For Gen Zs, TikTok isn’t only a social feed.
It’s a search engine:
- Almost 1 in 10 Gen Zers usually tend to depend on TikTok than Google as a search engine. (Adobe)
- 62% of the 18 to 24 demographic search on TikTok, with Google coming in at third place (Forbes)
- One in every of Google’s executives admitted that nearly 40% of younger individuals search on TikTok or Instagram as an alternative of Google Maps/Search when on the lookout for a spot for lunch. (TechCrunch)
To study extra about TikTok search engine optimization, I hopped on a name with Charlotte Ang, the co-founder of Site visitors Bees, a digital advertising company primarily based in Singapore that additionally owns PickleGO, a pickleball gear retailer that she grew primarily through TikTok.
She was additionally a speaker at Ahrefs Evolve:
Throughout our interview, I made a decision to problem her. I requested:
Think about that you simply’ll win $1M when you may efficiently train somebody from scratch to rank excessive for his or her goal key phrases in TikTok in simply 4 weeks. What would the week-by-week plan be?
That is her four-week plan.
The primary week is the busiest week. It’s crucial week the place you prepare, determine what to submit, and report your content material.
Get a devoted particular person to run the channel
Based on Charlotte, that particular person wants these qualities:
- Thick pores and skin: Charlotte has examined faceless movies however they didn’t work out. So, you’ll want a face in your movies. However that particular person shouldn’t be simply bristled by on-line feedback and must be glad to be on digicam. When you have the finances, you may bypass this by hiring abilities.
- Constant: To succeed on TikTok, you could submit at the very least as soon as a day. However anticipate there to be no leads to the early days.
- Strategic: It’s not nearly posting randomly and grabbing onto each single development. There’s a way to the insanity. The particular person ought to know what to focus on, what content material to create, and what to prioritize.
- Is aware of video modifying: They need to be aware of the model of short-form video modifying. Fast cuts, velocity speaking, and extra.
Probably the most ultimate particular person is a Gen Z themselves. Is sensible: they had been born into TikTok and moulded by it.
However as Charlotte found, you don’t have to be one. You simply have to know their language and habits.
Within the early days, Charlotte approached TikTok like a millennial: polished, structured, and cautious. However TikTok isn’t YouTube or Instagram. So, her movies flopped.
There’s a particular sort of humor on TikTok. And folks don’t desire a pretend actuality—they wish to peek on the behind-the-scenes and see one thing genuine.
So, Charlotte re-trained her instincts and realized the right way to converse the platform’s language via her interns, different creators, and observing traits. She stopped making an attempt to “make advertisements” and began making TikToks.
Begin account farming
Use your account and begin trying to find and scrolling via movies in your area of interest. It’s best to like and touch upon these movies.
The purpose right here is to ‘tune’ the algorithm to align along with your area of interest and let TikTok know you’re lively on the platform.
Goal long-tail key phrases
Since there are solely 4 weeks to rank, you don’t wish to compete with hundreds of movies making an attempt to rank for broad phrases like “pickleball”. You’d wish to go for a key phrase like “2 bounce rule pickleball”, one which fewer persons are creating content material round and the next probability your video will present up when somebody searches for it.
How do you discover these long-tail key phrases?
Charlotte begins her key phrase analysis course of by coming into her area of interest (“pickeball”) into Ahrefs’ Key phrases Explorer. She then navigates to the Matching phrases report and clicks on the Clusters by Mother or father Matters tab:
This provides her a route on the overarching matters to create content material for.
She then enters these matters into TikTok’s search bar and see what matters pops up within the autocomplete:
She additionally scrolls and checks the Others looked for solutions:
Plan 80% FYP, 20% search-based content material
In case your account is new and with out authority, your content material is unlikely to rank for the key phrases you wish to goal. So, the technique right here is to do an 80/20:
- 80% of your content material ought to goal to land on the For You Web page (FYP)
- 20% of your content material must be searched-based
The FYP is a customized advice feed that exhibits customers movies primarily based on what TikTok’s algorithm thinks you’ll get pleasure from, whether or not it’s to a follower or non-follower. The FYP issues as a result of it’s the place discovery occurs.
Even when you’ve got zero followers, your video can go viral if the algorithm pushes it onto the suitable FYPs. That’s why creators usually discuss “making content material for the FYP”.
It means creating movies that are:
- Hooky and fascinating within the first 2–3 seconds
- Quick-paced and visually fascinating
- Typically tied to traits, sounds, or relatable moments
In case you’re a model, content material concepts additionally embrace model updates, behind-the-scenes, tales concerning the founder, and extra. For instance, a well-liked format at the moment is seeing the staff behind the model.
However goes viral helpful?
Whereas Charlotte can’t affirm if going viral helps with rankings, going viral helps with viewers development. Viral movies usually result in a spike in followers, supplying you with an even bigger base to talk to in future.
