How do you do TikTok SEO?

What TikTok SEO is

TikTok SEO is making your videos show up when people search TikTok. TikTok’s help page says that for search, content information usually counts most: how well a video matches the words typed, its hashtags and its sound. See how TikTok search works for what it says and what we measured on 18,140 searches.

The usual checklist covers the video itself: keywords in the caption, on screen and spoken, a few hashtags, a clear profile. This plan adds what comes before and after: choosing the searches, checking them from the right country, and measuring whether it’s working.

Step 1: List the searches your audience makes

Aim for a list per market:

1. Type your topic into TikTok’s search bar and note the suggestions.
2. Search it and scroll down to the related searches TikTok shows (“Others searched for”).
3. Add the traveller and the feature. “Hotel in Nice” becomes “hotel in Nice with rooftop pool” or “where to stay in Nice for couples”. See what travellers search before booking a hotel.
4. Write searches in the market’s own language. The New Zealand searches we track from Japan are in Japanese, such as “ニュージーランド 初めて” (New Zealand, first time). In 305 searches typed in Japanese from Japan, 75% of the top-20 videos had Japanese captions. A translated English keyword is only a guess at what people type.

Step 2: Search from your audience’s country

We compared the same words searched on the same day from two countries, 13,191 times. Two countries shared about a quarter of their top-20 videos (24%). The US and the UK shared 13%, and Singapore and the US 10%.

The results on your own phone show what people in your country see. If your guests are in Singapore and your team is in London, run each search from Singapore.

Step 3: Read the top 10 for each search

For each search, note:

• Who made each video: you, a competitor, a creator or a reseller.
• How old it is. The median ranking video in our data was 166 days old.
• How long it is. The median was 37 seconds, and 72% ran a minute or less.
• How well it answers the search. Some top results are about somewhere else entirely. Target those searches first.

Step 4: Make one video for each search

Build each video around one search:

• Say it. Open with the words of the search, as a sentence: “Here’s how to do the Hooker Valley Track in a morning.”
• Show it on screen in the first seconds.
• Write it in the caption, in plain words, with one or two hashtags that name the topic (see TikTok SEO hashtags). In our searches, 77% of top-20 captions shared at least one word with the search, and only 9% had every word. A natural sentence is enough.
• Show what the searcher wants to see. “Where to stay in Nice for couples” asks for the room, the view and the walk to the beach.

Step 5: Count rankings, not views

Views tell you how popular a video is, not whether it ranks. In our 18,140 searches:

• 40% of top-20 videos had under 10,000 views, and 12.5% had under 1,000.
• The most-viewed video in each top 20 was number one in 6% of searches, close to the 5% you’d expect by chance.

Count the searches where you appear in the top 10, and your position in each.

Step 6: Re-check every month

Run the same searches from the same countries every month. Older videos still rank (24% of ranking videos were over a year old), so re-checking shows whether yours is still there, and when a competitor or creator takes its place.

Common mistakes

Mistake	What to do instead
Checking results on your own phone	Search from your audience’s country
Translating English keywords	Collect searches in each market’s language
Judging videos by views	Count where you rank, search by search
One caption stuffed with keywords	One search per video, said, shown and written plainly
Posting once and moving on	Re-check the same searches monthly

If your business doesn’t have its own videos for these searches yet, see can a business rank in TikTok search? for how brands get in, including through creators who already rank.