YouTube is more than just videos and in fact, when done right, you can take advantage of the amazing social media marketing potential of the platform to boost your business.
YouTube still needs text descriptions to help its video content become more searchable and identifiable online. When you need to come up with great YouTube content you need to consider two basic things that make YouTube text details work;
Channel descriptions are the text that you find for the channel’s “About” page. This helps viewers get information on what to expect from your channel.
Video descriptions are the notes found at the bottom of the videos to help viewers find your content online and give them an idea to help them make a decision to view your videos or not.
SEO for YouTube
When done right, your YouTube descriptions can immensely help out in boosting your search rankings and ratings through search engine optimisation (SEO). It spells the difference when you want to promote your channel and your business.
Here are some note-worthy ideas to help you make the most out of your video content on YouTube;
Specific keywords
Find out two or three keywords that are performing very well in online searches and must be relevant for use in your YouTube channel or videos.
Include these selected keywords in your descriptions to help increase your ranking among viewers, as well as capturing the audience for your channel.
To help you get started, keywords can be generated by Google Trends or Google Ads Keyword Planner. Simply type in the keywords and phrases that best describe your YouTube channel and Google will suggest related keywords that you can use for your descriptions.
Keyword redundancy can be very helpful
Repeating your specific and complementary keywords in more of your videos or channel can help you get results from people searching for related topics.
The role of complementary keywords is to help provide additional information regarding your content often a catchy sneak peek into what the video is all about.
What to expect
Truthfulness is critical when you provide descriptions for your videos lest your viewers will be disappointed if you provide incorrect details. It is best to indicate a factual summary instead of stuffing keywords that have no relevance to the video at all.
Besides, providing false information in your descriptions could not just damage your search rankings, but also affect your reputation.
Know and talk like your audience
In today’s age of automation and artificial intelligence, it is not a surprise to know that people still crave for human interaction, thus, descriptions need to feel and sound more human.
Use your keywords in a natural way, instead of making it appears as a list crammed into the description. If you don’t feel confident about your wordsmith skills, you can always make use of online writing resources to help you formulate your YouTube descriptions.
Prioritise placement
It is important to strategically make use of your keywords so placing them in the first three sentences of your description can make it more visible and convenient for reading.
YouTube’s search algorithm is aimed at keywords at the beginning of the description and is different from the one used by Google, so having your keywords front-loaded is vital to YouTube search engine optimisation (SEO).
Also, YouTube descriptions reveal the first few sentences “above the fold”, so having it there and not when it is collapsed makes it more visible up front.
Use links and metadata
Speaking of “above the fold” readers who show interest in your content would gladly collapse the fold to show more information, this is where your backlinks, metadata, and URL’s become critical in helping you promote your brand.
These links can include your social media network handles, webpages, and other product links.
Make use of metadata to give you an edge on your SEO strategies to make it more dynamic across all search engines.
Write good copy for optimised CTR
Click-through-rate (CTR) is a vital SEO metric that ensures your content gets the attention of the audience. You can do this by introducing catchy and attractive content. Studies have shown that 70%-80% of YouTube millennials use the platform to learn new things, which should serve as a guide when formulating copy.
CTR can spell the difference between making your content connect with your audience so making it enticing for them to visit your channel and subscribe to your videos.
WIIFM
Adding a value proposition into your descriptions makes it more relevant to your audience. What’s In It For Them (WIIFM) such as stating why they should watch your videos or how it could benefit them makes it more important and interesting.
Calls to action
Using clear, providing benefit, and urgent calls to action greatly help to increase subscriptions and viewership. Having CTA’s in both your video and channel descriptions encourage the audience to take action right away and adding a link at the end that could direct them to your booking or subscription pages can be a good strategy.
Using http:// or https:// on your URL’s make it clickable since YouTube is one of the very few platforms that allow users to link out.
Also, add links to helpful resources such as labelling it under Suggested Videos helps add value to your audience because it makes you think of them.
Make it original and unique
While there are available description templates, having your unique descriptions help generate better results. It is more interesting for viewers to see unique and intriguing content compared to the common and similar copy provided by templates.
Default descriptions may be a faster way to add basic metadata or contact information, but make sure to use fresh descriptions regularly.
Timestamps
Studies have shown that attention spans have decreased over the years, thus, providing timestamps in your descriptions that guide viewers to skip through your video content can prove useful.
Timestamps can be valuable especially when you have long-running videos with a lot of different topics, so indicating a timestamp for each of those topics not only shows a list of your content but would also guide your viewers to choose to skip to the part they want to see.
Don’t forget the #hashtags
Use your hashtags wisely to help viewers find your content. Make sure to not go beyond 15 hashtags or YouTube will ignore it all. Also, make sure that your hashtags are relevant to your content, otherwise viewers could get disappointed with misleading information.
Test description on multiple devices
To maximise your content’s reach, make sure to test your description on different devices. YouTube statistics indicate that 70% of views are made using mobile devices such as phones and tablets, so making sure that your descriptions are completely visible on these devices is critical.
Now that you have the ingredients to make relevant and useful YouTube descriptions, you can start making it and reap the rewards of your strategic YouTube marketing campaigns.