TikTok is one of the biggest platforms on the internet. There are countless stories of people earning hundreds of thousands of dollars on TikTok videos alone. Companies have also been discovered through TikTok and made millions. Peachy BBs, CeeCee’s Closet NYC, Poppin Candy—we could go on and on!
So if you want your business to flourish, it’s worth giving TikTok a shot. Just keep in mind that TikTok SEO is different from other types of SEO. What matters in regular SEO doesn’t matter as much in TikTok SEO, and vice versa.
This article gives you a quick rundown of TikTok algorithms and how to leverage them to grow your business.
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How Does TikTok Rank Content?
TikTok ranks content based on three main factors: user interactions, video information, and device/account settings.
- User interactions: The more comments, likes, shares, views, and favorites a video has, the more likely TikTok will recommend it.
- Video information: TikTok’s algorithm heavily depends on video information to recommend content to users. This includes hashtags, captions, sound effects, music, and relevant keywords.
- Devices and account settings: Users receive content recommendations according to their language preference, the country they live in, and the type of device they’re using.
TikTok Strategies to Skyrocket Your Visibility
Here are some TikTok strategies that you should follow to boost your content:
Follow Trends
TikTok thrives on trends. They may come and go on a bi-weekly basis, but when they’re hot, they perform extremely well in the algorithm.
Jump on Trends and use popular elements that make a video go viral, whether it be an audio, filter, or filming/editing style.
However, be selective about the trend you choose. If you post about medical-related content, you probably wouldn’t want to participate in dance trends—simply because your audience doesn’t care about dance trends.
Use TikTok’s built-in Audience Insights to identify who is watching your videos and make content that you believe will resonate most with your audience.
This is pretty much a no-brainer.
TikTok’s search engine optimizer isn’t as advanced or comprehensive as Google’s SEO. It doesn’t utilize internal linking, XML sitemaps, and other technical factors to rank videos. Instead, it mostly relies on keywords, hashtags, and video information.
Properly title your videos and include relevant hashtags so people can discover your content. A handful of hashtags should suffice—don’t overload the description with too many as it can appear spammy.
Add the main keywords in the title and long-tail keywords in the description, caption, and subheading. Also, be sure to say the keywords out loud or at the very least add an on-screen text to make it more memorable and effective.
TikTok loves shareable content. The more people share and favorite your videos, the more they’ll recommend them to other people.
Educational videos and guides are a great way to encourage people to share and favorite content to refer to later. Narrative-focused content also works well because people love stories, especially if they have a good takeaway/ending.
Find out what your audience is most interested in or what they’re looking for and create content that caters to it.
