December 21, 2017

What CTE Gets, What CTE Needs To Get More

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Most of us (educators, business leaders, researchers, students and parents) have realized by now that our educational system has been and continues to be desperately behind in terms of success, especially as it connects to the future of work and our economy. If you don’t agree, stop reading and go watch one of those “Housewives of $%&^#*” shows.
With the continued demand need for change, we have turned to many solutions - including, but not limited to new standards, assessments, technology and programs. Historically, we had two high school tracks. There was vocational education - programs designed to train people for blue collar jobs. And then, in contrast, there were those that did a college prep program where the goals were college and a white collar job. Ironically, many of our college grads and non-grads now find themselves in grey collar jobs (underemployed and working in a career that did not require a college degree or their level of education). But I truly digress.
What I’m suggesting now is that we cannot look at education in terms of finite or separate categories. All students need high level learning, while also seeing connections between their education and long-term career/life paths. That is why most educators, and others who are trying to lead the way, are continually looking at things that include different pedagogies (project-based learning, design thinking, tech integration) and newer programs (Career Technical Education, STEM, Makerspaces, Linked Learning).
I’d like to focus on one of these programs or approaches that has been getting alot of attention and rightfully so. Vocational Education has re-emerged and is now called Career Technical Education (often referred to as CTE). CTE is now visible in almost all secondary programs through specific career pathways, academies, linked learning programs, electives classes and more. Whereas the former vocational education was hands-on, it was not necessarily steeped in the new CTE elements of career pathways, industry standards, professional advisory groups, internships and other work-based learning. CTE is now standards-driven and working to respond to our new global economy, as well as means of connecting students to their learning. CTE works to engage students, create meaningful ways to build skills and learn content, as well as to have students be thinking about their long-term career path and educational needs. Indeed, students in these CTE courses have higher high school graduation rates, college success rates, grade point averages and career placement.
CTE’s foundations and intentions are both good. It is grounded in connections to the real world and career. However, in my estimation, based on many visits to high schools and colleges around the country, there are some things that CTE needs to incorporate in terms of pedagogy and culture that are more aligned with the rest of the change in education.
Non-CTE programs could learn a great deal from the world of Career Technical Education. They could pay closer attention and adopt/adapt the following practices into programs affecting all students. Let’s first look at what CTE does well and then what CTE can improve upon:

WHAT CTE GETS

  • Student Choice - by now, we must realize the amazing human impact of choice. CTE programs and courses are typically ones that students opt into, not just land in like our core programs. They represent areas of interest and careers and therefore have built-in student buy-in and relevance. I have argued for a long time that our core programs need to design aspects of choice throughout. Choice could be represented in course selections or ways to meet requirements, which projects to pursue, which collaborators to engage, how to present your final work and more. Even within CTE programs, there is often choice to pursue various certifications, experiences, internships and more. The more options, the likely the ultimate buy-in and engagement.

  • The Power of the Cohort - many CTE programs have students cohorted where they experience anything from multiple courses, teams of teachers and even projects together. The idea of a cohort is to gather strength and trajectory from the consistent and focused community that becomes more comfortable with another, as well as more successful over time. They become tight knit machines who have positive and professional relationships with one another, their teachers/advisers, community partners and mentors.

  • Skills-Focused - In our core academic areas, or our dominant current paradigm, there has been a move to be more skills-focused. The new standards and assessments have made a concerted effort to realign with skills and performance. That being said, everything from our graduate profiles to core curriculum still leave much to be desired when it comes to identifying and mastering skills. Yet, the private sector and industry, which CTE looks to for direction, is more focused on skills than ever before. Those are both technical skills and soft skills. The reality is that CTE courses and programs do a better job for students in both areas. The technical skills are applied, practiced and even perfected at times in real world, industry-related situations. And because there are typically more collaborations (peer-to-peer, mentoring, work-based learning, industry partners), soft skills are valued, taught, assessed and practiced a great deal more.
  • Partnerships - Due to the CTE expectation of having to partner with industry advisory boards, programs have built-in advisers, partners and mentors. These industry partners can serve as not only advisers, but also contest judges, presentation audience members, work-based learning opportunities and so much more. They can also contribute to and support curriculum development, equipment and resources, industry trends and developments, community engagement, administrative support, program advocacy, showcase/exhibition venues and much more. It is imperative that students have adult relationships, mentors if you will, outside of the school and home environment. These should be professionals from industry, business, government or non-profit work that serve the students, their future employees and customers, as an educational support system.


