How To Optimize Your YouTube Videos & Channel

The growth of YouTube has been explosive, with more and more videos added every minute. Now more than ever it's important to properly optimize your YouTube videos so users can find them and easily access your content.

In this blog post I'll give you some tips on making your videos more visible in YouTube and other video search engines, and share some insights on how you can make your overall YouTube presence more effective.

A Note On Relevancy

YouTube's algorithms are getting very advanced and are becoming especially good at weeding out spammy videos. When optimizing your content, make sure to stay on topic and don't attempt mislead your viewers. All tags, descriptions, and titles should faithfully describe your video. Any attempt to glob onto popular search terms or trends that don't relate to your content will only hurt you.

Making First Impressions Count

If a user is browsing YouTube and comes across your video, the title and thumbnail photo are your first opportunity to appeal to viewers. Write a relevant and concise title, but don't give too much away. The title isn't meant to explain the entire video, just to introduce the concept and entice users to watch. Choose a thumbnail image that's clear and relevant. Images with people and especially faces seem to work the best.

Supporting Text

Make sure you also include a good description to accompany the video. A few paragraphs is usually enough, and it's a good idea to include any links or reference information in the description if you mention them in the video. This way users have follow-up actions and don't have to rewind the video just to catch the website address you mentioned in the video. At the very least include links to your website and other social media profiles.

Another great use for the description area is a place to put a transcript of the video. This way viewers can still get the message without audio or easily scan the text for things important to them. Including a transcript is also a way to include more searchable content for YouTube and other search engines.

Video tags are another opportunity to optimize your content for search. Although tags are not limited by YouTube, don't go crazy and enter hundreds. Keep the tags relevant and put the most important ones first. It's also important to make sure your video title, description, and tags all share your most important keywords. This consistency is important to YouTube rankings.

Video annotations are another way to support your video content with text. Annotations are floating boxes of text and links that appear over the video. You add them in YouTube's annotations editor. Don't go overboard though—over-annotating a video becomes annoying quickly. Also keep in mind annotations won't show up on tablets, TVs, phones, or other playback devices. For now, annotations are a computer web browser only feature.

If you feel very ambitious, you could include closed captioning for your videos. To do this you must transcribe the entire video and enter it into YouTube's closed captioning system. This of course gives YouTube more information to utilize in ranking your videos, but it also adds a simple way for people to enjoy your content without audio. A guide to YouTube's closed captioning process can be found on ReelSEO.

Make It Easy To Watch More

Don't forget to thoroughly complete your YouTube profile, including entering all relevant social media and website links. You can also add a description and tags to your profile. Profile tags are limited, so choose wisely. Adding a custom background and profile photo will also help your YouTube channel stand out, and reinforce your brand.

Another important step, especially if you have a large library of videos, is to create playlists. Putting videos in playlists will help users find the type of content they want and also helps with YouTube's search algorithm. A very effective YouTube channel is usually set up with one main featured video and then a list of playlists below. You can choose this layout from the channel settings panel.

Now The Hard Part

Of course even the most optimized videos won't garner many views if the content isn't good. First and foremost make sure you're posting quality content relevant to your audience. Also be active in the YouTube community. Watching other videos, commenting, sharing, and friending other users within your industry will help YouTube's search algorithm properly position your content. YouTube also seems to favor channels that post regularly, and often feature their content higher in searches.

Good luck, and don't get discouraged if success doesn't come quickly. Although the possibility of a viral video hit is exciting, it's very rare and difficult to accomplish. Look at how many views other videos relevant to your audience get, and form realistic expectations. After all, you don't need millions of views for YouTube to be an effective marketing tool. Your next great customer may be viewer number two.