Are you having trouble getting discovered on TikTok?
TikTok is a fast-moving platform that moves from one trend to another as quickly as the first trend came. This can be difficult to maintain.
Needless to mention, it’s been more than five years since the app first became popular during the pandemic. By now most of the fields are filled with competition.
In this post, we share tips on how to use TikTok SEO to get found on the platform.
1. Create better TikTok content
You can make some small changes with your captions, profile, and publishing schedule, but none of that will make a difference if your content isn’t great to begin with.
So, before you optimize anything else, make sure you are optimizing your content for quality and coming up with better content ideas.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you create concise content that’s less than a minute long?*
- Does each video have a hook that grabs your audience’s attention within the first three seconds?
- Is your content useful?
- Is your content entertaining?
- Do you have good audio quality?
- Do you use captivating narratives and visuals to ensure that your video doesn’t lag even for a second?
*Each video doesn’t have to be under a minute, but it can definitely help if most of your content is short.
Take a good look at your content and make sure it meets these criteria before deciding to optimize it in other ways.
2. Be more consistent
Consistency on social media means two things: how often you post content and what type of content you post. The audience loves both, and so do the social media algorithms.
So, instead of publishing a TikTok as soon as you create it, choose a specific publishing schedule and stick to it. This way, your viewers will know when your next video is coming out.
But like I said, consistency can also mean the type of content you create.
If you publish a review, publish more reviews. If you publish a tutorial, publish more tutorials.
If a social media user really enjoys the video you made, they’ll want to see more of it. When they like a video, they’ll see similar videos you’ve made on their For You Page (fyp).
3. Choose a better publishing schedule
How do you know when to post content? And how do you manage your TikTok publishing schedule more effectively?
There’s a subsection in the TikTok Analytics section within the app that tells you when your audience is most active. Consider publishing content during or just before this time.
As far as scheduling TikTok content goes, you can Schedule a post from TikTok Studio Or use a social media scheduling tool like Virali.
The latter option also allows you to schedule posts for other social media platforms, organize your social media content into groups, and manage your social media inbox all from a single dashboard.
4. Add captions to your videos
Very few elements affect TikTok SEO, but one of them are the captions you add to your videos.
Users read captions to understand the videos a little better while algorithms use them to understand what the videos are about.
Thus, they are quite important.
TikTok captions can be up to 4,000 characters long, which is almost double Instagram’s 2,200 character limit.
Users are more likely to read shorter captions, but if there’s relevant information you don’t want to include in your video, consider adding it to your caption instead.
Make your caption as catchy as possible, but also keep things relevant and descriptive.
5. Use keywords
When you post content, use a keyword research tools And TikTok searches for suggestions to find suitable keywords related to that content.
When you find the right keyword, add it to your post caption using natural language.
So, instead of just creating a caption like “Purple acrylic nails tutorial” with a few hashtags, write something more catchy, like “This is my favorite way to do purple acrylic nails.”
If you want, you can also use primary keywords in your bio and username.
Just avoid having too many keywords in one caption, and definitely don’t add unrelated keywords to your caption. This is known as keyword stuffing, and algorithms see it as spam.
6. Use hashtags
Also add some relevant hashtags to your caption. But probably not as much as Adam did in the example below. 😅
TikTok’s search tool has a tab for hashtags, which you can use to find relevant hashtags in the same way you used it to find relevant keywords.
It’s best to choose no more than five hashtags related to your content. Choose those that relate most strongly to your content.
Some creators put trending hashtags in their captions so that they appear in results when users search for those hashtags, but if your content is not relevant to those hashtags, users and algorithms alike will ignore your content.
7. Use trending sounds
TikTok has a unique feature in which a creator can convert the audio part of their video into sound so that other creators can use that sound as the audio part of their videos.
In such a situation, sounds can trend on TikTok.
Spend at least 20 minutes browsing TikTok every few days. You will get a good idea of what sounds are currently trending on the app.
Consider posting your opinion on these sounds. Your videos may pop up when users browse those sounds.
It’s surprising how these sounds can help. Even some less common sounds.
This helped drive one of Adam’s BMX videos to over 7,000 plays, the video below. Is that a wild thing? This was on a new account that had hardly any followers.
8. Use Trending Filters
TikTok also has filters, which are screen overlays that you can interact with or use to change the look of your video.
Sometimes filters become quite popular. When they do, consider joining the trend.
9. Participate in trends
Some trends are independent of hashtags, sounds, and filters.
For example, “Stick Nation” is a trend in which TikTok users share interesting sticks they have found.
Then, the more you browse TikTok, especially the For You page, the more you’ll become familiar with the trends that are popular on the app.
When you run into trends, try to make them as relevant to your field as possible. Not only does this get you attention in your field, but it also gets you noticed by the general population among TikTok users.
For example, if you are into the martial arts field, you can use the Stick Nation trend to showcase your bo staff skills.
10. Add titles to your videos
Headlines are text overlays you can add to your videos that only appear as thumbnails in certain parts of the app, including your profile page and search functionality.
Headlines are useful for two reasons: they help algorithms understand what your video is about, especially if you use a relevant keyword in your headline, and they help users find videos relevant to them when browsing your page.
When a user is able to find more videos that they enjoy, they will like, comment on, and possibly even share those videos.
The more users do this, the more your content will appear on the For You page.
11. Engage your audience
As you know by now, the more engagements your content gets, the more the algorithm will like it.
Here are ways to get TikTok viewers to engage more with your content:
- Include funny, surprising, or exciting moments in your video
- Add an exciting moment to the beginning of the video to let your viewers know what’s going to happen next, then play the rest of the video from the beginning as usual
- Ask your viewers to like your video. An example would be, “If you want to see more videos like this make sure you hit the like button”
- Ask your viewers to share your video with someone who would benefit from it
- Challenge your audience! Tell them that if they get a certain number of likes you will do something exciting. For example, that “Neltok” creator from earlier might say, “If we get 10,000 likes I’ll wear five-inch-tall acrylics all day.”
12. Collaborate with other creators
This is a common technique that creators of all sizes use to get their content out to more people.
When you collaborate with other creators, especially ones who have more followers than you, your brand and content are exposed to a whole new audience.
This increases your rate of new followers quite quickly in a short period of time, and it also increases engagement for some of your videos.
Your content will appear higher on the For You page, which will result in more visibility than content you create with that other creator.
13. Connect with your audience
Respond to more comments, and consider responding to comments with videos from time to time.
You should especially do this if you receive requests for content that you can easily fulfill. Not only does this create more interesting content, but other viewers can also join in with their own requests.
14. Monitor your performance
How can you ensure that your performance is improving as you optimize your content?
Your best option is to use the TikTok analytics tool.
For example, SocialBee includes analytics that allow you to monitor your engagements, reach, and views.
final thoughts
Above 1.5 billion people use TikTok. And its algorithm is more friendly to new users than platforms like Instagram. Well, it is in our experience.
But despite how forgiving its algorithm is, it’s still worth taking the time to read and implement the tips above.
This will increase the chances that your videos will go viral and get featured on the page for you.
Just remember that it all basically depends on the quality of your content.
The better your content, the better your videos will perform.
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