I am still puzzled trying to figure out an algorithm by which Google pick Youtube videos to display on first page. While some keywords return video results, others don't (even thought the videos for last one exist, well watched and with matching titles and descriptions). Any insights on that one?
Use your Youtube video as if it was a website. Make sure your title and description of your youtube video mentions the keywords you are targeting a number of times. Also a good idea would be to post the video on forums or blogs using the keywords you are targeting as your link text. Pass the video around try to get it popular. Make sure you use as many related tags as you can to your keywords you are targeting. Try not to edit the video title or description, get it all right on the first video save.
They look for titles exaxtly matching your query with related keywords in the descriptions and comments.
Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case. I've tested it. Type different keywords in google and see what videos are showcased. Also type some other keywords that don't return videos at all on 1st page of G... and then check Youtube - you will find well matched videos... There is more to the algorithm than that... And I wonder if somebody cracked the coded...
It depends on the other search results, if it's a low competition keyword then the videos will rank easily just by optimising on your youtube page. For high competition you need to do a lot of off-page SEO to get the video ranking. So normally people would prefer to spend time building links to their site than to a youtube page.