Optimizing your videos for the YouTube algorithm is essential when it comes to supercharging your visibility and boosting your audience growth.
But doing it all by yourself is labor-intensive and time-consuming. Outsourcing to a YouTube SEO agency can be a tempting alternative.
But what exactly does a YouTube SEO agency do? How much does it cost? And is it worth it?
Let’s take a closer look.
Key Takeaways
- A YouTube SEO agency optimizes your videos to increase visibility and help your content appear in recommendations and search results.
- This involves strategic keyword placement in titles and descriptions, hashtag choice, as well as custom-crafted chapters, thumbnails and subtitles.
- Good YouTube SEO agencies also monitor your content performance, run A/B/C tests, deliver regular reports, and perform keyword research to streamline your content strategy.
- You can expect to pay from around $1,300 per month for continuous support.
- One-off channel audits and SEO audits start at around $300, but leave you with the implementation.
Keep reading for the full scoop!
What Is a YouTube SEO Agency?
A YouTube SEO agency is a specialized company focused on search engine optimization (SEO) for YouTube. Like it says on the tin. It’s important to keep in mind that at its core, YouTube is a search engine for video content. Plus: Google video results are overwhelmingly from YouTube.
YouTube’s algorithm is complex and ever-evolving. And it determines which videos go viral and which disappear into obscurity.
To grow your follower count, it’s essential that your videos show up in people’s search results and recommendations. Even the most amazing content won’t help you scale your channel unless your target audience can find it.
A YouTube SEO agency can help you achieve that goal.
What Does a YouTube SEO Agency Do?
The core work of a YouTube SEO agency is to optimize your content for the YouTube algorithm. This involves a variety of workflows, including:
- Strategically placing keywords and phrases that viewers use to find your content in your video title and descriptions.
- Manually adding chapters and timestamps with keywords and related phrases.
- Adding custom captions that contain your keywords and semantically related phrases.
- Leveraging hashtags.
- Adding a custom thumbnail and A/B/C testing different variations to find what best resonates with your audience.
- Updating the metadata on older content.
Beyond these core tasks, solid YouTube SEO agencies will also:
- Monitor your video and channel metrics. They’ll assess the outcome of their SEO strategy and adjust it if necessary.
- Run keyword research for you to identify topics that resonate with your audience.
- Help you streamline your content strategy through data-backed decisions and reach a wider audience.
- Keep an eye on evolutions in the YouTube algorithm to help you stay ahead of the curve.
- Stay up to date with recent trends in your niche to help you anticipate SEO-optimized content.
Sounds like a lot of different things to do? Spot on.
That’s also the major upside of outsourcing these tasks to a YouTube SEO agency. It frees up your own time and brainspace.
After all – spending hours staring at YouTube Studio performance metrics, or adding chapters to your back catalogue does not exactly replenish your creative batteries. And as a creator, your own time and energy are your most valuable resource. Treat them as such.
How Much Does a YouTube SEO Agency Cost?
That said, how much does it actually cost to outsource to a YouTube SEO agency?
Unfortunately there’s no good answer for this.
Partly that’s because it depends on the exact range of services each agency provides.
And that can be a bit tricky.
Because some YouTube SEO agencies only provide consulting services. That means they run an in-depth analysis of your channel, then issue recommendations in a comprehensive report. The implementation is completely up to you.
A one-off report like that can cost anywhere from $300 to $2,700. (Or even more, if you go for an enterprise-grade, boutique SEO agency.)
In contrast, other YouTube SEO agencies provide continual, hands-on support. They don’t just tell you what needs to be done. They do it for you.
This type of YouTube SEO agency is also often called a “YouTube channel management agency”, since they provide actionable support rather than just SEO advice.
Pricing here varies as well, but for well-rated services worth their salt you can expect to pay between $1,300 and $2,000 per month.
Does It Pay Off to Hire a YouTube SEO Agency?
Are you a rookie YouTuber just getting started in content production part-time? Then hiring an all-round YouTube SEO agency may not be the best option for you – unless you have a solid starting budget and a streamlined plan to turn your channel into a self-sustaining business.
In contrast, if you’re a business integrating video as a core part of your marketing strategy, or a professional YouTuber looking to scale up your channel, then hiring a YouTube SEO agency is a solid strategy choice.
Not only does it free up your own time and brainspace (and your staff’s). It also gives you access to the seasoned skills of full-time YouTube SEO experts. They have years of experience in optimizing content, keeping up with algorithm shifts, helping creators and businesses streamline their strategy, and get the most out of their back-catalogue.
Not sure where to get started?
Check out Tasty Edits’ YouTube channel management offer. In addition to done-for-you YouTube SEO services, it includes YouTube community management (engagement through comments and community posts), playlist management, access to insights from our proprietary AI-analytics tools, and weekly strategy calls.
FAQs
Can I hire someone to grow my YouTube channel for me?
Yes. You can outsource numerous tasks like uploading and optimizing videos, doing keyword research and analytics, engaging your community, or running A/B/C tests to professional YouTube channel managers.
What is YouTube SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. YouTube is one of the biggest search engines in the world, specialized in video content. YouTube SEO is a set of practices to help you optimize your videos to win over the platform’s algorithm and appear in search results and recommendations.
Can I outsource YouTube SEO?
Yes. Outsourcing SEO is an efficient strategy to reclaim your time and scale up your content production. YouTube SEO experts are seasoned pros at helping your videos appear in search results and recommendations. Plus, they keep up with all the latest developments and algorithm updates and can help you stay ahead of the curve.
