Top 5 Ranking Signals Instagram Measures to Prioritize Posts (2023)

This post was updated on January 9, 2023.

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, published a video in which he shared the 5 most important “interactions” IG measures to calculate whether or not a Post, Video, Reel, or Story is worth prioritizing in the feeds. I’ve outlined (and strategized) all five.

End of day, the performance of your next post on Instagram is tied to is ability to generate interactions. Interaction = Visibility. In other words, a post that fails to generate any sort of response/feedback, like views, hearts/likes, swipes, comments, and so forth, simply isn’t going to be circulated widely through the feeds. And, frankly, if your your post isn’t getting shown, it’s as if it was never even posted.

Additionally, Instagram is testing/releasing a couple new filters that’ll enable its users to rearrange what they see in their feeds. The first filter has been dubbed, “Following” which will simply sort the posts of whomever a user follows into a chronological feed. The second is called, “Favorites,” which will enable users to manually select their favorite accounts and prioritize only those accounts’ posts in their feed.

That said, these are additions, not replacements. By default, your Main Feed will continue rank and personalize what you see as it does presently.

So, going forward, there’s gonna be a Main Feed with sorting options (i.e., “Following” and “Favorites”), a Story Feed, an Explore Page, and a Reels Feed. That’s A LOT of feeds!

My thinking is… it’s all the more important to understand the ranking signals IG prioritizes no matter the feed in question. Hence, the top 5 interactions to get your posts to rank:

Top 5 Instagram Interactions

  1. Time-Spent: Just like money is the currency of economies, attention is the currency of algorithms. Literally every algorithm out there—Google, Facebook, etc.—prioritizes content that holds viewers attention. Attention signifies relevance. So, obviously, make content that captivates. But beyond that, utilize post formats that innately hold attention: e.g. subtitled videos, swipe-through carousels, “meatier” captions, and/or talkative comment threads.

  2. Hearts/Likes: Attention speaks volumes, but action, arguably, speaks louder. For example, a user watching a video start-to-finish is definitely a HUGE algorithmic consideration... but a user willing to go, quote-unquote, “on the record” with a "Like"—now that’s next-level. Here’s a simple (or not so simple) question: are you publish-ing content that’s “Likeable?” If you don't know for certain, visit your IG Insights to calculate your Reach-to-Likes ratio.

  3. Comments: Comments put the “social” in social media.” So if a post doesn’t spark much of any dialogue in the comments thread, then chances are, its reach will be comparatively underwhelming. For that reason, when a user comments on your post, always reply! In fact, reply with a question or tag other Instagram users in an effort to stir up a bigger discussion. Conversation cultivates Community.

  4. Saves: People Save (i.e., “bookmark”) posts they want/plan to revisit. Instagram is continuously observing and inferring the presumed interests of its users so that it can prioritize what they see in their feeds respectively—and the Save button is a dead giveaway. People save posts that are useful or offer a lasting value, worth coming back to over-and-again. My advice: if the post warrants it, write-in a recommendation to Save it in your post caption.

  5. Profile-Taps: If a user taps to visit your profile, odds are, it’s someone who doesn’t follow you. Of course, it could be somebody who does, looking to peruse your posts. But regardless, does your profile deliver? As a non-follower scans your page, for instance, do they opt to follow you? That's why it’s critical to dial-in Profile Name, Bio, Link, and Highlights to help convey your story! And, arguably more important than that... it’s ALL about your content—does it compel or repel?

Realtor Marketing Strategies that GAIN VALUE Over Time ⏳

Candidly, one of the major annoyances about marketing, in general, is that it’s seemingly “here today, gone tomorrow.”

Gotta keep posting on social, keep running ads, keep mailing postcards, keep sending emails, and on-and-on it goes -- the never-ending hamster wheel 🐹 of marketing.

To some degree, that’s just in the nature of marketing -- but not ALL marketing. For example, some marketing avenues and channels gain “marketing value” as time passes⏳. I’ve gotta be honest, I like the sound of that!—let’s do more of that kind of marketing. For example:

  1. Reviews, photos, and videos published on your 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞 (GBP). As would-be customers discover your GBP by way of Google Search and Maps, by extension, they’ll peruse the contents of your profile—including (but not limited to) its reviews, photos, and videos.

