywords:

• YouTube’s search suggests feature: Insert your intended video phrase into the YouTube search box and it will give you tons of potential keywords related to that phrase. 

• YouTube traffic source: Review your YouTube search report to find key phrases YouTube viewers search for to locate your video.

• Search for your keyword in Google: Input potential keywords obtained from your YouTube search result in Google and see if they rank. Next, use Google keyword planner to check for its monthly traffic and search competition. To dominate search results, create videos with high-volume and low-competition keywords.

Also, we recommend you create multiple videos with the same keyword. 

You have nothing to lose because keyword cannibalism isn’t a problem with YouTube, unlike Google. In addition, the YouTube SEO study found that 19% of YouTube channels have multiple videos ranking in the top three positions for the same keyword. 

Create High-Quality Content

YouTube algorithm prioritizes watch time and engagements. Hence, videos with high watch time and engagement rates would rank on YouTube search results. 

However, these metrics are influenced by the quality of your video. 

When viewers find your video content relevant and useful, they stick around longer and engage with your video. 

Don’t create videos for the fun of it. Instead, use your video to offer solutions to your audience's problems. To do this, utilize storytelling to hook their attention and make them want to watch till the end. 

To encourage engagement like likes, comments and shares, include a strong Call-To-Action (CTA).

In addition, ensure high video production quality; clear audio, HD videos, and professional editing.

The YouTube SEO study results indicate that high-quality videos are prevalent among top-ranking YouTube videos, with 90% of the top three results being either HD or 4K.      

Here’s a quick breakdown:

• 4K – 22 percent

• HD – 68 percent

• Other resolutions (240p, 360p, 480p, and 720p) – 10 percent.

Optimize Captions and Transcriptions 

YouTube algorithm crawls video captions and transcriptions to understand your video content. 

The study found closed captions in 93.7% of the top three-ranking YouTube videos. And 94% of the top three results contained transcripts. 

This means optimization of your video captions and transcription is non-negotiable if your business must dominate YouTube search results.

These two strategies have a positive impact on your video SEO performance because they increase watch time and engagement.

Also, they improve your video visibility and reach—your video becomes accessible to non-native speakers, those watching without sounds and those with hearing impairment. 

Tips to optimize your video captions and transcriptions:

• Your captions and transcriptions should accurately reflect the spoken content.

• Insert your keywords naturally into your caption and transcription.

• Upload the SRT (SubRip Subtitle) file. It makes your captions readable by the YouTube algorithm.

• Synchronize captions with your video’s audio. 

• Add multiple language captions for a broader audience reach.

Keep Video Length Below 10 Minutes

Longer videos are believed to drive more watch time. But, Adilo's research proves otherwise. 

Our YouTube SEO studies found that the median video length for the top three ranking YouTube videos is 536 seconds—8 to 9 minutes long.

So, if you aim to rank on YouTube's top searches, you need to keep your video length below 10 minutes. 

Why?

Audience attention span is shrinking and with tons of other videos competing for their attention, not all viewers have the patience to stick with a 10-minute or more video.

Besides, short-form video increases audience retention rates because they are more likely to be watched in full. 

However, to find the perfect video length for your brand and audience, you should experiment with different video lengths and analyze which works best.

Insert Your Keyword Naturally in the Video Title

Your video title determines if a viewer will click on your content or scroll past it. 

Titles that create a sense of urgency and curiosity increase your video click-through rate. But, don’t deceive your viewers with an enticing title different from the video content. It will hurt your business credibility and SEO performance.

Instead, ensure your title matches your viewers' search intent and include your keyword at the beginning of your title. 

Our study found that only 6% of the top three-ranking YouTube videos have titles that match the search keywords. This proves why these brands dominate YouTube search results. Hence, do the same if you must join their league this year. 

Upload Custom Thumbnails

Thumbnails are visual hooks that pique a viewer's interest to know more about your video.

However, video thumbnails don’t have a direct impact on your YouTube ranking. But, it increases click-through rate by up to 30%, a key YouTube ranking metric. Hence, your business stands a chance to dominate YouTube search results with a custom thumbnail. 

In addition, we found that 89.3% of the top 3 ranking YouTube videos use customized thumbnails.

That means your business should not rely solely on YouTube auto-generated thumbnails, Instead upload custom thumbnails. 

Best practices for custom thumbnails:

• Use high-contrast color 

• Include text overlays that highlight key points

• Use 1280x720 pixels resolution

• Maintain a consistent style

• Show faces and emotions

Create Smart Video Description

Video description gives viewers a quick summary of what your entire content is about. If they are impressed by it they would click your video to learn more. 

