Seven steps to ranking number one on YouTube

Executive overview

YouTube's scale means discoverability is the entire game. Most creators lose not on content quality but on technical SEO basics.

Seven concrete steps cover keyword research through closed captions — each targeting a specific ranking signal YouTube uses.

Getting found is the prerequisite; everything else is secondary.

The seven steps

1. Keyword research — use answerthepublic.com for trending topics and ubersuggest.com for volume; both update daily.
2. Title optimisation — place target keywords in the title; the video content must match search intent or viewers bounce immediately.
3. Description and file name — put the most important keywords in the first two sentences; keep description under 200 words; add keywords to the video file name.
4. Hashtags — add keyword-based hashtags to titles and descriptions to surface in hashtag searches and improve suggested-video placement.
5. Category selection — choose the most specific relevant category, not the most generic; users can filter search results by category.
6. Custom thumbnail — use 1,280 × 720 px images under 2 MB; thumbnails drive click-through rate, which directly affects rankings.
7. SRT subtitles — upload an SRT file rather than relying on auto-transcription; allows keyword highlighting and improves rankings.