  2. Keyword-rich videos hosted on your 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 that rank top-of-page in customer searches. High-quality YouTube videos have a wayyyy longer shelf-life than videos posted on other, scroll-based social platforms.

  3. In a way, your 𝐓𝐢𝐤𝐓𝐨𝐤 videos. When a new viewer discovers one of your videos, for instance, TikTok will start to show ‘em more of your videos. What’s more, with TikTok, you have an option to “pin” key videos at the top of your profile grid.

  4. Your 𝗕𝗟𝗢𝗚! Every post on social should ALSO be published as a blog on your website, living on in the afterlife 😇 of SEO. A post (photo, video, or whatever) on Facebook or Instagram, for instance, burns through the feeds w/in a day or so, and then—poof!—it’s over. It’s like the life expectancy of a fruit fly 🪰. A blog, on the other hand, is more like a turtle 🐢— it can rank in Google searches for a good-long while!

What Realtors REALLY Sell (and It ISN'T Houses 🏡)

“If you’re called a great salesperson, you’ve lost.” (Phil Jones, Exactly What to Say)

I just love that quote – because it’s true! Your best sales experiences, no doubt, occurred when you didn’t realize you were being sold. It just felt natural and intuitive.

So if you’re coming off as salesy or pushy, candidly, it’s because you aren’t clear on what you’re selling.

I’d love your feedback to this question: 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗱𝗼 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂?

Instagram Testing a New Pinned Posts Feature

Instagram is testing a new feature: PINNED POSTS.

TikTok has long enabled its users to “pin” videos to the top of their respective pages, and, of course, “pinning” Tweets or Facebook posts is old news. Welp, evidently, it’s time for IG to catch-up.

The question is—assuming the feature gets officially released—what should you pin? My advice: either pin content that provides an ideal first impression of what your page is all about content-wise OR a post/video that outlines the value proposition of of your business.

2 Types of Marketing: Brand-Building VS. Lead-Generation

Let’s talk #MarketingStrategy… Marketing has 2 main purposes: 🅰️ Brand-Building. 🅱️ Lead Generation.

But the question is, in what order?—meaning, are you supposed to build a brand that attract leads OR run campaigns to lead generate and then brand to nurture?

What’s your objective for marketing? Would love to hear in a comment below ⏬

5 Overlooked Channels for Distributing Your Social Media Content in 2022

The fact is, making content entails A LOT of work. So failing to distribute/syndicate that content across the web to be seen by the widest possible audience is, IMO, a crying shame 😭.

Having said all that… publishing content properly (on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and elsewhere), is, in its own right, a MASSIVE undertaking. My advice is to implement a solid distribution system:  e.g. a virtual assistant, a third-party publishing software (Sprout, HootSuite, Buffer, Sendible, Creator Studio, et al.), an admin/coordinator, or a combination of any or all three. 

Content creation is ½ the battle; content circulation is the balance—and, perhaps, you’re overlooking a few key placements for posting your content.


Here are 5 channels you may be missing:

  1. Make every social media post its own BLOG

  2. Recap the content you publish across social in a weekly EMAIL DIGEST

  3. Publish all your content (photos, videos, etc. — linked to your blog entries) on PINTEREST

  4. Share your content in relevant FACEBOOK GROUPS (but don’t violate any Groups’ rules)

  5. Upload your pictures and videos (30-seconds or less, up to 75MB, and at least 720p) to the Photos section of your GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE


Top SEO Keywords for REALTORS to Rank on Google

Get this… nearly ½ of Google Searches are conducted w/ local📍intent. What’s more, 93% of ALL those “local searches” are, in fact, looking for a local business -- like yours! Question is, does your business rank?—on Google, in Maps, on YouTube, and beyond. 

My advice:  build-up your SEO by focusing on the right types of 𝗸𝗲𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀. Details in the video ⤴️ 

5 Home Buyer Objection Handlers for Realtors (Spring, 2022)

You don’t need me to tell you that it’s a competitive real estate market 😥. Agents have been hustling like crazy:  showing properties, writing-up contracts, loosing multiple offers (far too often), and on it goes 🔂. Frankly, it’s all a bit maddening.

Home price escalation, rising interest rates, and limited inventory have caused quite the predicament. And, as a result, lots of home-buyers have grown rather apprehensive about moving forward or not.

