You may have heard of search engine optimization for your website, but did you know that there is a set of SEO practices for YouTube, too? Just like search engines, YouTube has its own search feature. 

Every day, millions of video creators compete to make their videos appear in the first results of searches, and you can get your mortgage YouTube channel up there, too, if you follow the practices mentioned in this article. 

Read on to discover the top YouTube SEO tactics that can help you improve your ranking. 

1. Rename your video file using a target keyword.

Make sure that your target keyphrase is included in the file name itself before uploading it onto YouTube. This one is easy to miss since viewers will not see the name of the actual file.

However, the file name is one of the key areas (aside from the title and description) that YouTube uses to determine how relevant your video is to the topic. 

So if you have a file titled ‘tips video September 12 upload.MOV’ and it is a video on home buying tips, you will want to change it to ‘home buying tips business name.MOV’. Make the file name as close to the topic and your business name as possible.

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2. Insert your keyword naturally in the video title.

One of the most obvious places you want to insert your target keyphrase is in your video title. However, do not make the mistake of forcing it in the title. It should appear naturally, and readers should find your title intriguing. 

Similar to optimizing a title tag for search engine results, your mortgage YouTube video title should be no longer than 60 characters. You want your readers to be able to read the entire title without it cutting off. 

For example, if your keyword is ‘home buying tips’, a good title for your video could be ‘Home Buying Tips You Did Not Know About’. This title is intriguing, under 60 characters, includes the keyphrase, and we managed to have the keyphrase at the beginning of the title!

It might also be a good idea to use some online tools to research what keywords users are searching for on YouTube regarding your topic. Ahrefs has a free YouTube keyword research tool that provides a fair amount of keywords for you to get a solid idea.

3. Optimize your video description.

Your mortgage video’s description also has to face a character limit. Your description must not surpass 1,000 characters. You may recall that past videos didn’t have very long descriptions, and that is because most of the people who clicked on a video are there for the video, not necessarily the description. But don’t underestimate the power of the video description! 

Since it’s part of the Google “family,” the video description will be indexed on the Google search engine, giving it a solid chance of getting more views and traffic. 

Be sure to accurately describe your video in the first 100 characters, as this is the snippet that will show up before you have to click ‘Show More’. Going back to the home buying tips video example, let’s come up with a good description to support our video.

Buying a home is a big investment, and these home-buying tips will ensure you are getting a good deal. Home buying trends differ from year to year, and along with trends, best practices change as well. 

Got another helpful tip you want to share with our viewers? Comment below and let us know! Also, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe to our channel.

The description above is great because the first sentence describes the purpose of the video and what viewers will get out of it. Plus, it is nearly 100 characters. Not only that, but we also encourage our viewers to engage with the video and subscribe to our channel, which helps your video rank higher. 

Another feature you might want to make good use of is adding a transcript.

Embed Your Video in Your Website

4. Tag your video with popular keywords that relate to your topic.

When you are preparing your video for upload, you have the option to add relevant tags that you think will help viewers find you. This not only helps people find you but also helps YouTube further determine what your video is about to help you rank properly. 

You want to have a good mix of regular and long-tail keywords to reach as many people as possible. However, don’t think that YouTube is not smart enough to detect when you have used a tag that is completely irrelevant to your topic. Your home-buying video should not have a tag with whatever is currently trending if it’s off-topic. The last thing you want is for your 1,000+ subscribers channel to get penalized on YouTube.

5. Categorize your video.

Did you know that you can categorize your YouTube videos? You can find this setting under ‘Advanced Settings.’ Many YouTube channel owners may not properly utilize this feature because it can be hard to determine which categories your video can fall under. In that case, it is always a good idea to do your research. 

Find out which channels are in the lead for a specific category, what their video content looks like, how their audiences interact with their content, and one of the most important points to note, what the style and format of their videos are. 

All of these observations can help you determine whether your video would fit in that category or not. Some examples of categories for your mortgage YouTube channel could be ‘Buying a Home,’ ‘Refinancing,’ and ‘Credit Scores.’

6. Upload a custom thumbnail image for your video’s result link.

Thumbnails have nothing to do with keywords or how YouTube reads your content, but they certainly play a major role in attracting your audiences’ attention. You may notice that when you search for a tutorial or even a fun vlog, the top results will show videos that have eye-catching custom thumbnails. 

YouTube does give you recommendations for thumbnails when you are uploading your video, but at the end of the day, your video will be most successful if you take the time to design a custom thumbnail. Some good thumbnail ideas for mortgage YouTube channels can include a nice luxury-style house with a diagonal arrow pointing downwards, showcasing that now is the right time to buy a home. 