WHAT CTE NEEDS TO GET MORE

  • Instructional Pedagogy - this seems to be a common weakness in CTE classes and programs. Although there are great tools, resources, hands-on opportunities, industry partnerships and more, there is often not an understanding of more contemporary and 21st century-oriented instructional approaches and pedagogies. Many of our CTE instructors come from industry and have very little formal teaching experience or training. This is not automatically bad, but they need to realize much has changed and evolved instructionally since their days in school. For example, many CTE instructors still rely on direct instruction exclusively (lecturing) then disseminating new content or information to their students. They would benefit from more collaborative and student-led practices that are more engaging. Additionally, they would also benefit from learning approaches such as project-based learning. Although, they have lots of hands-on activities and labs, they need to connect the hands-on to larger instructional and learning needs and challenges. Their industry associations and equipment are often new school, but far too often their teaching practices are old school.

  • Tech Integration - There is some irony here as there is with the pedagogy. For example, most CTE programs are fairly adept at incorporating their latest tech from their industry. Many of them are using everything from 3-D technology to drones to industry-specific software. But there they often lack is in the area of instructional technology. Many instructors are still lecturing and having students take notes, versus having students collaborate digitally on tasks and challenges. Many are not using things such as Google Applications, web-based resources, various video and presentation applications. While some of their core colleagues, albeit a minority, are doing things like having students blog or create their own websites/digital portfolios, too many CTE instructors are still having students keep paper notebooks, binders, worksheets and textbooks. They need to get core teachers to use the industry tech, while they use a lot more of the instructional tech that the core teachers are using.

  • Public Work - This is directly connected for the most part to the first two. Many of our CTE programs have students producing high quality work. But far too often, no one knows about it. Our students are entering an economy where their personal branding, marketing and presentation skills are going to be more vital than ever before. They are going to compete regularly for “gigs” also known as employment. It’s tragic to know some of the fine work that students have completed and even mastered, but yet are not featuring on a website, blog or digital portfolio. It’s a sin to not have demos and presentations of their work on YouTube and Vimeo. It’s limiting them if their work is not part of public spaces, meetings, showcases and exhibitions.

  • Future of Work & the Gig Economy - We often think that any change that is happening now has happened before. Yes, we have experienced technological advances before. Yes, we have had radical new economies emerge before. Yes, we have witness global changes previously. However, many experts agree that we have probably not seen this level of rapid change and disruption to our systems that we are seeing now, especially happening simultaneously. And yes, much of what we are predicting is not an exact science. However, all of us need to pay more attention to what is  unraveling. Whether it is artificial intelligence, freelance employment trends, emerging economies, new or disappearing industries, climate, energy and so much more, our students are truly entering a new frontier. All of us, especially in education, need to study this, attempt to understand it and ultimately prepare for it. It’s a moral, social and ethical obligation. Anything that we are doing in schools that is not connected to this could be questioned. Typically, our parents, students, community members, policy makers and others do not possess deep awareness of this at all. It’s our duty to enlighten one another and our stakeholders. Our students’ futures, as well as ours, truly depends on it.

Naturally, education as a whole can learn a great deal from the successes of so many of our CTE programs. However, CTE cannot operate in isolation either and needs to learn from the best of transformative education outside of their standard practices. Mutual benefits await.

November 22, 2017

If We're Banning Phones, We Won't Connect Our Students To The Future

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For those of us that follow the news, especially education news, we don’t have to wait very long for an educator, or educators, to give us the excuse for a blog post. This week’s winner goes to the principal and staff at Korematsu Middle School in California’s East Bay Area.
They were recently featured, and apparently heralded, by an article in  Ed Source (http://bit.ly/EdSourceCellPhones) for their recent compliance and control upgrade that bans students from using their cell phones at lunch and during their free time.
  