No doubt, buying a home is a BIG decision—always has been. And no script or dialogue can quote-unquote, “make” somebody buy a house. (Nor should it.)

Nonetheless, in the midst of a “tough market,” in my opinion, a (respectful) dose of “tough counsel” is appropriate.

Truth is… nobody can go backwards to buy a house in yesterday’s market—nor can anyone assuredly predict how tomorrow’s market will or won’t turn out. Fact is, we only sell houses in today’s market—not yesterday’s or tomorrow’s.

FREE PDF DOWNLOAD: 5 Home-Buyer Objection Handlers (for Realtors)

Objection Dialogues/Ideas

  • Home-Price Sticker Shock 😱

    • I can appreciate that… Real estate certainly tends to go up in value. I wonder… What do you think this home will cost, say, a year from now? [Listen] So I guess what matters in the future is whether or not you purchased the property today, right?

  • This isn’t my “Dream Home” 😔

    • I can appreciate that… Ever wonder how some people afford houses like {Dream Home}? [Listen] In many cases, it's because they bought a home like {Subject Home}, later sold it, and then reinvested the gains into their dream home. Most people don’t "buy"a dream home—they "trade-up" to it.

  • Waiting on Interest Rates 📉

    • I can appreciate that… By nature, rates always rise and fall. The good news is you can refi a mortgage if/when rates go down again. What you cannot do, however, is go back in time to buy a house at today’s prices. Historically speaking, home values nearly always go up.

  • Looking for a Good Deal 💸

    • I can appreciate that… In my experience there are two types of home buyers—those who are looking to get a "good deal" versus those who will do whatever it takes to "get the deal." The only question is… how do you define a "good deal," in say, a year from now?

  • Friend Only Paid $$$ Last Year 🤨

    • I can appreciate that… In my experience there are two types of home buyers—those who are looking to get a "good deal" versus those who will do whatever it takes to "get the deal." The only question is… how do you define a "good deal," in say, a year from now?

Mindset to Gain More Social Media Followers in 2022

Follower and subscriber counts are important — as long as you’re not buying ‘em. When someone subscribes to your channel or follows your page, it indicates a perceived value in what you’re publishing content-wise.

That said… don’t get hung-up on numbers AND don’t expect the growth to happen overnight. Focus your attention on producing value-packed videos, posts, and stories—and, over time, the pace of growth will quicken.

On the other hand, if your pages are stagnant month-after-month—and you’ve never paid for followers or engagement—perhaps take a second look at WHAT you’re posting, WHEN you’re posting, and/or HOW you’re posting. Not that it’s the same for everyone, but, at the end of the day, your audience is whatever your content attracts 🧲. So perhaps test new types of content.

In addition, here are some simple best-practices for posting to put into effect:

  1. Always pin/tag your location on Instagram and YouTube: e.g. Nashville, Downtown Nashville, etc. Show IG and YT where you content is the most relevant.

  2. Only use 3 - 5 hashtags (in the caption) of your IG posts — and make sure they’re super descriptive of the content you’re publishing. Avoid hashtags you’d “like to rank on” and stick with only what’s relevant to each respective post.

  3. For videos, nail that opening line! Absolutely no dead-time or no self intros because it's mission-critical to hook viewers attention immediately!

  4. Post tons of Reels and TikToks — you really can’t overdo ‘em.

  5. Strengthen your captions and ALWAYS include an engagement-CTA, such as: “Tell me what you think in a comment below.” And reply to each and every comment—no ifs, ands, or buts.

Trending Audio Gives Your Instagram Reels WINGS 🛫

Trending Audio 🎵 gives your Instagram Reels, wings! If you wanna get MORE views 👀 — add (or layer-in) music out of IG’s audio library.

To find trending music/audio:

  • Tap the “+” button to create a post, choose “Reel,” then tap the 🎵icon and surf through what’s in your “For You” feed.

  • You can also search audio from w/in IG’s Story creator. Once in your Stories, tap the stickers icon, select Music, and then press Browse option where you can see even more trending music options.

  • And last, if you stumble on an audio clip you like in someone else’s Reel, just tap the audio artwork in the lower-right corner, and then press the “Save Audio” button.

In the Reels feed, Instagram algorithmically prioritizes what you see based on:

  1. Your historical activity

  2. Past interactions you’ve had w/ the author

  3. Elements w/in the Reel—like its audio, for instance.

If you wanna get the best results out of any social platform, you’ve gotta leverage the latest features and formats.

