Our study of 1.6 million videos reveals 19 actionable YouTube SEO techniques that can boost your search visibility, increase engagement, and drive more views. Learn the data-backed secrets to top ranking in our 2025 YouTube SEO study.
YouTube has over 4.3 billion videos, so ranking on the top search results can be tough.
To figure out how YouTube’s ranking system works, Adilo, an online video hosting platform, studied over 1.6 million YouTube videos. The research team analyzed 300 videos ranking in the top 3 search results for highly competitive, non-local keywords in 10 different categories.
Some of these categories include healthcare, construction, and real estate.
After over a month of digging into the data, we uncovered 19 actionable, data-backed insights that can supercharge your YouTube SEO and help you land the top spots on the search results.
Wondering what we found? Then keep reading.
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Table of Content
Table of Contents
TL;DR – Key YouTube SEO Statistics
- 19% of YouTube channels have more than one video ranking in the top three positions for the same keywords.
- The average engagement rate of YouTube videos that rank in the top three search positions is 2.65%, while the average channel engagement rate is 4.46%.
- YouTube videos in the top three ranking positions have 300,000 median video views.
- 536 seconds (8 – 9 minutes) is the median length of YouTube videos in the top three positions.
- The average video description word count of the top three ranking YouTube videos is 222.
- 78% of the top three ranking YouTube videos have at least an external link in the video description.
- Only 6% of YouTube videos that rank in the top three search positions have titles that exactly match the search keywords, while 75% are related keywords.
- 68% of YouTube videos ranking in the top three positions are in HD.
- 94% of YouTube videos ranking between position three and one come with a video transcript.
- The percentage of YouTube videos in the top three positions with closed captions is 94.
- 63% of the top three ranking YouTube videos have timestamps.
- 89% of YouTube’s top-three ranking videos use custom thumbnails.
- Only 37% of top-ranking YouTube videos have hashtags.
- The median age of YouTube videos in the top three ranking positions is 29 months.
- 54% of the top-ranking YouTube videos are from verified YouTube channels.
- 63% of the top-ranking YouTube videos come from brand channels, while 37% are from personal channels.
- 82% of the top-three ranking YouTube videos are from channels that included their website, social media links, or both in their video description.
- The median number of subscribers for YouTube videos in the top three search positions is 520,000.
- 59% of the top three ranking YouTube videos are from the United States.
Best YouTube SEO Techniques: Our Findings
Here are the 19 things we found studying over 1.6 million YouTube videos and analyzing 300 in the top three ranking positions.
1. Create multiple YouTube videos for target keywords
Keyword cannibalization is not an issue on YouTube.
It happens when multiple pages on a website target the same keyword and compete against each other for search ranking. Google typically addresses keyword cannibalization by evaluating the relevance of each page to a search query and ranking the most relevant page higher.
As a result, it is uncommon to see multiple pages from the same website ranking on the first page of Google search results for the same keyword.
However, YouTube search results are different. Our YouTube SEO study found that 19% of YouTube channels have multiple videos ranking in the top three positions for the same keyword.
So, creating multiple YouTube videos can improve your chances of ranking for your target keywords.
2. Encourage channel and video engagement rates
Channel and video engagement rates are key YouTube video search ranking factors.
The average engagement rate for YouTube videos across all industries is under 1%, at 0.09%.
Image Credit: Social Status
For eCommerce YouTube videos, the average engagement rate is even lower, at 0.02%, according to our 2025 study of 49,300 eCommerce YouTube videos.
However, we found that YouTube videos that rank in the top three search positions have a significantly higher average engagement rate of 2.65%. So, to rank higher on the video search result page, encouraging viewers’ engagement is a no-brainer.
Channel engagement rate also affects YouTube SEO; channels with videos ranking in the top three positions have an average engagement rate of 4.46%.
Surprisingly, the cumulative average channel engagement rate for videos in the first position is lower than those ranking in the second and third positions, potentially due to the higher number of views that videos in the first position attract.
3. Grow your video views
We are uncertain if YouTube evaluates video views to determine video rankings.
However, our study found that the median video views for YouTube videos in the top three ranking positions are around 300,000.
When we disaggregated the data, a median video view of about 358,000 was found for videos in the first position and 303,000 and 292,000 for those ranking in the second and third positions, respectively.