As for text in thumbnails, having actionable words such as ‘Buy a Home Now’ or ‘Don’t Wait to Buy’ etc. can capture your audience’s attention.

Canva is a great platform for creating video thumbnails, and it has tons of free features, including icons, stock photos, shapes, fonts, etc. Although Canva has a design option for ‘YouTube Thumbnail’ with the dimensions already taken care of for you, it is still important to keep in mind that best practices include using images that are 1280×720 pixels (16:9 ratio), and around 2MB or smaller file sizes. Before uploading a custom thumbnail, you need to get your account verified on YouTube. 

7. Use video hashtags to drive YouTube search results.

Hashtags are not only a great way for your mortgage business to be found on social media channels such as Instagram and Facebook, and YouTube as well. The good thing about hashtags on YouTube is that you can add them to your title and description to help viewers find your video. 

Here’s another cool tip: when you add hashtags to your video title, they will automatically get hyperlinked and shown above your title.

8. Add subtitles and closed captions

Subtitles and closed captions are terms that are sometimes used interchangeably, but when it comes to YouTube videos, there’s a critical difference. 

Subtitles are mostly meant for translating languages. Non-native English speakers may find subtitles helpful.

Closed captions, on the other hand, simply display the text being said in the video and do not involve translating dialogue into a different language. 

The files for both subtitles and closed captions will also include timestamps for every couple of lines of the text mentioned in the video, so viewers can go back to them as they want.

Which should you have? Both! Having both subtitles and closed captions gives you a greater chance of your video being found on various search engines. 

9. Increase audience engagement.

We’ve discussed various on-page SEO strategies, but what about off-page SEO? For YouTube, off-page SEO usually refers to the likes, comments, shares, and subscribers that a video or channel receives. That is why you should always encourage audience engagement. Whether you want to ask viewers to like and comment at the beginning, middle, or end of the video is up to you, but definitely mention it in every video. 

Another good strategy is to respond to the comments you receive. Not only does this increase the number of comments on your video, but also makes the viewers feel welcome – prompting them to see more of your videos.

10. Make Longer Videos

Longer videos are great for gaining higher revenue due to the fact that you can achieve more watch time hours and place more ads throughout the video. However, just because longer videos are more advantageous revenue-wise does not always mean that everyone needs to create longer videos. Sometimes, shorter videos gain more views since they are an easy watch.

The best way to decide whether your videos should be longer or shorter is by searching for similar content to yours and seeing which videos performed well. Look up other mortgage channels on YouTube and see what the average length of their videos is. If the longer videos performed better, then you know what to do.

Next Steps…

Now that you are aware of the top 10 best practices to help your YouTube videos rank higher with SEO, you can start creating video content that converts!

If you have not been following these practices and have uploaded videos that may not meet these criteria, you can always go back to those and optimize them. Even thumbnails can be changed on past videos, so there is nothing to fret about.

It’s about time you add YouTube to your mortgage marketing plan and start utilizing the most popular video platform to gain more leads for your real estate business. Need more help with your mortgage marketing? Check out our all-in-one customer-facing tech stack designed to help you generate clients and boost realtor referrals.

Get a Website Demo

You may have heard of search engine optimization for your website, but did you know that there is a set of SEO practices for YouTube, too? Just like search engines, YouTube has its own search feature. 

Every day, millions of video creators compete to make their videos appear in the first results of searches, and you can get your mortgage YouTube channel up there, too, if you follow the practices mentioned in this article. 

Read on to discover the top YouTube SEO tactics that can help you improve your ranking. 

1. Rename your video file using a target keyword.

Make sure that your target keyphrase is included in the file name itself before uploading it onto YouTube. This one is easy to miss since viewers will not see the name of the actual file.

However, the file name is one of the key areas (aside from the title and description) that YouTube uses to determine how relevant your video is to the topic. 

So if you have a file titled ‘tips video September 12 upload.MOV’ and it is a video on home buying tips, you will want to change it to ‘home buying tips business name.MOV’. Make the file name as close to the topic and your business name as possible.

Leverage Video on Your Site – Request a Demo

2. Insert your keyword naturally in the video title.

One of the most obvious places you want to insert your target keyphrase is in your video title. However, do not make the mistake of forcing it in the title. It should appear naturally, and readers should find your title intriguing. 

Similar to optimizing a title tag for search engine results, your mortgage YouTube video title should be no longer than 60 characters. You want your readers to be able to read the entire title without it cutting off. 

For example, if your keyword is ‘home buying tips’, a good title for your video could be ‘Home Buying Tips You Did Not Know About’. This title is intriguing, under 60 characters, includes the keyphrase, and we managed to have the keyphrase at the beginning of the title!

