SEO Tips for YouTube

Written By Tim Prusha

YouTube is the world’s third-largest search engine, and the second-most popular site for college research. Consider these optimization tasks to help your videos get in front of more prospective students and parents.

Foundational Best Practices

It all begins with understanding user intent and behavior, a.k.a. KEYWORD RESEARCH! What sort of things is your audience searching for and interested in? Keyword research will not only help you create content that users actually want to watch, but it also will come in handy when tackling other more technical elements of YouTube. Keyword research and terms should be taken into consideration when ticking off the below tasks:

  • Video is edited to include title cards & overlays (optional, but goes a long way)

  • Video file has a custom file name (i.e. DSC_0011 vs. graphic_design_major_at_college)

  • Video title is catchy and concise

  • Video description’s 1st sentence or two is concise, accurate, and descriptive

  • Add video chapters

  • Add video categories

  • Add custom video transcript & accurate subtitles/closed captions

  • Add hashtags & tags related to your topic

  • Add a custom thumbnail image

  • Consider embedding the video on your website (versus a link)

  • Share your video on social media

Tips for Specific Tasks

Once we have keyword research in-hand, we want to incorporate it into various elements naturally. I emphasize naturally because we want to avoid bloating the copy in a way that feels forced (keyword stuffing). Remember, YouTube SEO is about making your content easier for your viewers to find.

Video Title

Your title should tell the viewer exactly what it is while standing out.

  • You’ve got about 60- 70 characters before the ellipses kick in

  • Use keywords that really hit on the key concept and point of your video

  • Use relatable language

  • Avoid Clickbait-type titles

  • A few tips from Google on thumbnails & video titles

Video Description

Remember, your viewer came here to watch a video, not to read an essay. Be concise and specific, and write for your audience. Keyword terms tend to intuitively and naturally occur in copy when we write for real human beings (not search engines). Be you!

  • Use the first 2-3 sentences to really hit the description on the head - Think of the description as two parts - what users will ALWAYS see and what users will see after clicking “show more.” Part one will be about 2-3 sentences - we want this to pass a “blink test” - does it accurately answer and describe what the video is about?

    • Use this space to give viewers a compelling reason to watch your video.

  • Add links where it feels appropriate & helpful - Adding links to other videos or your website, blog, etc. can be super helpful for users (also…BACKLINKS WOO!). Put links at the end of your description. There are more important things to put at the beginning.

  • Add a CTA - Adding specific calls to action - subscribe! Follow us on Twitter! Check out our Blog! See our Playlist about XYZ, etc. - are super helpful and informative

  • Add tags, but don’t stress too much about it - yes, adding tags/hashtags is helpful, but it’s not the first thing YouTube’s algorithm looks at. Pick a few and go with them - excessive tagging can be interpreted as spam by Google, so find a 3-5 that resonate most.

  • Add timestamps to long videos - Timestamps act as a table of contents, allowing users to navigate your content and skip to different parts of the video hassle-free.

  • Consider reviewing Google’s guide to writing video descriptions

Transcripts and Captions

Search engines can’t watch videos, but they can crawl transcripts and captions!

  • Captions can be added manually by uploading a text transcript or a timed subtitles file. YouTube also offers the option to directly enter transcript text, allowing the subtitles and timings to be automatically synced with your video. In some cases, automatic captions may be added through YouTube’s speech recognition technology after you upload your video. Beware, though - automated captions tend to be less accurate than manually created ones.

  • See Google’s instructions on

Channel Description & Notes

  • The first 100-150 characters of your channel description are the most important, as YouTube shows that text snippet next to your channel in the search results.

  • Ensure your description includes keywords about your business’s mission and role

  • Also include any URLs to your site, social media handles, etc.

  • Consider creating playlists of videos in your channel that users may find helpful

Are you getting the most out of your video content? Are you looking for more video optimization tips? The content above was provided to our clients in a roundup of foundational SEO tasks to help when optimizing for YouTube and showing up in organic searches. This post revealed some of those tips, but of course we kept the best ones for our clients! You can request part 2 (Technical Notes and Tips) and learn more about becoming a Little Foxes Marketing partner school here.

Tim Prusha
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