So, you might want to ramp up your video views if you’re aiming for the top spots on the YouTube search result front page. However, increasing video views may not directly improve ranking, but it can lead to better engagement rate and watch time, which are known to have a direct impact.
4. Avoid long-form videos
According to Google, long-form videos are videos that are over ten minutes long.
If you’re aiming for a top spot on the YouTube search result page, it’s best to avoid them. From our YouTube SEO study, we found that the median video length for the top three ranking YouTube videos is 536 seconds—8 to 9 minutes long.
Several self-proclaimed SEO experts believe that long-form YouTube videos tend to rank better. Our data proves otherwise. Instead, it recommends short-form videos (under 10 minutes), precisely between eight and nine minutes long, to maximize the chances of achieving a top video search ranking.
5. Video descriptions should be around 200 words
Video description is one of the most implemented YouTube SEO best practices.
However, we didn’t find any strong evidence in our data that suggests video description word count directly impacts video ranking. We observed that 98% of the top three ranking YouTube videos have a video description, and the average word count is 222.
So you might want to keep your YouTube video description between 200 and 250 words.
6. Add links to video descriptions
We observed that several top-ranking YouTube videos have external links in the descriptions.
We’re not sure if that practice impacts video ranking. So, we collected and analyzed the data to see what we could find. The research found that 78% of the top-three ranking YouTube videos have external links in their video descriptions.
7. Video titles should satisfy search intent
YouTube is big on content relevance.
The platform tends to reward videos with titles that prioritize matching viewers’ search intent. Stuffing your title with exact-match keywords is not always necessary.
Our study found that only 6% of the top three-ranking YouTube videos have titles that exactly match the search keywords. A staggering 75% are related keywords, 12% are near-exact match, while 7% are All Keywords In Title.
All Keywords In Title is a category we created for videos with a title that contains all the words in the keywords we’re studying but in a different order.
For example, one of the keywords we studied was “healthy recipes for weight loss.” The title of the one of the videos we analyzed is “5 Healthy Low Calorie Recipes For Weight Loss.”
8. Create only HD videos
“Quality” is one of the three main elements YouTube prioritizes to provide the best search results.
According to them, their systems look for “signals that can help determine which channels demonstrate expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness on a given topic.” But we believe there could be more.
Our 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
9. Prioritize keyword-rich video transcripts
Adding a transcript to your YouTube videos is essential for achieving top rankings, as 94% of the top three results in our YouTube SEO study contained transcripts.
The research team believes that YouTube’s algorithm extracts keywords from video transcripts and matches them with search queries to determine relevance and the best results to show searchers.
The algorithm also reads the transcript to recognize entities mentioned in the video to understand the video context. Additionally, transcripts with a higher keyword density tend to rank better on YouTube.
10. Add closed captions
YouTube’s closed captioning and subtitling feature significantly enhances accessibility and broadens the reach of video content. It helps increase video viewership, user experience, and engagement, which may positively impact search rankings.
Our YouTube SEO study found closed captions in 93.7% of the top three-ranking YouTube videos.
So, adding closed captions and subtitles to your YouTube videos is a no-brainer.
11. Add timestamps
YouTube timestamps help viewers quickly navigate to a specific part of a video.
It improves user experience and can lead to better video performance. Additionally, timestamps can provide more context to search engines, improving your chances of a higher YouTube video ranking.
Our study found that most YouTube videos (63%) ranking in the top three spots have timestamps.
But here’s something interesting: About 34% of the videos in the top three positions without timestamps ranked in the first position, while only 33% of those with timestamps ranked first.
So, it probably means that YouTube doesn’t care about timestamps when ranking videos. But adding timestamps to your YouTube videos won’t hurt anything and will probably make viewers happy.
So, we recommend it.
12. Use only custom thumbnails
Viewers are more likely to click on a video if they know what it’s about, and custom thumbnails give them a preview. Google has said that 90% of the top-performing videos have custom thumbnails, and our YouTube SEO research backs this up: we found that 89.3% of the top 3 ranking YouTube videos use them.
13. Video hashtags are not always necessary
YouTube hashtags improve video discoverability, helping you get more views.
They’re also great at helping YouTube understand videos better, which is good for your SEO. But YouTube warned that using hashtags is not a guarantee for video ranking success. And we believe them.
Only 36.7% of the top three ranking YouTube videos used hashtags.