According to principal Matthew Burnham, they tried to let the 7th and 8th grade students use their cell phones last year during these times and it was, according to them, an abysmal failure. The school claims that due to the students being “glued” to their cell phones, no one was talking and interacting with one another. And after watching the movie “Screenagers” and drinking from that proverbial firehose of biased information, this school was trying to have the students spend less time with headphones on, listening to music, having their necks bent forward and dozens of other student ailments caused by cell phones.
The article also said that the students were engaging in conflict and drama via social media and they wanted to put a stop to that. Furthermore, the article quotes an English teacher at Korematsu who found a student pretending to read a book while actually looking at their phones. Principal Burnham even directed students over the microphone to talk to the person next to them at lunch.
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(photos courtesy of Joe Sanfelippo)
What have we become? What is our definition of teaching, leading or mentoring? Are we not satisfied to be facilitating what students are doing during their class time that we need to dictate to them what they during their personal time?
I can’t help but imagine what these educators would do if any of us told them to get off of their phones and talk to one another while in the teachers’ lounge or at Starbucks. And we all know that the best way to teach students anything, especially responsibility, is to just ban it. Right? WRONG!
To me, this actually epitomizes the divide we are experiencing in education. It’s the classic compliance vs. creativity. In an effort to solve a problem, or teach responsibility, too many times educators lean towards the compliance side of thinking. Kids are to be quiet, obedient and controlled. If so, they are learning, according to this mindset. The problem is that this is the exact opposite of two things: (1) Teaching our students to live and work effectively in a digitized, globalized and transformed society, as well as (2) doing things that actually work.
Education, or educators, are famous for continuing to promote and implement things that have actually never been very effective (if not counterproductive) - i.e. homework, detention, overreaching dress codes, etc.
Do we want to approach students as young adults and how we’d like to be approached? Or do we want to continue to control them? To me, it’s that simple. I’m not suggesting that we don’t have rules, guidelines or policies. I’m asking that they be common sense.
And what about the actual problems? Things such as isolation, distraction, drama and conflict are not technology or cell phone issues. They are human issues that we need to address comprehensively and personally - not by banning use of phones during personal time.
In my experience, the more we make things taboo, the more they become attractive. Creating new policies and rules is not a substitute for actual teaching, training and respect. I worked at a school that allowed students to have their phones throughout the day and especially at lunch and breaks. And you know what? Students were talking, socializing and playing all of the time. And it wasn’t because we asked or directed them to. It’s because we worked to create a happy and healthy atmosphere and culture overall. And it’s also because we didn’t try to direct or mandate their every move.

If we treat students like they do at Korematsu Middle School and others, I don’t think we’re training them for the future of work where they need to be able to master not only the technology, but independence. Are the employees at Google, Apple, Microsoft and others told not to be on their phones at lunch or break time? Of course not. So, what world are we training our students for? Certainly not for the 21st century workplace and economy. We’re just leaning on what we seem to know best - control and compliance. Instead, we should be focusing on engaging, empowering and unleashing our students. We can focus on control or creativity but cannot master both.

October 28, 2017

How to get adsense approval within a few days

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Blogging is sweet and tasking but  “HOW TO GET ADSENSE APPROVAL WITHIN FEW DAYS IS EASY”, if you follow some basic rules from the starting of your blog. When I first started, I failed to get approval. But, following these rules, now I have an approved AdSense account. Thinking about this topic, I made a decision to share the basic rules of AdSense. Check my channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsBBgG23bieZOF0EzoDzMOA

First Ready Your Blog Before Applying for Adsense:
Adsense moderators are ready to approve those blogs whose have met up the requirements. But firstly, you should make your blog a ready one for this process. Make sure your blog meets these requirements. Now, there are some initial basic requirements announced by AdSense team, and there are some known hacks and tricks that work. For example, on this official page it’s mentioned that for countries like China & India, publishers need to own the site for minimum 6 months, which is not a thumb-rule. Many Indian bloggers have got approval with one-month-old domain. The only thing which really matter here is “Quality”. Let’s look at factors which will make your blogAdSense ready:

  • Have Sufficient Content Or Post

You must be ready to post daily or 3 times in a week if you want adsense approval soon, and make sure you have up to 40 post on your blog before applying for adsense.
  • Apply with your custom domain

You should always apply using the root domain like yourdomain.com. Not blog.yourdomain.com.
  •  Use an image from your own URL

Google Adsense doesn’t approve blogs if they lead to copyrighted contents. Copyrighted means the things that have been copied from others directory without their permission. And we make fault every time when choosing an image. Some people just go to an image directory, take their suitable images and upload these on their blogs. Did they ever check if they have permission to use these? The really sad news is that, most of the webmasters who fail to get Adsense because of this copyrighted law. And this is really caused by copyrighted images. Here are guides which will help you to find images for free:
  •   Have a nice design and structure

You must have a beautiful looking blog if you want a quick adsense approval. Because this is one of the major reasons for blog to get you approve soon. Even if you download your theme for your blog or it was design by a company, make sure it is a light and well design blog.

