Twitch SEO and Why it Matters

HOW WILL SEO HELP ME?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps business target to their desired demographic and also helps consumers find you every time you search for something. Twitch absolutely utilizes some SEO, but not as much as normal websites. The way Twitch uses SEO is based entirely on your most recent streams and panels. This does not include anything in your bio area. Since not many Twitch streamers use SEO to help increase their channel exposure, you will be at an advantage when using this guide.

What are Something I Should Keep in Mind?

Twitch has a lot of tools that many streamers don’t utilize or aware they exist. The things you should utilize are:

These areas in your Creator Dashboard are so beneficial and underpromoted that many people don’t know how to use it or understand it’s potential.

What to Utilize

Insights

Channel Analytics

Channel Analytics provide a much deeper understanding of how your channel is doing. It shows the average viewers, follows, subscriptions, revenue, and how long you have streamed. These categories are useful to gauge the direction you want your channel to go and how long they watch your stream. However, if you are just starting it may take some time to see these results post and reflect for an appropriate strategy.

Some companies like Zapier, can provide a free and paid version of Google Analytics integration for Twitch.

Stream Summary

Stream Summary is more detailed and provides more understanding of what occurred on that days’ stream. You can compare with previous streams and what games you played and for how long. When starting out it may take some time to build data to see what works and what doesn’t for the type of content you create. For this I would advise to test different times of days, days of the week, and types of games being played. I would recommend testing a variety of stream times, dates, and games for a week to see how it works for the channel you have. This is so you can determine what demographic you’re targeting and what works to increase viewers to your channel.

Content

Video Producer

Video Producer is something that is rarely used by Twitch streamers; in fact, it’s almost forgotten how important it really is. When are you setting up your live stream and insert your Title, Game, and Tags this is were it’ll benefit you the most as Google’s search engine will look at this. You must choose wisely on your video title and tags, and this can either hurt or help your channel. For Titles I recommend using a keyword search tool to assist in this: SEO Pressor and Title Generator are few I would use. If you prefer a different keyword search tool that works for you, use it.

Tags are also important as these get processes through the search engine as well, choose tags that are relevant to your content and always use the maximum number of tags allowed. Twitch’s servers will also make their own adjustments for viewers to find you as well, but that is on their backend. When your stream is done click the three dots on the side of the published broadcasted video and click edit.

This section you can change the Title and Category. But here you want to add a description that is related to the streamed content and keyword friendly. This will also show you the tags you used on that stream; however, you can only delete irrelevant tags and you can’t add any new ones.

If you do reruns, this will be beneficial for you as well

Clips

Clips are a great way to encourage viewers to interact with your channel more and to see past content you have done. This can be beneficial if you post your channel on social media or do a trailer for your channel. This is very commonly done in the Twitch community, but it still can help gain exposure to your channel and provide great trailer content for when you are offline or choose to advertise in the future.

Viewer Rewards

Channel Points

Channel Points don’t provide any revenue to the streamer, but they do allow and encourage engagement on your channel. I would recommend customizing your Rewards and Challenges section to reasonably attainable points, as this can create loyalty amongst your viewers and creates more engagement.

When viewers see a streamer engaging with their chat it can encourage a percentage of them to share your stream with others; either by social media, hosting, or doing raids.

Drops

Drops can be fun and exciting, especially if it’s a game you enjoy playing. Before doing Drops, always read the disclaimer for each Open Campaign you want to do so your viewers can benefit from this opportunity. Drops are a great way to retain viewers and may also encourage them to stay, even if it’s just for the rewards.

Don’t forget to include it in your title!

Channel

Panels

Panels need to be set up a certain way to be effective for SEO and for search engines to find your channel. Panels should include an image along with written text related to that image topic.

NEVER USE IMAGES ONLY FOR PANELS, THIS IS BAD SEO!!