5 Email Marketing Tips for Realtors (in 2022)

I’m willing to bet you’re not sending enough email. I know, I know—that’s a big statement, especially considering how much email each of us receives on a daily basis. What I mean is, we’re not sending enough VALUABLE email. The fact is, if you poll any group of marketers, chances are, they’ll unanimously vote email as their best performing sales/marketing channel.

Question is, what should you send? Answer:  CONTENT 😉. Start to think of email marketing as another channel to distribute your blogs, videos, and social media posts. If you immerse yourself in creating valuable content—tips, advice, and updates about your local marketplace—then no matter where you publish that content, it’ll be received with great enthusiasm. Email included. Why? Because it's valuable/useful.

Now, what to send is one matter—best-practices around HOW to send your email is another. Scan through the stack of images for tips on how to get better performance out of your email marketing campaigns.

  1. Everything Clickable: Since Apple’s release of its Mail Protection Privacy program, Open-Rate metrics are virtually unreliable. Nowadays the Mail app on iOS devices preloads ALL your emails on its “proxy servers,” which email service providers interpret as an open—even if the recipient never did so. So hyperlink your images, text, and so forth so that you can get a better read on who’s consuming your campaigns.

  2. Smartphone Optimized: Year-over-year, mobile email adoption rates continue to soar. That being the case, it’s critical to ensure your email campaigns are outfitted and optimized for smartphone consumption. For example, make sure text is sufficiently sized so it's readable, avoid multi-column layouts in which viewers have to pinch-and-zoom in order to see properly, and make all buttons extra BIG for an easy tap.

  3. Preview Text: When you send an email campaign, there’s an option to customize the “preview text,” which is the sentence-or-two snippet that appears below the sender name and subject line in recipients’ inboxes. If you don’t modify it, by default, it’ll usually say something unfortunate, such as: "Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list." Nooooooo! My advice: customize it!

  4. First-Name Personalization: When someone says or writes, JASON—as would be expected, it get’s my attention. Why? Because that’s my name! It’s simple psychology. My advice: utilize your email service provider’s {FIRST-NAME} merge tag feature so that your bulk emails send out personalized to each and every recipient. It’ll increase your campaign's relevance and, by extension, its performance.

  5. Drop the ”Newsletter:” Not literally. In fact, I think the concept of a newsletter—that is, a recurrent email campaign sharing news, tips, advice, and/or updates related to your business—makes for a fabulous email. However, that being said--whatever you do--DON’T incorporate the word “Newsletter” in your subject line. It’ll get deleted faster than you can type DELETE.

5 Database Marketing Ideas for Real Estate Agents

Your DATABASE of past clients and sphere-of-influence contacts is probably your BEST source of business. Question is, are you, quote-unquote, “working it” sufficiently?

Swipe through the images above to review FIVE marketing ideas to effectively nurture your database.

  1. Weekly Email “Roundup” - Email marketing is WAY underrated—and I know why. It’s because far too many agents are sending out canned, pre-written emails that  don’t work. My advice: start to view email as a channel for distributing your content. As you publish blogs, videos, and more, assemble and send out a weekly email digest. It’ll improve your performance metrics and, more importantly, it’ll nurture your database.

  2. Educational Webinars - I'm not talking about your run-of-the-mill "first-time homebuyer" or basic "seller" seminars. I'm talking about much more nuanced, relevant topics. Imagine offering your database contacts monthly (Zoom-powered) webinars, tackling topics like ew construction, negotiating through multiple offers, buying/selling at the same time, and more. Be the knowledge broker!

  3. Outbound Handwritten Notes - Let’s face it:  some marketing channels give off a phony vibe. Like, I don’t feel warm and fuzzy when I get a mass text message. “Reply STOP to unsubscribe,” haha 😂. But handwritten notes, I must confess, are pretty-darn touching. Trouble is, they’re high effort!—or, at least, they were. Look at bulk-sending plat-forms like Audience.co, HandWrytten.com, or HandWrite.io. 

  4. Google Display Network Ads - Position your brand across the web via the Google Display Network—i.e., the banner ads you see scattered across sites & apps in side-bars, pop-ups, footer-bars, and elsewhere. This’ll help to keep you top-of-mind w/ your database. Head over to Ads.Google.com, create a new ad campaign, and upload your database contacts to the Audience Manager, thereby enabling Google to retarget your peeps.