Right here is how the flywheel works on TikTok:
- You submit a video.
- TikTok exhibits it to a small group (some followers + random customers).
- If it performs properly (excessive watch time, excessive engagement), it will get proven to a bigger group (non followers).
- The cycle repeats, and that’s how virality builds.
- In case your viewers is loyal and frequently engages, they assist kickstart this loop.
To go viral, attempt remixing a video or audio that’s at present making the rounds. For instance, FIFA remixed the audio from Zhen Zhen, a viral Singaporean TikToker.
Discuss probably the most random of worlds colliding.
Charlotte estimates that the golden interval for traction is the primary two to 3 weeks of a viral video.
How are you aware which movies are trending? Take note of what retains displaying up. Use TikTok’s instruments and your individual FYP to identify them early, after which put your individual spin on it quick.
For instance, look out for movies with the identical format, sound, or modifying model over and over. In case you see the identical thought or sound 3+ instances in a session, it’s most likely trending!
As for search-based movies, they’re sometimes longer, extra text-heavy movies, and geared for schooling.
When your account grows and will get extra traction, you may alter the ratio and begin doing extra search-based content material, e.g., 30-40%.
Movie and edit your content material
Most of your time can be spent on filming and modifying. For instance, Charlotte’s crew takes round two hours to movie and as much as 10 hours to edit for 4 to 5 movies. So, you’d wish to get began as quickly as doable.
Ensure you embrace a hook within the first three seconds of all of your movies. Consider your hook because the ‘headline’—it must be catchy and seize consideration.
For instance, considered one of PickleGO’s movies has this hook: “The best way to hit a tweener so that you is usually a winner.” Easy rhyme, nevertheless it works.
She additionally says that your hook must have a face. So, no faceless, AI robotic voices.
How does Charlotte and her crew give you hooks? To nobody’s shock, they use ChatGPT.
Each TikTok video has a thumbnail: their job is to catch your consideration and get you to watch.
These needed to be particularly constructed into the video initially, however TikTok just lately made a function the place you may add a thumbnail (similar to YouTube.)
What about video modifying? Listed below are the methods Charlotte’s crew applied:
- Be certain that one thing is occurring each three seconds, be it a reduce, zoom, or sounds results
- Minimize out any pauses and filler phrases (“um”, “uh”)
- Make the most of extra zooms and transitions
- Add sound results the place doable (whether or not it’s a ding, a whoosh, a splash. ANYTHING!)
- Make use of textual content on display to spotlight necessary piece of data in your video
- Add captions to your movies (as a result of some individuals watch with out audio)
If you wish to know instruments, Charlotte’s crew makes use of CapCut. For longer movies, Adobe Premiere Professional.
You’re getting ready the whole lot in week one. By week two, you need to be publishing. Not less than one video a day.
Similar to common search engine optimization, ensure you’re optimizing the on-feed search engine optimization of your movies. Suggestions from Charlotte:
- Captions: At all times activate captions and edit them (inside the app) in order that they’re correct.
- Video descriptions: Embody three associated key phrases you wish to rank for and summarise the video (most 500 characters)
- Hashtags: Have a median of three to seven hashtags and keep away from key phrase spamming.
As your movies begin to get engagement, reply to the feedback utilizing your goal key phrases:
By the tip of week two, it’s best to see some outcomes.
Crucial metric is your retention charge. Are individuals staying to look at or are they abandoning your movies? The drop-off charge sometimes begins at 5 seconds, which is why your hook is so necessary.
Retention charge of a video with a hook
Retention charge of a video with a hook
Retention charge of a video with no hook
Retention charge of a video with no hook
Proceed posting, your analytics, and determining what’s working and what’s not.
To know whether or not your search primarily based movies are doing properly, go to Search analytics underneath Creator Search Insights. That is much like our good previous Google Search Console.
Below “Search analytics”, search for “Search views” underneath “Your impressed posts”.
Listed below are your high seen movies introduced in from search. Get inspirations on what sort of movies will do properly by “Search phrases”.
You’d additionally wish to proceed account farming—it’s social media, in any case. Carry on liking, commenting, and fascinating with different movies in your area of interest.
You understand you’re creating authority when your For You web page is generally about your area of interest, in addition to the suggestions you see on Creator Search Insights.
For the search-based movies you’ve revealed and it’s not rating, a tactic Charlotte suggests testing is altering the captions or hashtags on these movies.
Last ideas
You’ll be able to accomplish quite a bit in 4 weeks. However like conventional search engine optimization, rating is a long-term sport.
In the end, TikTok is all about consistency. So, carry on posting. Journey some traits and have enjoyable. Educate individuals the right way to do issues in your area of interest. And proceed tweaking your movies to get one of the best outcomes out of the platform.