It might also be a good idea to use some online tools to research what keywords users are searching for on YouTube regarding your topic. Ahrefs has a free YouTube keyword research tool that provides a fair amount of keywords for you to get a solid idea.

3. Optimize your video description.

Your mortgage video’s description also has to face a character limit. Your description must not surpass 1,000 characters. You may recall that past videos didn’t have very long descriptions, and that is because most of the people who clicked on a video are there for the video, not necessarily the description. But don’t underestimate the power of the video description! 

Since it’s part of the Google “family,” the video description will be indexed on the Google search engine, giving it a solid chance of getting more views and traffic. 

Be sure to accurately describe your video in the first 100 characters, as this is the snippet that will show up before you have to click ‘Show More’. Going back to the home buying tips video example, let’s come up with a good description to support our video.

Buying a home is a big investment, and these home-buying tips will ensure you are getting a good deal. Home buying trends differ from year to year, and along with trends, best practices change as well. 

Got another helpful tip you want to share with our viewers? Comment below and let us know! Also, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe to our channel.

The description above is great because the first sentence describes the purpose of the video and what viewers will get out of it. Plus, it is nearly 100 characters. Not only that, but we also encourage our viewers to engage with the video and subscribe to our channel, which helps your video rank higher. 

Another feature you might want to make good use of is adding a transcript.

Embed Your Video in Your Website

4. Tag your video with popular keywords that relate to your topic.

When you are preparing your video for upload, you have the option to add relevant tags that you think will help viewers find you. This not only helps people find you but also helps YouTube further determine what your video is about to help you rank properly. 

You want to have a good mix of regular and long-tail keywords to reach as many people as possible. However, don’t think that YouTube is not smart enough to detect when you have used a tag that is completely irrelevant to your topic. Your home-buying video should not have a tag with whatever is currently trending if it’s off-topic. The last thing you want is for your 1,000+ subscribers channel to get penalized on YouTube.

5. Categorize your video.

Did you know that you can categorize your YouTube videos? You can find this setting under ‘Advanced Settings.’ Many YouTube channel owners may not properly utilize this feature because it can be hard to determine which categories your video can fall under. In that case, it is always a good idea to do your research. 

Find out which channels are in the lead for a specific category, what their video content looks like, how their audiences interact with their content, and one of the most important points to note, what the style and format of their videos are. 

All of these observations can help you determine whether your video would fit in that category or not. Some examples of categories for your mortgage YouTube channel could be ‘Buying a Home,’ ‘Refinancing,’ and ‘Credit Scores.’

6. Upload a custom thumbnail image for your video’s result link.

Thumbnails have nothing to do with keywords or how YouTube reads your content, but they certainly play a major role in attracting your audiences’ attention. You may notice that when you search for a tutorial or even a fun vlog, the top results will show videos that have eye-catching custom thumbnails. 

YouTube does give you recommendations for thumbnails when you are uploading your video, but at the end of the day, your video will be most successful if you take the time to design a custom thumbnail. Some good thumbnail ideas for mortgage YouTube channels can include a nice luxury-style house with a diagonal arrow pointing downwards, showcasing that now is the right time to buy a home. 

As for text in thumbnails, having actionable words such as ‘Buy a Home Now’ or ‘Don’t Wait to Buy’ etc. can capture your audience’s attention.

Canva is a great platform for creating video thumbnails, and it has tons of free features, including icons, stock photos, shapes, fonts, etc. Although Canva has a design option for ‘YouTube Thumbnail’ with the dimensions already taken care of for you, it is still important to keep in mind that best practices include using images that are 1280×720 pixels (16:9 ratio), and around 2MB or smaller file sizes. Before uploading a custom thumbnail, you need to get your account verified on YouTube. 

7. Use video hashtags to drive YouTube search results.

Hashtags are not only a great way for your mortgage business to be found on social media channels such as Instagram and Facebook, and YouTube as well. The good thing about hashtags on YouTube is that you can add them to your title and description to help viewers find your video. 

Here’s another cool tip: when you add hashtags to your video title, they will automatically get hyperlinked and shown above your title.

8. Add subtitles and closed captions

Subtitles and closed captions are terms that are sometimes used interchangeably, but when it comes to YouTube videos, there’s a critical difference. 

Subtitles are mostly meant for translating languages. Non-native English speakers may find subtitles helpful.

Closed captions, on the other hand, simply display the text being said in the video and do not involve translating dialogue into a different language. 

The files for both subtitles and closed captions will also include timestamps for every couple of lines of the text mentioned in the video, so viewers can go back to them as they want.