  5. Home “Equity Updates” - Homes have been & are still appreciating at record pace. That being said, what’s your pro-cess to keep your database contacts in the loop? Perhaps try sending out quarterly “Equity Up-dates”—not as a straight-up sales pitch to list, per se—but as a professional courtesy. After all, they’re your database contacts and so it’s on you to keep them informed about the market. Use an automated tool or run your own comps—either way, it's about sharing the data.

Simple Video Strategy to Output a TON More Videos (for Realtors)

My advice… don’t view VIDEO CREATION as someone else’s job and step in front of that camera 🎥

I not saying you shouldn’t build in layers of support: e.g. videographers, editors, or social media management/distribution. However, at the end of the day, it’s YOUR content—and, in my opinion, you’re not making enough of it! (Granted, I’m not either 🤪)

@MoveMetoTX, for instance, is posting an Instagram Reel daily and @ByronLazine is up to publishing three TikToks per day. And, because of that, their pages are growing rapidly—and, by extension, so are the number of inbound leads and referrals they’re generating.

I know what you’re thinking: “How on earth 🌎 am I supposed to make that many videos⁇”

Thing is, not all videos require the same level of effort/time to produce. Neighborhood tours, on-site interview with local business owners, and videos like that, for instance, tend to be a bit more involved. Contrarily, some types of videos are quick and easy to shoot/edit. Here are a couple of ideas:

🟩 Green-Screen News: Setup news alerts for all-matters real estate as well as anything that impacts your local community. Next, screen-shot or screen-record the article on your phone. After that, head over toto IG to film a Reel, tap the effects ✨ icon in the Reels editor, select Green Screen, and then set the subject article to the background. Finally, press record and “react” to the news. E.g. @therealjeremyknight.

🗣Quick Answers: Write-out a list of like 30+ real estate questions—they sort of questions to which you can extemporaneously riff an an answer on the fly. Also, pick super specific, intriguing questions and stay away from overplayed, “vanilla” topics. Then, set up a camera, tap record, and just start answering the questions one after the next. Once done, send the recording to an editor who can slice ‘em up into individual video files—ideally, vertical videos for Reels and TikToks.

IMO, video is the best marketing medium of all time. If you're w/ me, leave a comment below ⬇️.

Where to Add Videos on Your Google Business Profile — for Realtors in 2022

Google Business Profile hack: add at least one VIDEO to your profile per week! Make it vertical or horizontal—that part doesn’t matter.

If you do that in tandem with sharing Google Posts and Photos on the regular (as in, daily), you’re gonna see a massive SPIKE in viewership of your profile. And we all know more views—that is, more traffic to your page—means more opportunities for would-be/could-be customers to perform key actions, like calling or messaging your business!

Watch the video for a full set of instructions and please share this COMMENT below if this type of content is helpful to you.

Why You Can't Outsource Your Videos in 2022

Just a friendly reminder to be the knowledge broker! In a know-you, like-you, trust-you based of industry like #realestate, for instance—video marketing is pure magic. The way I see it:  there’s just no other marketing medium in existence that captures/conveys your AGENT-BRAND quite like video. 

So the question is:  are you appropriately prioritizing video creation?

Case in point… I had an opportunity recently to speak at a pretty sizable conference. After my presentation I posted a short VIDEO of me speaking at that conference—and, what struck me was that the video reached about 5-times as many people as the actual presentation. I’m certainly not intending to brag or imply any sort of negativity here—far from it. What I’m trying to say is that the reach and exposure you can gain off of video marketing is, for all intents and purposes, w/o equal.

So, if you’ll please forgive my bluntness—stop viewing video (and content creation) as someone else’s job and step in front of that 🎥.

How to Gain More Instagram Followers in 2022 (for Realtors)

True or False: “The size of your Instagram following doesn’t matter; only engagement matters.” I say FALSE and here’s why.

Before I get too far into this… Yes, of course, engagement matters—it’s the SOCIAL in social media. But it’s not the end-all, be-all. New followers (on the regular), for instance, are indicators of consistently published, quality content—an account worth following, so to speak.

