Further to this, here are some further tricks on how to get your videos ranking well.
Title
Make sure you add your Keyword(s) to the Title TWICE (MUCHO important), i.e "How to control your mind - Learn the art of controlling your mind" (sorry for the silly example)
Description
Add your keyword(s) to the description. Do not overdo it and make sure you have 400 - 500 words of content. You want to have a clear Call to Action as well here. Some prefer putting their links at the beginning, but this is down to pure personal preference and has not real effect on ranking.
Tags
Add your keywords and a combo of them as TAGS. Copy your competitor's tags
TIP: Right Click - View Source - Search for "Keywords" and go to the second batch to see ALL their tags. Copy and paste the 20 most relevant ones to your video.
Video File Name
Make sure you name the video file using your keyword(s). This is extremely important and such a simple and basic step that most people skip over this.
Channel Name
If possible, make your channel name the same or similar to your keyword(s) - This is a ninja tip
Again, so simple and basic that most people skip over this.
Social Signals
Send a combo of regular and retention views. Why? Well, realistically even "Gangnam Style" with its 1 Billion + views didnt have PERFECT retention.
Send further social signals such as Likes, Dislikes, Comments, Favs and Subs to the video and channel.
This builds reputation and makes the videos stand out more. Think of it like this, whould you rather watch a video with 1 Million views or with 1,000 views?
Backlinking
Send Social Bookmarks to your video. Do not worry about too many here as YouTube is an authority in itself.
Truthfully, you can be as creative here as you want.
TIP: Another great way of doing this is to go to URL shortening services (such as bit.ly) and get as many different versions of your Video URL to use as anchor text links when backlinking. This way, it seems more natural to Google as well as YouTube.
That's pretty much what you need to do to rank well. Trust me... Keep it simple and you'll be GOLDEN.
Best of luck and blessings.
Ruoall
You say you threw your "silly video" up on youtube...How did you create that?
"Send a combo of regular and retention views." How does one do that?
"Send Social Bookmarks to your video" Same question as above...
"Make sure you name the video file using your keyword"
You also say to write a 400 - 500 of content...that's an article isn't it.
Can I make a video of my latest blog post for eg.
http://iveseenitallbefore.com/15k-in-3-weeks Kind of like your video?
Can you add screenshots next time you do a tutorial it makes it a lot clearer for people to follow. Otherwise great work and I look forward to your reply.
Mike
Can you give me an example of one of yours or someones so I can see how it is put together? I just got a youtube channel the other day and have been wanting to put my first video up so i want to learn the best way of doing it.
You say "Send a combo of regular and retention views." I have no idea what this means can you explain it a little for us Youtube Newbies? :)
How do you send social signals? do you do this yourself or is this something you have others do?
You say keep it simple, but almost all of what you said was foreign to me.