  • Write High-Quality Content

A writing proverb “Content is King” helps you understand this requirement. A high-quality blog is identified with the high-quality contents. Great contents mean unique, decorated, stated and clear concerted content. Some black hat webmasters say, copy paste content only between 100-200 words is enough. But, I may assure him that his journey to Adsense will be certainly finished. I think, how a blog post or content could be only between 100-200 words? In my judgment, it is not possible to completely describe a topic within 100-200 words. And if copy paste content is enough, anybody can declare him as a blogger. Please keep in mind, Google AdSense doesn’t approve blogs with copy pasted copyright content. A well-optimized blog post should be 100% unique and above 500-600 words. So, always write blog post above this limit and it must be unique which clearly determinate the post topic.

·        Check if your blog is not blocked by Google
Be sure that, your blog is not blocked by Google. Because Adsense will check your blog statistics on their search engine. Don’t know how to check it? Just search for “site:yourdomain.com” on Google. If you find out search results, your blog is not blocked. But, if you not, it is blocked.

  • ·        Dont Have Google adsense restricted content

Google Adsense has made it a law that, sites with adult contents, copyrighted contents, drug alcohol-related contents, hacking cracking contents, violent contents, weapons related contents and other illegal contents will not be approved.



·       Visitors are not yet factors for approval
For Google to approve your blog visitors are not the main issue to getting approved as tho you will need traffic later to generate income from your blog.

IF YOU FOUND THIS ARTICLE HELPFUL PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THID BLOG.
October 28, 2017

how to get google ad-sense fast - How does adsense pays

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Whether you’ve been blogging for five minutes or five years, monetizing is one of those topics that almost always comes up. Should I try to make money from blogging? Can people really make a living online? How should I try to make money from my blog?
Google AdSense is one of the most common ways to monetize, though I’ll warn you now: AdSense is NOT a get rick quick scheme. In fact, it can take a long time to make more than a few pennies. But it can also pay off big in the long run.

What is AdSense?

AdSense is a program that allows bloggers and website owners to make money by displaying Google ads. You’ve probably seen the ads all over the place, including in Google search results. Basically, Google gets the largest cut and you get a small percentage. There are two ways to make money from AdSense:
  • Impressions – this is based on the number of pageviews of pages or posts with ads
  • Clicks – this is based on how many people click on the ads (don’t EVER click your own – more on this later)
To make it as basic as possible, you sign up for an AdSense account and add the code to your blog or website. You can choose how your ads look, where they show up, and even what kind of ads you’ll accept. Once you get to a minimum threshold of $100, Google will either send you a paper check or make a direct deposit into your bank account.

Who’s Eligible?

If you use Blogger, you can use the Monetize tab to set up and manage an AdSense account.
If you use self-hosted WordPress, you can visit the AdSense website and apply for an account. You’ll receive a code that you can place wherever you’d like, or you can use a plugin to help with placement.
*If you use free WordPress, you cannot use AdSense, but you can useWordAds if you have your own custom domain. (Just another reason why self-hosted WordPress is better.)

How Much Can I Make?

As I told you before, you will not get rich quick using AdSense. It took me 9 months to make $2 (yes, two dollars) on my personal blog. However, I made $81 last month. That’s still pathetic compared to many blogs – some people can earn a full-time income from AdSense alone. But it takes a LONG time to get there, and you have to have a ton of traffic.
Some ads are worth more money per click than others. This is also affected by the amount of traffic you get, the keywords the person searched for, the percentage of visitors who click on a particular ad, etc. There are a LOT of factors that determine how much you’ll make, but a rule of thumb is that newer blogs simply won’t make as much money.
My personal blog is about 14 months old. Some days, I don’t get any ad clicks at all and I might still make 10 cents or so just from impressions. Sometimes every click is worth $2 or more. Yesterday the clicks were worth a whopping 26 cents each.
Many people get impatient when they’ve had the code up for a month or two and haven’t made more than a few pennies. If you’re looking for something that will pay TODAY, AdSense may not be for you. And to be honest, I don’t know of anything instant – if I did, you can bet I’d be using it!

