TikTok, which offers users video clips between 15 seconds and 3 minutes, is a social media platform that 67% of Generation Z actively uses. It set itself apart from other social media platforms in a short time by combining fast content consumption with broad concepts built around viral sounds and music.
The platform, which enables content creation across many different concepts, has proven itself one of the essential resources for both brands and content creators looking to grow their audiences, becoming the website with the most online traffic on Google in 2021.
Along with its growing popularity and frequent updates, there has been speculation that TikTok is becoming a search engine in its own right. One of the main reasons for this is that while it allows access to accounts, hashtags, or trends with any keyword entered in the search box, it also allows various queries through comments.
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Of course, TikTok isn't meant to be a comprehensive search engine like Google; unlike Google, it's a social media platform focused on finding content within the app rather than searching the internet as a whole. Still, the opportunity for companies and content producers shouldn't be overlooked given TikTok's rapidly growing user base, since a large portion of users actively turn to TikTok for research as well as entertainment.
Since most users also produce their own content, it's very difficult to stand out without understanding the TikTok algorithm correctly. You can easily stand out in this competitive environment by paying attention to what matters for TikTok SEO and video optimization, which we cover in the rest of this article.
What is TikTok SEO?
Although no direct statement has been made by TikTok, tests by many users have shown that Google and TikTok are quite similar in terms of content optimization as well as search functions.
One of the most important similarities between TikTok SEO and Google is that both focus on providing the most relevant and highest quality content to their users. TikTok shows the highest quality and relevant results and keeps irrelevant videos off the "For You" page, which is customized to each user's interests. Because of this, brands and content creators need a well-crafted TikTok SEO strategy to reach their target users.
How to Optimize TikTok SEO?
Since reaching the right audience increases your engagement rate, and a higher engagement rate in turn expands your audience, it's important to get things right from the first stage. With just a few adjustments, you can improve your TikTok SEO strategy. Here's what to consider before going viral:
Use Relevant and Descriptive Keywords
When creating your content, take care to use the most relevant keywords for your concept in your descriptions. Words you add just because they're popular may be detected by the algorithm, and the video may not be shown to users. Instead, including other variations in your descriptions that relate to your video, ones that appear when you add your main keyword to the search box, will directly boost your engagement rate.
Use Your Keywords in Both Description and Videos
Beyond using your TikTok content's keywords in the description box, using them in the video itself is another effective way to increase your engagement rate. Like video descriptions, the TikTok algorithm also considers the text on the videos when listing search results on TikTok. If the video concept isn't suitable for adding text, you can choose to hide your keywords so they aren't directly visible. Even so, text added in a readable format will draw more attention from users and increase your watch time.
Use up to 5 Hashtags
The hashtags we add to the description section help increase our visibility, but of course, there's a limit to this. Although TikTok hasn't set a direct limit on this, it's useful to cap this number at 5 so your video isn't perceived as spam and doesn't get held back from the "For You" page.
Use TikTok Sounds That Go Viral
The sounds you use in the background of your TikTok videos serve a similar function to keywords. A user can find the video they're looking for through a word, or through an audio file in a sorted order. So beyond hashtags or descriptions, following viral sounds and including them in your content is one of the important factors that will increase your interaction rate.
Optimize Your Thumbnail Images
When a user lands on your profile from the "For You" page to see more, your videos' cover images become another important detail, since users can't tell what's in a video without opening each one individually. Making the content of each video clear on its cover image will keep users spending more time on your account without getting bored.
Analyze Your Videos Properly
After doing all the things we mentioned and sharing your content, don't skip analyzing it to see whether your TikTok SEO strategy is actually working. To measure your performance, you can use TikTok's own analytics tool for content creators, for free.
Source: https://blog.sharelov.com/guide-tiktok-analytics/
In closing, I would like to remind you that TikTok is not only a popular entertainment-focused social media application but also a rapidly growing market space.
TikTok lets you grow your audience much faster than other platforms, which makes it an important resource for content creators and brands in every field. With the right strategy, you can use the audience you build to drive traffic to your website, bring new users to an application you've developed, or support your YouTube or other social media accounts. As TikTok keeps expanding its place in the market with great momentum, it looks set to become even more important in the near future, especially for content marketing.
