How much attention do you pay to the descriptions on your videos? Do you just paste in the same boilerplate description on all your videos, or are you trying to fill it with keywords to get higher in the search rankings? Neither method is going to do you much good.
Don’t Overdo the Keywords
In a previous post, I talked about how Watch Time is the deciding factor in search rankings now (if you haven’t read it, go read it now!). Yes, keywords are still important, but search engines are also really smart, and if your keywords don’t make sense, or they’re too dense in the description, you can actually get penalized in searches. You should still put in one or two keywords near the beginning of the description, but they should be naturally helping describe the video. Save your other keywords for your tags.
How Descriptions Appear in YouTube’s Search
Here is a snapshot of a search I did on YouTube for “how to.” Notice how the description gets cut off after about 120-130 characters. This is your opportunity to tell people why they should watch your video.
Your description should, of course, mesh with your thumbnail and title, and wake the viewer want to know more about the video.
Avoid Common Mistakes When Writing Descriptions
Picking on these 5 random videos that came up, two of them have made a fairly common mistake, and that is putting a url in the beginning of the description. Links to your website or social media should always be in your description, but near the bottom. If someone hasn’t even decided to watch your video yet, they honestly don’t care about your url.
Another mistake is putting a call to action (please subscribe) near the top. Again, this is better reserved for later on in the description.
How to Write an Effective Description
The best thing to put at the beginning of your description is what your video is about in a teasing way. You can do this by starting off with a leading question, or an interesting statement.
For instance, if I was writing a description for a video about how to write descriptions on YouTube videos, I would start off with “Make your videos impossible to pass up on searches! The description field is easily optimized by avoiding common mistakes…”
At this point, my description is 121 characters. I would continue that second sentence, and go on to describe the video. After that, I would add a request to check out my other videos and subscribe, then include a list of links to my Facebook, Twitter, website, and wherever else I can be found online.
Taking just a few minutes to write a good description can make a big difference in people watching your videos. Of course, your tags, title, and thumbnails have to be appealing too, but we’ll be covering those next week on the Social Blade blog!