How Can I Make More from AdSense?

Basically, your best bet for ad clicks is increasing your search traffic. When people are trying to solve a problem, they usually turn to search engines like Google or Bing. If you have a post that solves that problem, using SEO will help your post rank well in search results. SEO will also help AdSense serve up relevant ads, so when people click on your blog post, the ads may answer the exact question they’re asking. Result? Ad clicks!
Here’s an example. Let’s say I write a post about the health risks of liposuction. I use SEO techniques to help Google realize what my post is about, and my post is the third one when someone searches for “liposuction risks.” AdSense also knows what my post is about, so people reading my post will see an ad that might say something like, “Safe liposuction services in New Hampshire” (or wherever).
If the person is interested in finding the safest place for liposuction, s/he is likely to click that ad. As I said before, the rate per click depends on a lot of factors, but my concern is making sure that people read MY post and not others! If they go to another blog to read about liposuction risks, they’re possibly clicking that person’s ads instead of mine.

IMPORTANT!

There are a few things you need to know about AdSense before you ever put the code on your blog.
1. Never, ever click your own ads. In case you aren’t aware, Google pretty much knows everything. And they can tell if you’re clicking your own ads. It’s very tempting to click about 50 times and make some money, but all it will do is result in being banned.
2. Never, ever encourage friends or family to click your ads. Same as above. You can and will be banned from AdSense, and don’t ever think Google won’t figure it out. I don’t know how they do it, but I have seen it happen to people I know. JUST DON’T.
3. Pay attention to your ad clicks. If you average 2 clicks a month and you suddenly get 100 in a day, chances are that something is wrong. If you’ve pissed someone off and they decide to fight back by clicking all over the place, you can get banned even though you didn’t do anything.
4. Never rely on AdSense as your sole income source. Even if you get really good at SEO and you have 100 websites making thousands of dollars each month in AdSense, you never know when something could happen to trigger Google’s no-no sensors. You can make good money with AdSense, but you should also use other monetization strategies just in case.

5. Don’t use more than 3 ad blocks on a single page. Google allows up to 3 ad blocks on a page. So if you have one in your header, one in your sidebar, and one at the end of your post, that’s the limit for that page. Also, don’t plaster ads all over the place and annoy your regular readers! There are ways to implement the ads without making your site ugly.

What Questions Do You Have?

It’s impossible to cover a topic as broad as AdSense in a single post. This overview gives you an idea of what it’s for and how it works, but it still may not answer enough questions to make sense for you.
Let me know what would be most helpful. Do you want screenshots and step-by-step instructions on inserting the code? More tips on how to improve your earnings? A breakdown of all the acronyms you see in your AdSense account, like CPC, RPM, and CTR? Leave your questions in the comments and I’ll address them in future posts.
October 25, 2017

