How to Optimize and Promote Your YouTube Videos to Get More Views

You’ve just finished up spending an untold number of hours scripting, filming, and editing your YouTube video. You’re finally convinced you’ve created the ultimate work of video art. (Well, either that, or you’re so sick of working on it at this point that you’re pulling the plug before you lose the last of your sanity… hey, we’ve all been there.)   

Great job! But you still have work to do, influencers and content creators. 

Yes, having a great quality video should always be your main focus. But there’s an art to uploading your video and sharing it, too. If you want to increase your views and give your videos the widest reach, you’ll need to spend some time thinking about how to promote and optimize your videos, too. 

In this article, we’ll focus on some of the biggest bang-for-your-buck ways to make sure your videos get as many views as possible. This includes maximizing how you present your video (the title, the thumbnail, and the description) and how you optimize your video to make it more likely to show up in search results and video suggestions.  

1. Write Irresistible Video Titles

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. But who among us hasn’t wandered around a bookstore (I guess in this scenario we’ve all time-traveled back to 2003) and picked up a book just because of a provocative title? Guns, Germs, & Steel; Naked Lunch; Where the Wild Things Are; Toilet Paper Origami. You’re curious to know what’s inside, right? And in video form, that means you’re curious enough to give a click.

Other than your video thumbnail (more on those below), your video’s title may be the only thing your potential audience sees. A good catchy title is pretty much essential to get people to click on and watch your videos. 

What makes a good YouTube video title? Here’s what the social media experts recommend: 

• Keep it snappy. Aim for somewhere between 40 and 70 characters. Better yet, keep it under 60 characters if you don’t want it to get truncated or cut off when it’s displayed. 
• Include at least one keyword. What words do you expect people will use when searching for something like your video? Your most important keyword should definitely be in your title. 
• Focus on the benefit for your viewer.  

Your title should make it clear to the viewer that they’re going to get something out of watching your video.  

• Learn from what works for your target audience. Find the most-viewed videos for your related topic (or other similar topics that your particular target audience might also watch) and analyze the formulas and style they use. You’ll notice some patterns that you can start incorporating into your own video titles. 

(Tip: Although it’s not specifically geared for YouTube, you could try running your title past a Headline Analyzer tool to see how clickworthy it might be.)  

2. Include the Best (and Most Accurate) Keywords

Ok, ok, so we know that the words “Search Engine Optimization” can sometimes prompt an automatic Pavlovian response where your eyes immediately glaze over and you suddenly desperately want to do anything else right now than think about Search Engine Optimization (SE0). 

But, alas, if you really want to increase your views and grow your audience, it must be done, friends. Think of it this way: the key to increase your YouTube views is to make your videos as easy as possible to find. You want them to show up whenever someone is searching for something like your video. The higher they rank in YouTube’s internal search and in Google searches, the more traffic you’ll get. 

The first step is to make sure you’re including the best keywords possible for your videos. (“Keywords” is another way to describe the search terms, or the words that someone types into a search box when they’re looking for something.)

Here are a few ways to help figure out what your keywords should be: 

• Check out your YouTube Analytics to see what your current top search words are -- you can probably pump up the volume on those to get even more views
• Start typing into the YouTube search bar and see what YouTube’s Suggest feature offers (those are the most common related search terms)

• Use a free SEO tool like Ubersuggest to identify which are the most powerful and popular search term keywords to include

Once you’ve got a good sense of what your best keywords are, you can include them in multiple places to optimize your videos: 

• In your video’s file name. (Including a keyword in the actual file name of your video when you upload it to YouTube can help YouTube associate your video with that keyword from the start.)
• In your title and description
• In your YouTube video’s tags
• In any other social media posts where you promote the video

Important note: Don’t assume that more keywords is always better. These days, having too many keywords might make Google flag your video or site as spam. Choose 1-2 top keywords and sprinkle them in gently rather than splattering them all over the place. 

3. Make a Custom and Eye-Catching Thumbnail Image

Once you have a great title for your video, the second half of capturing your audience’s attention right off the bat is having a good thumbnail image. As eyes are the window to the soul, so the thumbnail should be a window into your content. Give them something worth gazing at!

A thumbnail image is the image that is displayed along with your title in search lists. YouTube creates automatic thumbnail images for you when you upload a video, but this is just a random screenshot of your video. YouTube actually gives you a few auto-generated options to choose from, in fact. 

