How to write an effective YouTube video description

An updated podcast episode with current information is now available. S2 Ep88 How to write an effective YouTube description and promote your video (PART 1)  https://www.buzzsprout.com/846682/14136918

How do you write an effective video description so that your video can be discovered on YouTube?  And does it matter?  As YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, you need to tap into that power.  After all, if you're going to the effort of making a video, you want people to find it and watch it, don't you?

There are a few key things you need to do to give your description the best chance of being as useful as it can be. 
- Keywords,
- Length,
- How to write it.

In this weeks episode Mike and Sue discuss all three points and provide useful advice on how to do it.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Moonshine Moonshot series. Today we're talking about something super important and it's your video description and you've put all this work into making your really a fantastic video. Now you really want to make sure you do everything possible to get people to see it.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

If you are not putting great descriptions on your videos, you're making a fatal flaw, don't do it guys. Spend a little bit of time getting your video descriptions perfect to maximize your search engine optimization.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

So we're going to take you probably over the next five to ten minutes through some key points we've learned about how to make your video description in YouTube for each video perform as well as it possibly can.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Okay, this is the Moonshine Moonshot series. This is all about making your communications shine and achieving the impossible. Achieving your moonshot, whatever that looks like to you. I'm Mike Hill.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

And I'm Sue Collins.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Alright, so let's talk about video descriptions.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Alright, so one of the really big reasons that the video description in YouTube is so important is because YouTube is actually a search engine, one of the biggest search engines on the internet.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

The second biggest search engine after Google.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

So yeah, so that's right. So you want to make sure that your video is well optimized so that everyone can find it. And one of the ways you can do that is apart from your video title and the tags, is also to make sure the description's got your keywords in it as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Yeah, I mean those three things are all critical ingredients. Are we just talking about description today?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

We're going to focus on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Okay, so title, description, and tags. Are all they're going to be the difference between whether your video gets viewed thousands of times potentially, or if it hardly gets viewed at all. That's how important this is.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

What happens is that YouTube looks at the description and it is looking for the keywords and so it can understand what your video is actually about. So the clearer your description is to what your video is about, the algorithms and all the way YouTube works in its back end is going to go, okay, understand what this video is. So when someone puts in a search term, it matches that video, and I know that I'm giving them content that they're going to want to see. So it will help get your video into the suggested videos as well as get it ranking better in the actual search that people do.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

That's right. So key phrases is the key thing there. Keywords or key phrases, the things that people type into search engines, those are the things that you really want to focus on and make sure that you've got at least one popular keyword or key phrase in that title of your video and then peppered through the description of your video as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

And particularly in the first two to three sentences of your video description, you want to make sure that that keyword's there. Because if you wouldn't put that keyword in your video title, it's probably not the right keyword to be focusing on. Perhaps it's not quite the right fit or it doesn't really represent what the content's going to be about. And that is super important. You don't want to be doing the clickbait thing because what happens is people click on your video and instantly click away, and that's not actually what you're wanting. You're wanting people to come to your video because it's what they actually want to be saying.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

So when when I think about keywords and key phrases, I think about uh the work of Perry Marshall, who's the absolute guru when it comes to Google Ads and how they work, but it's all part of the same infrastructure. Google Ads, YouTube videos, whether you're advertising or not, um, you know, it all comes back to this idea of keywords and key phrases, and it's really worth taking the time to get that right so that you are tapping into something that people are interested in and searching for, you know, and I think a key idea here is this is not um highfalutin academic language we're talking. It is the language of the street. That stuff that you type into a search engine in the privacy of your own Google search, you know, it's not highly tuned, you know, um, verbiage normally. It's just like stream of consciousness straight out of your brain. You're asking questions, you're often not using jargon, you're using street language, you know, and that's actually what you want to get into your description. You want it to reflect what people are going to be typing into their search, either on YouTube or Google, because both of them are gonna influence how this video shows up.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Yeah, that's right. So you wanna you want to be using your key search word and you want to pepper it through your description, but you don't want to um also make it read really badly because it's stuffed with a keyword. You just need to have it layer at least, probably I'd say, once to twice in your two first two to three sentences, and then at least another maybe two times throughout the the body of the description. And I think you should aim for at least 200 plus words, just so that a lot of people apparently, in um the way they consume the description, is they actually will read it before they'll watch the video. So a lot of people actually think it's just a bit superfluous and it doesn't mean a lot, but actually, a lot of people apparently are using the description to make a decision about whether they will watch the video. So you still want it to be well written, you don't want it to sound really weird and stuffed with a keyword, but you do want to get that keyword in there. I'd say three times across the whole description.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

I'd say three is good, and then you really want that same keyword to be appearing, your primary keyword, you really want that same primary keyword to be appearing in the title of your film, put it in your tags in YouTube as well, and put it in the script of your video because whether you like it or not, YouTube is gonna caption your video. Um, even better when you provide your own captions, um, that also becomes metadata that gets searched. These are all key ways that the Google algorithm makes your video more visible.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

So I think just to recap for you, um, so you want to get a really appropriate keyword that really suits your video. You want to try and write it into the first two to three sentences of your description. Then you want to have at least 200 words of description, and then you also want to use that keyword as one of your first tags when you're doing the tag section on your video. And that's gonna give you a really good result in regards to search and the best opportunity to get put in the suggested videos that appear on the side next to when people are watching a video.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

That's exactly right. And then if you do decide to do some advertising around your video as well, all of that work's gonna pay off with a huge multiplier effect because you're gonna use that keyword now to actually place your ad and make it even more visible to your audience. So good luck, guys. Hope this has helped.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Okay, well, thank you so much for joining us today, everyone. If you've got any questions about your description or if you want us to give more details on anything, um please let us know. But just remember, keyword, get it into the first two to three sentences of your description. Try and write at least 200 well written copy around that, and then um make sure that that keyword is also one of the first tags that you use.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

And if you want more tips and tricks to do with your video communications and communication strategy more broadly, subscribe to the channel. See you guys. See you next time.