21st Century Educator Oath #1: Defend Young People Whenever You Can

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This blog post represents a new challenge and series. I hope to release a series of posts each representing an oath that I believe all educators should take. This is 21st Century Educator Oath #1: Defend Young People…..
One does not have to travel very far, or pay attention for very long, to hear some adult (older person) make a disparaging remark about a young person. I hear it almost every day and sadly often from educators. It’s a litany of young people attacks such as calling them “lazy,” “irresponsible,” “selfish,” “immature,” and so on. One can also hear continuous criticisms of their music, dress, language and more. It’s not only a pattern that repeats, but it almost seems to be an obligation. I know my dad has these criticisms about myself and my peers at times and I can guarantee that his dad did about him as well. I have continuously worked hard to not fall into this trap as I have gotten older.
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(photos courtesy of Joe Sanfelippo)
After almost three decades of  of working with young people in six high schools and many other environments, I’m here to dispel and refudiate this notion that young people are anything less than their parents or grandparents. Indeed, I actually think each generation gets better….not worse.
    When I graduated from high school in the early 80’s, I had never heard about or witnessed a peer of mine volunteer to do community service. It would have been a foreign suggestion. Less that 20 years later, I watched as hundreds of students I worked with created charity events, started new charitable organizations, raise money and awareness and so much more.
And that’s just the beginning. I have now seen young people own their own companies, become activists, be community leaders and truly impact their environments. They have their own websites, blogs, recording studios, non-profit groups and more. If one looks closely at all, you could be and should be amazed at what young people are doing. They are presenting, creating and communicating at levels that my generation never touched at that age (or maybe any age). In addition to exercising what seems to be our generational duty, I think we often say and do these things because  we don’t understand young people - and maybe we don’t want to. Older folks see things they don’t understand (again cultural things) and then criticize, minimize, and even ostracize. We remember things one way and anything that deviates from that self-established norm is bad. We then attach this to all that they do and simplify them in terms like “no work ethic.”
Every time I have put young people to the test, they not only have met my expectations, but far exceeded them. When I taught media classes in the early 1990s to high schoolers, they took all challenges to heart including, but not limited to more frequent publishing, more diversity in voice, more tech integration, more community outreach, more student voice and more varied formats. When I taught leadership and service learning, they took on every school and community challenge I could articulate. For example, when our school was being investigated by the Office of Civil Rights about campus acts of racism, they created HARMONY - the Diversity Talent Show (see more info at http://bit.ly/BeyondTolerance). They also included Special Needs students in all school wide events, raised thousands of dollars for local and regional charities, donate more blood than any other demographic and YOU GET THE IDEA.
Harmony-Girls-1024x743.jpgMariana at Locks of Love.jpg
At my last high school, students again took it to the next level. They became Student Project Coordinators where they co-taught and co-facilitated classes with their teachers. They were part of every interview or hiring committee. They helped create school policy, traditions, assessments, public presentations, school logos, school website and social media content and a long list of things that many said students shouldn’t and couldn’t do.
I’m well aware that young people have many challenges today. However, that’s not a new issue. Maybe some of the challenges are new, or more intense. But many are also part of being young. At the same time, most educators acknowledge that young people have tremendous resilience. We all know dozens of students, who despite all odds against them, not only survive, but thrive.
Meanwhile, what can we all do to fight this tendency or typical generational tendency to berate youth? Well, if you’re an educator, I think it’s your duty to fight for young people and always find the best in young people. If you work with them, it shouldn’t be too hard. So, not only find it, but promote it, celebrate it and appreciate it. And for those that are not fortunate enough to work with young people, they need to be educated. Next time you hear the negative, don't be afraid to share the positive. Not only are our young people our future leaders, they are leading earlier and better all the time.
    Whether you’re an educator or bystander, check yourself. One, make sure you’re not falling prey to the generational tendency to criticize the younger generation. And two, make sure you’re not putting down anyone because of something you just don’t understand. Our young people and students deserve our respect and trust. If we don’t demonstrate our faith in them, we could be limiting them in so many ways. Believing in students is fundamental to their development. Don’t believe the hype. They not only have work ethic, but  a whole lot more.

If you have read this far, do one more thing. Take an oath, to yourself and us however you like that you will DEFEND ALL YOUNG PEOPLE WHENEVER YOU CAN.
October 09, 2017

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October 09, 2017

How to rank higher on youtube - 8 effective ways to rank very high on youtube

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How to rank higher on youtube


YouTube is an extremely valuable asset for small businesses that can easily be overlooked. More than 30 million people visit YouTube per day and they’re not watching just one video or one brief clip. More than 6 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube each month. This search engine, the second largest to be exact, is the primary place to upload your videos given its simplicity and widespread reach. As a small business, it’s a great way to get your business out there in front of a new audience by creating How To videos, information videos, video contests, etc.
Unfortunately, getting involved can seem overwhelming. One hundred hours of video are uploaded each minute, so viewers have to wade through all of that content to get to your stuff. This is where ranking comes into play.

8 Tricks to Ranking Higher on YouTube

Below are some different tips to keep in mind that will help your video rank higher on YouTube:

1. Choose a niche.

If you’re trying to reach the masses, a generic video subject could work just fine. But if you do that, you’re also going to be going up against a whole lot more competition, meaning it would be just that much more challenging to rank higher on YouTube or search engines.
But narrowing your focus and choosing a niche can mean you reach your target audience quicker and more effectively, in large part because you’re also narrowing the pool of competition. If you have multiple aspects to a certain topic, you can always make more videos or web pages to send people to. Don’t try to cram everything into one video; that will only generalize your overall topic, keywords and title.