Which should you have? Both! Having both subtitles and closed captions gives you a greater chance of your video being found on various search engines. 

9. Increase audience engagement.

We’ve discussed various on-page SEO strategies, but what about off-page SEO? For YouTube, off-page SEO usually refers to the likes, comments, shares, and subscribers that a video or channel receives. That is why you should always encourage audience engagement. Whether you want to ask viewers to like and comment at the beginning, middle, or end of the video is up to you, but definitely mention it in every video. 

Another good strategy is to respond to the comments you receive. Not only does this increase the number of comments on your video, but also makes the viewers feel welcome – prompting them to see more of your videos.

10. Make Longer Videos

Longer videos are great for gaining higher revenue due to the fact that you can achieve more watch time hours and place more ads throughout the video. However, just because longer videos are more advantageous revenue-wise does not always mean that everyone needs to create longer videos. Sometimes, shorter videos gain more views since they are an easy watch.

The best way to decide whether your videos should be longer or shorter is by searching for similar content to yours and seeing which videos performed well. Look up other mortgage channels on YouTube and see what the average length of their videos is. If the longer videos performed better, then you know what to do.

Next Steps…

Now that you are aware of the top 10 best practices to help your YouTube videos rank higher with SEO, you can start creating video content that converts!

If you have not been following these practices and have uploaded videos that may not meet these criteria, you can always go back to those and optimize them. Even thumbnails can be changed on past videos, so there is nothing to fret about.

It’s about time you add YouTube to your mortgage marketing plan and start utilizing the most popular video platform to gain more leads for your real estate business. Need more help with your mortgage marketing? Check out our all-in-one customer-facing tech stack designed to help you generate clients and boost realtor referrals.

Get a Website Demo

Mortgage company branding is more than a logo. It’s part of the entire consumer experience, how your customer perceives you and is an indispensable factor in your ROI. Everything from the individual graphics to your website and mortgage app appearance to social media posts to online chats is part of your brand. 

Because branding is a critical element of your business, it’s vital that you know the fundamentals of a strong one. By the way, this is true about personal branding as well. Whether you’re a team on 1 or 100, your mortgage brand is your DNA and promise to consumers. Here’s how to do it.

Purpose 

A strong brand reflects your company’s purpose. It’s the reason why your business was established and answers the key question: why should a consumer choose your business over others? 

This is the starting point for your entire branding plan. The more specific you are, the more defining the difference between you and your competitors. Answer these three questions, and you’ll have the foundation to your overarching purpose that is part of your brand strategy:

• What is your business best at?
• What is your business passionate about?
• What difference can your business make?

Consistency

Consistent branding increases familiarity. The more a consumer is familiar with your brand, the more they begin to trust –and even prefer– your brand and business. And when it comes to online consumers who are comparison shopping, consistency and trust can tip the scales in your favor, turning a web visitor into a prospect. 

Graphic elements and color schemes are visual ways to create consistency but don’t forget how your mortgage business tech stack works with your branding. A similar and predictable look, feel, and tone should be apparent in the entire Borrower Experience.

Captivate

One of the hallmarks of a great brand is that it grabs the attention of consumers. That’s not to say that it must be loud or aggressive, but optimally, it should contain some pivot –enough to make a consumer do a “double-take” when they come upon it while browsing for local mortgage brokers and lenders.

Keep in mind that the double-take is more than a cool logo. Captivating with your brand also involves offering the “remarkable” with your services, such as instant quotes or self-generated approval letters. 

Personality

A strong mortgage brand also has a recognizable personality that makes it relatable to its target consumer. We can see this in action with well-known brands like Nike (motivational and inspirational) or Apple (innovative and fresh). 

Authentic brand personality permeates everything from running the company to campaign messages, helping to build rapport and loyalty from your target mortgage consumer. 

Emotional Hook

Consumers are often persuaded more effectively by emotion than logic. A recent collaborative study analyzing 35 years of research into emotions’ impact on decision-making revealed that emotions are a pervasive and predictable driver in decision making.

Thus, a strong mortgage brand needs an emotional hook that emphasizes the benefits to the consumer. This emotional hook (the benefits) excites consumers and motivates them to convert into borrowers.

Community

Your current and past mortgage consumers can be your most effective evangelists and be a rich resource for new mortgage leads by sharing their experience and recommending it. A strong mortgage brand is one that your consumer advocates are thrilled to share. It’s professional, clean, and trustworthy -everything they can get behind to share and go viral. 

