YouTube Channel - Optimizing The Discoverability of Your Video

Optimizing your YouTube channel for success is a multi stage process which will most likely require slight changes to your previous working methodology. I would encourage the readers to read the following lines with a forward looking attitude - otherwise stated - whats done is done and it is better to focus on the next videos you are about to upload to your channel. Enjoy the reading an make sure to join my YouTube for Action Marketing group on LinkedIn.

Consider the fact that

60% of Americans search for a product on Google, and then learn more by going to YouTube before they buy it.

Regardless of whether you are running TrueView for Action campaigns to drive lower funnel conversions or using YouTube channel for branding purposes - making sure that your YouTube channel is optimized to make the best out of Organic Traffic is a key priority. This section of the YouTube Channel Optimization tutorial is going to be dedicated to optimizing the discoverability of your video. That's the first touch point of growing your channel.

The discoverability of your video will be impacted by a diverse amount of factors. I would avoid going into details of factors which are outside of your control as a YouTube Creator - and rather focus on those that are. Title, Thumbnail, Description, and Tags - are all factors in an equation you can control.

Let's start picking them apart one by one - beginning with the title and deep diving into the more complicated once.

Title

When you think about the title of your next YouTube video - think about newspaper articles. Take another look at whatever newspaper you are reading - focus on the titles of those articles. With that mentally in mind, the following rules apply, if you want to create a successful title for your video.

1. Trending Keywords - use Trending Keywords as part of your title, straight from the start if possible. You can identify trending keywords using Google Trends. Use Google trends to figure out what are the trending keywords within your videos "topics". Make sure to narrow down for specific country and period.

For example, if you were to search for insurance trends in India - you were to come across the results bellow.

You will benefit from using those trending queries in your videos title. Keep in mind that it is not compliant to produce "clickbaits" - your title must be relevant to the video.

1. Brand Keywords - Brand Keywords should be kept to the end of the title in order to make sure that you are maximizing the characters available for Search Engine Result Page (SERP).

Thumbnail

Before we begin the thumbnail discussion - take a look at the screenshots bellow and try to think which thumbnail is more successful and why.

While there are several ways to go about a good thumbnail for a video, generally speaking a thumbnail would include a "super" and would be relevant to the title of the video.

When putting together a thumbnail - keep in mind the following recommendations:

1. Think Mobile First - ppl on mobile should be able to understand & read your thumbnail
2. Add a short description / supers (the small text-boxes on the thumbnail)
3. Brand your content in a consistent way - so that audience are able to recognize your YouTube style. For example take a look at GEICO Insurance, not only that they have a special Thumbnail style, their videos also have a unique creative style. In addition you should notice that all their titles end with "GEICO Insurance".

Description

Description is an important part of your video's metadata and should be crafted smartly. There are several ways to use the description to assist your users and make sure that you come on the more favorable side of Google's discovery algorithm.

A success description would have all of the following elements:

1. Overview - Provide an overview of the video's content using natural language
2. Trending Keywords - make sure use the trending keywords from the title, in the first 2 lines of the description. Trending Keywords should be naturally incorporated within the title as well as the description.

Successful YouTube videos will have trending keywords incorporated in their title and description. Once again - keep in mind - that if your content doesn't match, users will be clicking / leaving your content without watching the video - that would impact your chances of getting discovered by our algorithms.

3. Brand Keywords - are encouraged to be incorporated at the description. Think SEO but don't overdo it - you should be ok with adding Brand keywords in a natural matter.

Nearly 1 in 2 millennials go to YouTube for food prep tips before deciding what to buy.

4. Hyperlinks / Information - adding hyperlinks to additional data sources related to the video is a great way to provide audience with added value. If your video is some kind of a tutorial, you might want to add hyperlinks to different parts of the video in order to help your users track the right point of time - especially if the video is long.

Check this 5 minutes demo tutorial by Waves Audio. Adding hyperlinks to their description is a great way to provide value to their viewers. Viewers are able to jump straight to their point of interest.

A slightly different use, nevertheless just as effective can be seen in the following example. Having hyperlinks to related videos allows users to consume additional content, as well as follow through to additional sources of information.

Hashtags

The use of hashtags is highly recommended especially along with trending topics. Hashtags can be incorporated into the videos description. Description hashtags are links to additional hash-tagged content. When you upload the video you can add hashtags as well. Hashtags would make your video more discoverable to potential viewers.

Hashtag policies could be found here. I would recommend to read through in order to understand how to use them properly.

I would also recommend to watch the video bellow by YouTube Creators Academy which explains how to write successful descriptions

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