2. Keywords.

Just as in anything else when it comes to ranks, keywords are an integral part of the process. If you want to reach your audience, find keywords in your niche that people may be searching for. Do some research and determine which words are the best triggers for your target audience and craft your video title around that. For example, if you’re doing a tutorial video, you can always start with “How to…” which lets people know immediately that it’s a teaching video and then follow with your description of how to do something related to your industry.
It’s also a good idea to put your keyword at the beginning of your video title. If your video is on helping companies boost SEO, for example, you can title the video something like “SEO tips and tricks: Helping your company thrive.”

3. Meta tags.

Once you’ve chosen your niche, you want to find the best words that reach your target audience. Meta tags are a great place to start, using keywords that are relevant to the content of your video. The more relevant tags you get, the better chance of reaching your audience.
Before you upload your video, do a quick search of similar topics that reach your target audience. Check out the top-ranked videos and copy some of their keywords (if applicable). If their video is ranked high, their keywords are obviously working, so you can jump on the bandwagon and follow in their wake.

4. Description matters.

If you take the time to shoot, edit and upload a video and fill out all the other areas, you might as well come up with an effective description. So often people get lazy with their description thinking it doesn’t matter. However, when a person searches a video, the description shows up, right up there with the title of the video. Your descriptions should be relevant, use keywords and be geared toward your target audience. Also keep in mind that search engine bots cannot view your video, so the description is one of the few factors they have to use when it comes time to determine what exactly your video covers.
Also, be sure to include a URL back to your website in the description in case people want to navigate to your website.

5. Playlists.

This is one of the most often overlooked aspects of trying to rank videos higher. YouTube’s playlist feature allows viewers to include videos they like or find useful into their own playlist. This would help give your video a boost in rankings in much the same way link building works for articles or web pages. The more playlists your video is included in, the more popular it would appear to search engines and YouTube. There’s not much more you can do to boost this area besides encouraging viewers to add your video to their playlists, but that can go a long way.

6. Build a following.

That’s easier said than done, and it’s also pretty obvious. But the more established your channel is and the more followers you have on your YouTube channel, the higher your videos will rank. That’s hard to do, especially for newer companies or channels, but commit to the long-term focus. Uploading quality content and uploading videos regularly will help boost your channel.
You can also utilize the comments section to your advantage. The first people to comment on a video may be your core audience, and you can help build loyalty by responding immediately. Plus, responding to comments yourself increases the total number of comments on a video, helping give off the appearance of popularity, which will give your video a boost in the rankings. It also lets your audience know you are truly reading what they say and care about how they feel. Don’t simply go on and comment a bunch of times on your own video, unprompted, obviously, because that will only make your company come off as disingenuous. But responding to valid comments in a timely fashion is an easy tool you have at your disposal to help increase your video’s popularity.
You can also ask people to subscribe to your YouTube channel, ensuring more eyes looking at your content when you upload. You can use annotations in your video to ask people to subscribe to your channel, or use social media to spread the word.

7. Work to increase your viewership. 

This may be the most obvious way to increase your ranking, as more views equals more popularity for your video, which in turn leads to a better ranking. But so often, companies don’t take the steps to increase their own YouTube video views. Once you upload content, blast it out via your social media channels and embed on web pages. Consider a separate page just for wrapping text around one particular video. Give people other avenues to view your content on more than just a YouTube page. Including your YouTube video on multiple pages on your own website is a big help, but also consider utilizing the video in blogs or press releases.
Remember, analytics are your friend. You can monitor the analytics on your YouTube videos and try to ascertain what works best and what content draws the most eyes. If a piece of content you upload picks up steam and you’re not sure why, use analytics to help figure out where the views are coming from and conduct some research to see what topics are the most popular. That knowledge will come in handy in the future as you create more content.
Don’t underestimate the importance of time watched, as well. No matter what the topic, the higher quality the video is, the longer people will be watching it and the better off your video will be in all rankings.

8. Encourage social signals.

The more places your video is embedded, the higher it ranks. Again, this works much like link building. So while you can take steps to embed the video on multiple web pages you control, your content will also get a boost if other people are embedding your video on their own sites and blogs. Ask your followers and audience to share the video.
The more your video is Tweeted or shared on Facebook or other social media, the more social signals it sends out, boosting the video’s popularity, which in turn leads to a higher ranking. Encourage viewers to share the video.

8 effective ways to rank very high on youtube by michaeltrendz
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsBBgG23bieZOF0EzoDzMOA

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