Authority

When it comes to the lending industry, authority is a must. Anything less than unshakable authority will cost you business. Ways that you can build authority with your branding include:

• Mortgage content like a blog, videos, and email marketing
• Infographics and eBooks
• Digital mortgage tools like a mortgage app and professionally build mortgage website
• Publish content on industry-respected platforms
• Consistent and active presence across the web, including review sites and social media

LenderHomePage Builds Your Mortgage Brand

A strong mortgage brand sets you up for success. It defines fundamentals like your mission and company values, rallies employees around your vision, emotionally hooks prospective mortgage consumers, excites advocates for your business, and overall helps to facilitate a thriving ROI. So when it comes to a digital mortgage partner, choose one that’s built for branding as well as scaling. 

Try us out for free for 14 days and discover why top producers and enterprise originators trust LenderHomePage for all their digital mortgage platform needs. 

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Scaling a mortgage business requires a 360-degree effort. From staffing to workflow management and technology, growing a mortgage business is just as much about increasing intake capacity as it is about developing professional attributes such as branding. Even if you’re a one-person shop still a year or so away from expanding your business, it’s best practice to build a foundation that can scale with you. 

That said, this article will cover how to build a brand that’s pliable enough to meet your current business needs as well as your future expansion plans.

Then, we’ll give you ideas on how to use strong branding to fuel your mortgage business growth. Let’s dive in!

How To Create A Scalable Mortgage Brand

Developing a scalable mortgage brand begins with writing a mission statement that stands the test of time. It should be well-defined, simple, and honest about who your company is at its core. No matter how large your company gets, this mission statement will remain true. A simple guideline for writing a mission statement answers these questions:

1. What does your mortgage company do?
2. How does your mortgage company do it?
3. Why does your mortgage company do it?

After writing a 1-2 sentence statement that hits all three points above, you’ll be set with a branding foundation that you can use for everything from your business plan to advertising to scaling expanding your business.

Remember to add visuals! Graphics and color schemes are a memorable part of your branding story. While it’s expected that your visual brand will evolve over the years, it should remain relatively consistent to maintain that familiarity and relationship with your public. 

How To Use Your Brand To Grow Your Mortgage Business

Discover Your Target Buyer Personas

A buyer persona is a fictional ideal mortgage consumer. If you’re doing it right, you’d be able to answer questions like where your consumer lives, her income, his fears and drives, demographics, and shopping habits. 

Knowing your brand and mission statement will help you to discover who your target buyer is. Consequently, you’ll know what messages, content, and advertisements you should create to speak to this buyer effectively. Although it may seem like a minor exercise, knowing your target audience can decrease the cost of lead acquisition while also increasing the quality of the lead.

Understand Your Competitive Edge

The fact is that there will always be a competitor with a bigger marketing budget or more resources. But that doesn’t mean that you’re out of the race. Your mortgage business –its value, mission, service –are qualities and benefits that are unique to your business. 

So when attempting to leverage your brand to scale your business, think about what factors make your business attractive and unlike others. Use what you know about your target buyer persona to develop a list of benefits and features about your business and brand and use it as a framework for your marketing strategy to strengthen your reach. Here are a few examples:

• Transparent mortgage process
• Pressure-free self-serve application
• Investment property professional
• Tech-savvy government loan specialist
• Biligual loan services

Use Brand Awareness To Define Your Pathway For Growth

Brand awareness is the initial step of any marketing funnel and a critical component of organic mortgage lead acquisition. Not only does your brand communicate your value and purpose, but it also builds rapport and familiarity between your business and prospect. This awareness is crucial since consumers typically choose what they are familiar with when making purchasing decisions.

Now that you understand that there is “equity” in your brand, inject it into every touchpoint of the user experience. Just like building a long-lasting business, creating brand awareness requires constant effort for a sustained period. 

Be Social. Studies have shown that over 50% of a brand’s reputation comes from being sociable. Be active on social media by sharing content, replying to comments, commenting on other’s posts, and responding to reviews.

Humanize Your Content. Use personality and storytelling to give your brand depth and your prospects something to latch onto. You can do this by sharing client stories, lending scenarios, and even easy-to-read mortgage articles written in a friendly tone.

Technology + Mortgage Branding

A brand’s ability to scale your mortgage requires more than inserting a logo. To positively impact your marketing campaigns, consumer perception, and revenue, mortgage branding requires a 360-degree effort in awareness and consumer experience. At LenderHomePage, we understand this concept profoundly and have woven it into every mortgage software product we’ve developed. 

From our templated mortgage websites to the industry-leading Loanzify mortgage mobile app, our digital mortgage tools invite engagement, strengthens brand loyalty, and definitively set you apart and above your competition. We’re more than software developers. We’re your partners in digital mortgage business success. Click here to start a conversation.