Also, YouTube crawls these texts to analyze your video keywords and rank them appropriately. Hence, you need to create a smart video description.

Tips on how to create a smart video description include:

• Include the target keyword in the first 25 words

• Keep it brief and concise, preferably around 200 words. Our study revealed that 98% of the top three ranking YouTube videos have a video description, and the average word count is 222.

• Include external links. We discovered that 78% of the top three ranking YouTube videos have at least an external link in the video description.

• Use bullet points and shorter paragraphs to make it readable.

Rename Your Video File Using a Target Keyword

Users don’t get to see your file name. But, the YouTube algorithm does.

This small factor contributes to your YouTube SEO because YouTube’s algorithm scans your video file name as part of its metadata. Before uploading any video, rename it with your main keyword.

Instead of VID_001.mp4, use youtube-seo-strategies-2025.mp4.

In addition to your video title and description, file names provide YouTube extra context about your video. Besides, when you rename your file it becomes easier for you to locate, organize and categorize your videos. 

Grow Your Video Engagement

Quality video inherently boosts video and channel engagement. But, that isn’t sufficient to dominate YouTube search results.

In addition to optimized videos, you need to grow your video and channel engagement deliberately.

YouTube ranks videos based on engagement metrics, including watch time, likes and comments, shares, and subscribers. Only quality videos attract high engagement, as such YouTube prioritizes such videos and recommends them to users. 

Also, we found that YouTube videos that rank in the top three search positions have a significantly higher average engagement rate of 2.65% compared to the 0.09% average engagement rate for YouTube videos across all industries.

Ways to boost engagement include:

• Ask open-ended questions to encourage comments

• Reply to every comment to create an active discussion

• Use community posts and polls to interact with subscribers

• Encourage likes, shares, and subscriptions with clear CTAs 

Leverage Multi-Channel Promotion

You need to think outside YouTube to increase your YouTube search ranking. 

YouTube favors videos with external traffic. This means videos that attract viewers from other platforms including Google, social media, blogs and emails are more likely to rank higher. 

Multi-channel promotion drives consistent traffic back to your videos and channel which signals to YouTube your content is valuable. 

Here are effective platforms to promote your YouTube videos:

• Share your video across different social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and others.

• Participate in online forums and communities like Quora to share videos related to specific topics.

• Embed your videos in your blog posts.

• Build an email list and send out regular updates about your new videos.

• Collaborate with influencers to promote your content reach

• Try paid advertisement to boost your visibility

Optimize Your Channel Page

Your business YouTube page speaks a lot about your credibility and expertise in your niche. 

Shabby page outlook drives viewers away at first sight. Whereas, a well-optimized page with a professional outlook attracts subscribers, boosts credibility and improves SEO ranking. It further encourages viewers to explore more of your content which equates to increased watch time. 

To get started, get your channel verified, and include relevant niche keywords in your channel name. 

Also, utilize only custom banners and profile images while you optimize your About section for SEO; fill every section correctly including profile, links, and channel details.

In addition, group similar videos into keyword-rich playlists. It helps your videos get ranked as a series which impacts your SEO performance positively.

Try Timestamp

Videos with structured timestamps perform better on YouTube search results because they enhance user experience. 

Timestamps are to videos what chapters are to books—they make it easy to navigate your content. With timestamps, viewers can jump to video sections they are interested in. 

It makes them watch longer and interact with your content, a positive impact on your SEO performance. Besides, the Adilo Research team found that most YouTube videos (63%) ranking in the top three spots have timestamps. 

Scale Up with YouTube Analytics

YouTube analytics helps your business navigate YouTube’s competitive space. 

These analytics provide you with real-time data on your video performance. This way, you know if your YouTube SEO strategies are effective or if you need to make some adjustments.

The numbers don’t lie. So, you need to take it seriously if you aim to dominate YouTube search results this year.

To get ahead with YouTube search analytics, track the below metrics:

• Watch time

• Subscriber growth

• Average watch duration

• Impressions 

• Demographics

• Click-through rate

• Unique viewers

• Traffic sources

Now, What’s Next?

The success of your YouTube SEO strategies is solely data-driven and not based on what you think or assume should work best. Thankfully Adilo’s YouTube SEO study just gave you a headstart.

To dominate YouTube search results, your brand’s video must align with YouTube algorithm metrics. User experience is a core YouTube ranking factor, hence, YouTube favors videos that solve the needs of users.

This means your video must first be valuable, useful and solution-oriented before you can optimize it for YouTube search results. 

Begin now with keyword research to know what your target audience is searching for. Afterwards, use this insight to create a high-retention video applying the YouTube SEO strategies discussed and your business is sure to dominate YouTube search results in no time.