With the rising popularity of video content to entice and engage your online audience, an amazing YouTube video description can surely help extend watch times, improve view counts and attract new subscribers.
As a real estate agent, it pays to know how to maximise your online footing and with compelling YouTube descriptions, you get to allow the platform’s algorithms to recognise your video content and make it visible to new users, thus, boosting your YouTube numbers.
A well-guarded secret
Just like any search engine platform, YouTube’s algorithms are a closely-guarded secret to prevent it from being manipulated and exploited.
Be that as it may, very enterprising and resourceful YouTube aficionados have figured out some key factors that have been found to help bump up YouTube numbers through SEO best practices that can help real estate content get the video content performance it deserves.
What is a YouTube description?
There are typically two types of descriptions marketers need to be aware of;
YouTube channel descriptions
This is the description that goes on a channel’s About Page that helps educate viewers about your YouTube channel, what to expect from your content and brand and help explain why they need to subscribe to your YouTube channel.
YouTube video descriptions
This is the text description found at the bottom of the video to help viewers understand the details of the video content and are commonly used to convince them to watch the video.
Commonly, it includes links and other information relevant to the video.
Great tips for writing effective YouTube descriptions
As mentioned before, while YouTube is mum about the details of its search algorithms, there are proven and effective ways to make the most out of your YouTube channel and content that you can use for your real estate business.
Always be on-target and specific
When choosing a keyword to use for your descriptions, it pays to be direct and specific. It has been found that description keywords play a huge role in the algorithm to understand, categorise, and present your video content.
Research is important
In this case, keyword research is critical, so make the most of online tools to help with finding the right keywords for your descriptions.
Google has several keyword research tools such as Google Trends and Keyword Planner to help you get started with your keywords to use for your video content.
Always leverage searchable keywords
Studies have shown that people usually find video content using Google, followed by YouTube search.
To make the most of both platforms, you can combine keywords trending on YouTube and Google to make your video content more visible and discoverable through both platforms.
How do you do it? When testing trending keywords, use Google to search for the keywords and if the results indicate YouTube videos ranking at the top, then you have the right keywords in your hands.
Learn to use keywords
Now that you have your keyword choices, it’s time to write your descriptions using the keywords.
Make sure to utilise two or three related keywords in your channel and each video content description. Remember to use the main keyword in the title specific to the video content.
Try to repeat using the keywords two to three times inside the description body to make it stand out in your video content to make it more visible to the algorithm.
Take caution to avoid repeating the keywords too much to avoid being penalised for keyword-stuffing and be suspected of trying to exploit the platform.
Primary keywords can be used to appear no more than once in the first three sentences of the ‘above the fold’ video description.
Viewers and the platform itself, have been found to focus on this part of the description and are least likely to be found at the end of the description body.
Also, include key information within the first 150 characters of your description above the “Show More” button to improve the click-through rate (CTR).
Observe and track keyword performance
YouTube Analytics is found in the user dashboard to help you see where viewer traffic comes from based on keyword searches from YouTube descriptions.
The built-in tool will help you stay on track with the right keywords that get you the most traffic.
Study your audience
A study in 2021 found that a large percentage of YouTube traffic comes from content that appears as suggested video than from the platform’s search bar.
The description found on your channel and videos plays a huge role in letting YouTube’s algorithms figure out what your content is all about and determine who to suggest your content to.
Find videos similar to yours that are trending on YouTube and determine description best practices from those videos, especially what viewers are saying about the video on the comments and by using your dashboard tools to run analytics.
Provide value beyond what your audience expects
Always remember to incorporate a value proposition in your descriptions to make them understand how they can benefit from your content and make them subscribe to your channel.
Take advantage of default descriptions
It will help you save time and effort in making your descriptions, as it automatically adds key channel details on each video uploaded on the channel.
Make sure to always fill out the rest of the description and don’t forget to use your chosen keywords for each video.
Use relevant links in your descriptions
This is a great way to engage your audience, so use links to social media or your real estate website to help viewers find you more easily and conveniently.
Always include http:// and https:// on your links lest it won’t work.
Write as a human
Make sure to use language that naturally appeals to your audience and make you appear human than a list of SEO-optimised material that could cause you to get penalised.