You have just created a video you plan to use in promoting your brand. You have gone through all the necessary steps for making sure the video is of excellent quality—from ensuring the relevance of the topic covered to researching information to be included in the video to creating a script for the video to editing the video for clarity of visuals and sound.
You’ve probably even given the video a title and chosen an attractive thumbnail for it. Now you’re ready to showcase it to the world by uploading it to your YouTube channel. But, wait! Have you already prepared YouTube video descriptions? Have you made sure the description is as enticing as the title and thumbnail or even more? Does your video description provide a compelling reason for people to watch the video in full? Will search engines and YouTube users alike be attracted to your video description?
You may not realize this, but a video description can have a huge impact not only on the number of views the video receives but also on the chances of that video ranking well in search results. This is why you need to make sure the description you attach to every single video you post is solid.
Sadly, so many businesses have failed to take advantage of the space for video descriptions provided by YouTube. Without ever realizing it, they have allowed a huge opportunity to drive conversions, improve their rankings, and engage with their audience to pass them by. You are allowed to post up to 5000 characters in the description box. Why not make the most of it? Use it wisely and enjoy more engagement and longer watch times for your videos.
YouTube Video Descriptions Field Facts
The YouTube video descriptions is like a summary that tells everyone what your video is about. You can write up to 5000 characters, but only about 157 show up at first, so it’s crucial to grab attention quickly. The first part of your description is super important because, in YouTube search results, only the first 125 characters are visible along with the title and thumbnail. In Google search, only the first 100 characters show up. So make those first words count!
Video Description Writing Tips
So, how do you make sure the descriptions you write are solid? Here are a few tips:
1. Be as informative as possible.
In a study conducted by aimClear in early 2014, it was shown that informational descriptions had the most impact on a video’s chances of landing on top of search results on Google and Bing. To be specific, informational descriptions scored 84%, navigational descriptions 18%, and transactional descriptions 12%.
What is the difference between these three types of video descriptions? Well, transactional descriptions are those where you use phrases like “Buy Here” or any other ways to convince viewers to make a purchase or patronize a service. Navigational descriptions are those that tell viewers to visit another site and include a link to that site. Informational descriptions simply inform viewers what the video is about, using words like, “learn how” or “what are” and the like.
The biggest reason why informational descriptions work best is that the words used therein are also the words commonly used in searches. It would, therefore, be wise to create descriptions in the informational format for each of your videos. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t include links and calls to action in your description, of course; only that the link and call to action should be accompanied by relevant keywords and useful information.
2. Be concise
I mentioned earlier that your description should have good info, but it doesn’t have to be super long. You don’t need to use up all 5000 characters YouTube allows. If you can make a great description with just 1000 characters, go for it! People visit YouTube for videos, not to read a lot. You need to learn how to make short descriptions, but still tell people what they need to know. Keeping it brief and interesting is the best way to get more people to watch your videos.
3. Make sure the description is searchable
Remember how I said your video descriptions need to be appealing to both people and search engines? Well, one way to make them appealing to search engines is to make sure they’re easy to find. For instance, if your video is about making YouTube descriptions, be sure to include words like “YouTube” and “description” in your description. Using these clear keywords helps search engines know what your video is about and index it correctly.
4. Use timestamps
If you have a video that includes a special announcement or if you’re creating longer how-to/step-by-step videos, then the timestamp feature will come in handy. Let’s say, for example, that you have a special announcement at the 6:00 mark of the video. By including the timestamp 6:00 in your video description, you can direct viewers to that specific part of the video. The timestamp automatically creates a link to that part. Making things easy for viewers is a very effective way of earning their trust.
5. Give credit where it’s due
If you forgot to give credits in your video, make sure to do it in the description. Thank everyone who helped make the video. If they have a website or YouTube channel, you can share their links too. You’ll need to be creative to fit this in and keep your description informative and under the 5000-character limit.
Using Links
Links are really important, as we’ve talked about before. It’s a good idea to include them in your YouTube video descriptions. The description is the best place to add links to other websites. This is how you can lead people from YouTube to your web pages. Adding links is super important, especially if your video is about a product or service you’re selling. Did you know that 73% of people are more likely to buy something after watching a video about it? That’s why you need to know how to use links well in your video descriptions.
You generally have two options in terms of where—within the video description—you should place your links. These options depend on what you want to achieve with your link. If you want the link to help you establish or strengthen your YouTube presence, then it is best to place the link below the fold. This way, the focus is on gaining viewers, rather than getting people to click on the link; click-throughs are simply bonuses in this case. However, if your goal is to get more traffic to your site, then you should place the link towards the beginning of the description. It may be a good idea to do this only after you’ve established a solid YouTube presence.
Whether you include an outbound link in your video description or not, there is one link that should always be present: the “Subscribe Here” link. Of course, the best way to encourage people to subscribe to your channel is still via an annotation in the video itself. But it doesn’t hurt to place the link in the description as well. Most people respond positively when asked to do something nicely.
If you’re on social media (which you should be if you want to succeed in online marketing), it’s smart to share links to your social media pages in your video descriptions. Even if these links are already on your YouTube “About” page, it’s good to put them in your video descriptions too. The easier you make it for people to find you on other parts of the internet, the more likely they are to follow you there.
If you’ve already set up a YouTube channel and posted several videos there, now is the best time to revisit those videos and check their descriptions. Did you even put anything there at all? So many brands waste space by leaving the description field completely blank. If you did include a description, check to see if it is informative, concise, and searchable enough to achieve its purpose. Do this for every video you have posted and then keep the above tips in mind for all your future video descriptions.
If you’re getting your videos ready to upload on YouTube, it’s really important to write great descriptions for each one. YouTube gives us tools to make our videos better, so let’s make sure we use them.