Granted, there are flukes… Like, for instance, you got a bunch of followers all at once because someone w/ a bunch of followers tagged in a Story or something along those lines. That’s not what I’m talking about here; I’m talking about steady, predictable growth (daily, weekly, monthly and so on). And I’m certainly not talking about purchased followers!

So you want more followers? End of day, tactics can do a lot to help, but it boils down to content and community.

The Best Source of Real Estate Listings in 2022

Want more listings in 2022?—take another look at your database. Per NAR, 67% of sellers procure their Listing Agent by way of repeat/referral.

  1. Be a connector: parties, pop-bys, or even private Facebook Groups—it’s mission critical to create a sense of community and culture.

  2. Be a resource: w/ ALL your content (e.g. blogs, videos, emails, social media posts, and more), create it as if it was made solely for your database! Be the knowledge broker!

  3. Be a friend: send birthday greetings, “text-in to check-in,” get personal w/ handwritten notes, proactively DM/comment on social, and even be thoughtful (not necessarily lavish) w/ your gifts.

  4. Be inevitable: position your brand strategically: retarget your database w/ paid ads promoting your content on social, utilize Google Display Ads, distribute value-packed emails weekly, run YouTube ads, send out postcards, and so on. Do whatever it takes to be the agent-of-choice!

Fact is, your database is probably your best source of business, period — and I’m willing to bet you’re hardly cracking the surface!

5 YouTube Tips-and-Tricks to Boost Video Performance (for Realtors, 2022)

YouTube is a gift that keeps on giving 📈. When you post a video on FB or IG, for instance, it’ll get nearly all its lifetime views in the first day or two as it circulates through the feeds. But after that:  it’s crickets 🦗

On YouTube, however, a well optimized video will amass views for days, weeks, months, or even years into the future. It’s a snowball effect! Fundamentally, the more people watch your video, the more YouTube promotes it—in the search results, explore pages, recommended next videos, and so on.

#TomFerry coaching member, @the.real.brad.mccallum, for instance, averages 22 minutes of cumulative watch time EVERY minute that passes—24 hours-a-day, seven days a week 🤯 Now, for starters, Brad’s videos are amazing—so it’s no surprise that they perform well. But besides that, if you analyze his top 10 videos in terms of most views month-after-month, for example, you’d notice many of the same videos make the list over and again. Why? Because on YouTube, it only get’s better w/ age!

Hence, it’s mission-critical to properly optimize your videos when uploading! Swipe through the images above for FIVE practical tips and PLEASE tag someone in a comment who could benefit from this post 🙏

  1. Keyword-Rich Video Title: YouTube is a search engine. Search engines analyze “keywords” in a searcher’s query in order to rank the most relevant results. The title of your video is critical to its SEO. Use tools like TubeBuddy or VidIQ to assist or just start typing phrases into the search bar and analyze YouTube’s suggestions. Point is, whatever search term you want your video to rank on, that keyword (or phrase) needs to be in your video’s title.

  2. Vocalize Your Keyword(s): YouTube listens and transcribes your videos. In other words, the platform knows the words you are (or aren’t) saying and can thus analyze whether or not the actual substance of your video aligns with the keyword(s) in its designated title. So... make it super easy for YouTube! Say your keyword(s): at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of your video.

  3. Embed Video Chapters: YouTube is practically the only platform where long-form videos still prosper. Naturally, long videos tend to have more content packed in than short ones. Consider adding timed markers (like a table of contents) in the description of your video. Simply Type, “00:00 - Introduction” or “02:34 - First-Time Home Buyers” and it'll divide your video into chapters. This’ll give your video extra chances to rank on more search phrases.

  4. Optimized Filename: This one’s super easy! Before you upload your video to YouTube, modify its filename to support your keywords. If the auto-generated filename is something like “1234567890.mp4,” rename it to something like “First-Time-Home-Purchase-2022.mp4.” Remember, YouTube is a search engine, so the clearer you are about your target search term or phrase, the greater YouTube’s confidence in your video’s relevance.

  5. Clickable Thumbnail: Once published, your video may appear in the search results page, the Home feed, the Explore tab, the Subscriptions section, as a recommendation, or elsewhere. Whether or not prospective viewers click to watch your video is conclusive evidence of its relevance. If they click, great–if they don’t, YouTube may curb its reach. Your video’s thumbnail (i.e., the viewable image associated with it) is the primary factor to entice viewers to watch.