So, hashtags aren’t always needed to optimize YouTube videos for search. But you can still use them to help people find your videos and reach more viewers organically.
14. Patience!
Patience is essential if you’re aiming for the top spot on YouTube search results.
Older YouTube videos tend to do better in search results than newer ones. Our YouTube SEO study found that the middle age of videos ranking in the top three spots is 29 months, which is over two years.
We observed that only 9% of the top three ranking YouTube videos are less than 6 months old, while a staggering 91% are at least six months old.
Looks like the age of a YouTube video impacts its search ranking.
It seems it’s not only about how old the video is. The study also found that YouTube channels with videos in the top three positions have a median age of 111 months—that’s over nine years.
15. Verify your channel
YouTube cares about “Trustworthiness” when it ranks videos, so we wanted to find out if having a verified channel affects a video’s ranking. Turns out, that YouTube might not care that much. Our research shows that only about half (54%) of the top three videos are from verified channels.
It seems YouTube’s algorithm may not heavily prioritize channel verification in its ranking process. We believe that while channel verification might be a minor factor in YouTube’s ranking algorithm, it does not appear to be a decisive one.
16. Brand your channel as an organization
YouTube’s search algorithm tends to favor and prioritize content from established brands and organizations over content from individual creators.
Our study found a significant majority (63%) of the top three ranking videos come from brand channels or channels from established organizations. In contrast, only 37% of the top-ranking videos are from personal channels.
This suggests that building and maintaining a strong brand presence on YouTube can significantly enhance a channel’s visibility and search performance.
17. Add links to your channel description
Adding links to your YouTube channel description may not directly impact your video ranking, but it might boost your video’s “trustworthiness” signal, which is important for getting a top spot on YouTube.
Our research findings show that 85% of the top three ranking YouTube videos come from channels that have their website, social media links, or both in their YouTube channel description.
18. Grow your subscribers
We wanted to find out if having more YouTube subscribers helps videos rank higher in search results.
So, the research team took a closer look at our data. We collected and analyzed subscriber data for the top 3 ranking videos and found that they typically had around 520,000 subscribers.
So, you might want to concentrate on growing your subscribers.
But we also found that 4% of the top-ranking videos are from channels with less than 1,000 subscribers. So, don’t lose hope if you have fewer subscribers; your videos can still rank in the top spots.
Here’s the ranking distribution across different YouTube channel subscriber sizes.
19. Set your channel location to the United States
We thought we’d see more videos from our search location at the top of the search results, like on Google. But it wasn’t so. YouTube prefers to show videos from the US to searchers, regardless of their locations.
So, setting your location to the US could help your video’s ranking. Surprisingly, channels that didn’t indicate their country did better in YouTube search results than those outside the US.
Our study found that the majority (59%) of the top three-ranking YouTube videos are from the United States. Fifteen percent (15%) of the videos were from channels that didn’t indicate their locations, while only 2% of the top-ranking videos came from Nigeria, Africa’s largest country.
Around 24% were from other places around the world, like Canada, the UK, Pakistan, India, Australia, the Philippines, and others.
Guess what? Videos from the United States and channels that didn’t indicate their countries control over two-thirds (74%) of videos in the top three YouTube search results.
It’s not fair, but it’s what it is.
Final Thoughts On Data-Backed YouTube SEO Strategies
This study has provided valuable insights into the YouTube SEO landscape in 2025.
Our findings suggest that YouTube prioritizes factors such as keyword optimization, video quality, and user engagement when ranking videos. Implementing the techniques here can improve your chances of achieving higher rankings and reaching a wider audience.
However, it’s important to remember that YouTube SEO is constantly evolving, and there’s no guarantee that what works today will work tomorrow. To stay ahead of the curve, creators should stay informed about the latest trends and best practices in YouTube SEO.
Ferderick is a seasoned research and data analysis expert with a proven track record of driving business growth through data-driven insights. He leverages his expertise in statistical modeling, data visualization, and machine learning to inform strategic decision-making and optimize business outcomes.
Felix is the Senior Content Editor and Strategist at Adilo, where he harnesses his expertise in social video marketing, online video platforms, video editing, e-commerce, e-learning, and marketing to to help businesses drive results. With a keen eye for storytelling and a pulse on industry trends, Felix crafts actionable content that empowers brands to elevate their video marketing strategies and thrive in the digital landscape.