But an auto-generated thumbnail is never going to be as good as a custom one! Here’s a few tips for how to make your custom YouTube thumbnail eye-catching: 

• Take a screenshot of the best or most illustrative moment of your video (or, take a high-quality photo at the same time as recording your video.)   
• Add some *short* descriptive text on top. (You can use a free tool like Canva to customize your images quickly.)

• Choose the same font and style for your thumbnail text in all your videos to make everything look consistent and appealing

4. Write an Informative, Tempting, and Easy-to-Read Video Description 

There are also plenty of opportunities to increase your views and boost your engagement by writing a really good video description for your YouTube video. On YouTube, the description is the text that appears below your video on the video’s main page.  

What makes an effective video description? Here are a few things to keep in mind: 

• Watch your length. Technically you have a max of 5,000 characters for your YouTube description, but shorter is going to be better (after all, your audience wants a video, not a novel, right?)
• Make the first 100 or so characters count. YouTube usually only automatically shows the first couple lines of your description and then gives you a “Show more” button to reveal the rest.

Front-load your video description with the most important or clickworthy text and calls to action.

• Include your optimal keywords. Having good keywords in your description will make your videos more likely to show up in the Suggested Videos sidebar on YouTube -- a great way to get more views. You can repeat your keywords too (4-5 times max, though, so as to not get flagged as spam.)
• Describe your video accurately in an appealing way. Think of this as writing a text-based advertisement for your video. Let them know what they should expect -- not just what they will see, but *why* they should watch it (aka, what the benefit is for them). 
• Promote yourself. Use the end of your description to promote your brand. If this video is the first time anyone’s ever seen one of your videos, make it easy for them to find more! Include links to other relevant videos, your channel, your social media, etc.

Also, hopefully this goes without saying, but each description should be unique! Even if you have more than one video on a similar topic, make sure you don’t just copy-paste the same description for each of them.   

5. Add Closed Captions and Subtitles 

Captioning for the hearing-impaired and hard-of-hearing is more than just common courtesy; it’s good business sense! There are any number of reasons why a person might need to watch your video with the volume off. Let those who haven’t watched a makeup tutorial at church step forward and cast the first stone. 

Generating a transcript of your content for closed captions will help you single out keywords and increase your search optimization -- a crucial step in growing your audience.

Subtitles take your reach a step further, making your content accessible to speakers of other languages and reaching markets you’ve barely dreamed of.

One great service YouTube provides is automatic caption generation for content creators. This isn’t always perfect. It involves relying on a computer to interpret the sounds coming out of your mouth, so unless you have the diction of Professor Henry Higgins there will occasionally be mistakes. But it’s a great shortcut for people getting started or those just learning the technical side of YouTube. It’s certainly a better option than no captions at all.

Of note, this service doesn’t extend to translation and foreign language subtitles (wouldn’t that be something!) To add your own subtitles or captions, just follow these steps.

6. Create Teasers or Shorter Versions of Your Videos for Your Other Social Media Channels 

Don’t just stop at YouTube!  What if the Beatles only went on Ed Sullivan and didn’t follow it up with a tour?  You gotta take your act on the road. And these days that means other social media sites. To grow your following and build a wider audience, you should be promoting your YouTube videos on at least one other major social media platform too.

Of course some of the best sites to promote yourself don’t entirely lend themselves to posting full-length videos. Your Twitter followers need to know your latest opus has dropped, but they probably aren’t going to watch it on Twitter. That’s why you’ll make your announcement with a homemade teaser trailer on Twitter.  Or you might make a short highlight reel and set that up on Instagram.

Sure, you could just paste a link to your YouTube video on your other social channels. But, as we wrote in our article on repurposing your YouTube videos, there’s a major benefit to creating shorter videos/teasers of your full video. By posting a unique video directly on a site like Instagram or Twitter (rather than simply linking a YouTube video), your post is more likely to show up in your followers’ feeds. 

The point is to cast a wide net. Not everyone who adores you is hovering around YouTube 24/7. Go out and find them!

TL;DR:

To get more views for your YouTube videos, it all starts with an irresistible title that captures your audience’s attention with a powerful keyword. Include your keywords in as many places as possible, including in your video’s description. You’ll also want to make sure you have a great custom thumbnail image. Another often-overlooked secret to optimizing your videos is making sure you add closed captions or subtitles to make your videos more searchable. Finally, promote your YouTube videos on your other social channels (such as by creating a shorter teaser video for Instagram, for example). The more you promote and optimize, the more those viewers will start rolling in!

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