Optimizing video for search engines on the web follows the same premise as optimizing any other article or page, with some differences. Because the video itself is not textual content, how does the engine know what makes your video more relevant than the next? There are things you can do to help the engines "see" your video. Video SEO for YouTube is more targeted than for the internet in general, but best practices for both are listed below:
Not to oversimplify the process of optimizing a video, there are many factors besides these including the authority of your channel, social signals, and other engagement signals. YouTube's job as a video search engine is much like Google's job; to return the most relevant results.
In short, the video content itself cannot boost your visibility or ranking by search engines such as Google and Yahoo, it is up to you to optimize that video for YouTube, and Google, and craft content in the page around the video player which can be found and indexed by the search engine robots. The video title is the single most important piece of information you can supply, make sure it is descriptive and search-friendly. Keep in mind how you would type words in a search box for Google and others when you make up your title and keywords. Having keywords and key phrases in your descriptions that emulate what a user would type in when looking for your video is key. Keep in mind users usually type in terms in question format, “how to…” or “where is…” are common examples.
Sharing your video across a broad range of channels, distributing links (backlinking), and enabling syndication and embedding of the media is also very important. But as you might imagine the single most important aspect of getting your video ranked is the video content itself. An interesting video that is well-made and has good quality will go a long way in getting others to view it. One trending term we have all heard is “going viral” which means a spike in popularity exceeding the publisher’s wildest expectations. If you follow all the suggestions above, you may not go viral, but you should certainly capture an audience on the web.