Your videos should be “findable” both within and outside of YouTube. As previously mentioned, videos often appear on the first page of Google. Do this right and you can spring board yourself to the top of the search even if your website pages are still way behind. To do this you’ll want to make sure to set up your Title, Description, Tags, Category, thumbnail, subtitles, and closed captions for each video correctly. This information is referred to as your videos metadata.
1. Title – Under 60 characters, include your keyword(s) and make sure your title starts with them. You can create titles with a “:” as well to offer a subtitle portion to rephrase your keyword. Examples:
- Sciatica: Common Causes and Natural Solutions
- Teeth Whitening: What You Should NOT Do for Whiter Teeth
- Lean Muscle: Top 5 Foods for Sculpting Your Body
2. Description – Only 100 characters are shown without having the user click “Show More” so be sure to include your important links to your website / Facebook groups / Opt-in Landing Pages first. Write a detailed description of your video next which you can do by refining your video transcript if not pasting in the whole thing. It’s worth transcribing each video into text for use with things like this and adding subtitles to your video (if you’re too busy to do this yourself, not a problem, there’s plenty of people over at fiverr.com that would be happy to do it for you for 5 bucks! Just make sure they provide an .SRT file as well to use for your captions on the video). The description should be rich with your keywords and variations and most likely your video transcript would contain all those gems. At the bottom you will want to add links to all your other social platforms for your practice which you can add to a default channel description to save you the time listing this common information.
3. Tags – Highlight your main keywords in your tags. Tag the most important keywords first and then include other associated keywords and long-tail versions (meaning keyword phrases).
4. Category – YouTube does not have a health related category so I would categorize under People and Blogs, Education, or Science and Technology
5. Thumbnail – This is the first main image that viewer will see when your video is listed on Google or YouTube search results. This can have a substantial impact on the amount of click and views you get. YouTube will automatically assign a thumbnail from a clip of your video, but we recommend that you upload a custom image instead. There are many great resources online for determining what the best images are to use so take some time to look that up when setting up your video.
6. Subtitles and Captions – Yes these are helpful for viewers who are hearing impaired or in a place where audio isn’t appropriate, but they also help to optimize your video in the search as another opportunity to highlight your keywords. We talked about your transcript earlier so be sure to upload your transcript but there is also the option to have YouTube transcribe your video automatically if you haven’t already produced an SRT file to upload however it may require some fine tuning to get it right.
7. Cards and End Screens – Cards are small, rectangular notifications that appear in the top right corner of your video to help with engagement throughout the video. If you make a reference to a book you’ve written for example you can provide a link in that spot for your viewers. This enhances the viewer experience and we know Google loves user experience when ranking content. End screens allow you to extend your video for up to 20 seconds directing viewers on what to do next after the video is done. Promote your website, Facebook group, other social media links of yours or other videos you’ve published. It’s essential to add these to each of your videos to keep the continuum of your practice brand.