Here are some quick tips and tricks on optimizing your videos on YouTube, to get more views. First step is to log in to your YouTube channel, go to the “my videos and playlists” section and choose the video you wish to optimize. You can also optimize your video when you first upload it.
Under the “Video Information” section start out with the title. The title is one of the most important areas because that is the first thing the search engines will see. You want to use your keywords (words people are searching for) here but make sure the title still makes sense when you read it. For example you would not want the title “Golf Golfer Golfing Putter etc.” because when an actual person sees it they will think it is spam. Also using phrases like “how to, diy, how do I, etc.” are very highly searched terms, just make sure your video is a how to video or people will negatively comment. Make sure to note the length of the title, for YouTube searchers this isn’t as important but traffic coming from Google can only see the first 56 characters of the title (partly because it says ‘YouTube’ right in the title), you can have a longer title but searchers won’t see it unless they click on the video. Bottom line make sure the first few words of the title make sense.
The “Description” is also very important first of all make sure to put the website first and make sure to include http:// before the website because it will make it a live link. Meaning that people can click on it and they will be brought to the site. No need to copy and paste the website or to try and retype it. After that you want to include a long description with your keywords sprinkled in the text. Again make sure that it makes sense when you read it, not just filled with keywords. The length shouldn’t be an issue because you have over 1000 characters, which should be plenty of room to describe your video. Remember the more information you can add the more the search engines know what is in the video.
In the “Tags” section is another resource for adding keywords so make sure to add them here! If you use too many it will be less effective, 7-15 is a perfect amount. In the past these used to be a lot more effective but the search engines have learned that people will often put all of their keywords in here even if they have nothing to do with the video. So they rely on the title and the description now more to figure out what the video is about. Just below that YouTube offers suggestions on keywords, this can be good for ideas but often I have found them to be completely unrelated for the most part.
Last but definitely not least is the “Category” drop down menu. Although not a huge factor in typical search it can be very important for users that are browsing YouTube. Some people will look in the comedy section for funny videos for entertainment, if they stumble across your video talking about your business they will often give it a thumbs down or leave a negative comment. It doesn’t take very many people clicking thumbs down for your video to quit showing up in the search engines!
To recap: 5 Tips on optimizing your video on YouTube to get more views
1) Put keywords in your title and be conscious of the ’55 character’ rule.
2) Add your website (including http://) in the beginning of the description box
3) Add a detailed description with your keywords that is readable
4) Keywords as your tags will help but only a little 7-15 is optimal
5) The correct category is key to reaching your target audience