Utilize your descriptions!

asher zero

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I've noticed that even though most Youtubers do put something in their video descriptions, they are still vastly empty. Sometimes, the only thing written there is links to social media.

I think it's important to create quality descriptions because believe it or not, people often do read them. They will usually read them to get an idea of what the video is about as they begin watching it, especially if they're unfamiliar with your work. Moreover, the description is what shows up when people search Youtube AND other search engines, such as Google.

With that in mind, here are some tips I have for crafting effective video descriptions:

STRUCTURE

I recommend formatting your descriptions in a similar manner to what I described below (as applicable to your videos). Viewers do often read the first few lines of the description and will read further if you've peaked their interest. However, they will often skim over it, skip sections, look at it while watching the video, and read the sections out of order. With all that in mind, this structure is most effective for fostering viewers' interest and compelling them to watch, re-watch, like, comment, subscribe, and share.

Section 1: Short, Vivacious Summary
The first few lines of the description are what shows up in searches, so make them count! Offer an attractive description that not only adequately summarizes what your video is about, but suggests why your video is unique and is worth checking out. Remember to keep it short (no more than 2-3 sentences).

Section 2: Detailed, Interest-peaking Summary
Start another section after your awesome summary offering more details about the video. If a viewer has continued reading after your initial summary, that means you've at least mildly captured their interest. Here, you want to elaborate further on what the viewer can expect from your video in order to get them to not only pay attention, but watch it through until the end.

This is a good place to put time stamps if doing so would be applicable (i.e. "The most important part of baking a cake is blah blah blah (1:54).").

While you want your description to be detailed enough to adequately summarize the content of your video and steal the viewers attention, you also want to keep it general enough so you don't give away everything and leave no surprises. If you can phrase it in a way that previews what to expect from the video and leaves the viewer curious to find out more by actually watching it, you're golden.

Section 3: Call to Action
Tell the viewer to act. For one, it creates a "personal touch" when the viewer performs some sort of action because you asked them to. For two, this is a great way to get likes, comments, subscribers, and more views, all of which feeds into the life force of your channel.

This is a great place to ask the viewer to leave comments. You can simply leave a statement like "Leave a comment telling me about blah blah blah", but I think it's most effective to ask questions; you can say something like "What kind of cake is your favorite? Do you have any tips for baking a better cake? Let me know in the comments!".

In my videos, in this section, I always say "Like this video if... (something funny)" and "Subscribe if... (something funny)" followed by a subscription link. If I have other pertinent videos, I will also link them in that section and tell them to "Check out this video..." (or some kind of clever phrasing).

Use action words! Try to get the viewer to get involved!
Viewers who feel a connection to a Youtuber, or are compelled to act on a video (liking, commenting, sharing, etc.) are much more likely to watch again, share, subscribe, and watch future videos.

Section 4: Connect and Share Links
After you're done discussing the video at hand, you can share links to external sources (i.e. "Check out this website for more information about..."). This is the place where you'd want to put your social media links and such as well. Keep this section short and sweet.

Section 5: Administrative Junk
The final section of the description is the best place to put any legal disclaimers and all that extra mumbo-jumbo that no one is actually interested in reading, but you still feel is important to include.

TIPS FOR CRAFTING AN AWESOME DESCRIPTION
  • Use as many keywords as possible because not only do search engines scan for these, but so do viewers when they skim over your description.
  • While it's perfectly cool to use keywords, it's not cool to abuse them. Utilize keywords in well-crafted sentences, but don't type them out simply for the sake of adding extra tags; this is frowned upon and is against Youtube TOS
    [thanks to Konisbored for suggesting this]
  • Try to write it like you would a blog. A cold, mechanical description will come off as boring, but a blog-like description will seem much more appealing and open the possibility of creating a connection with the viewer.
  • Remember who your target audience is when writing descriptions. Try to take the perspective of your target audience while phrasing your descriptions. For example, if you're targeting scholars, you will want to phrase your description in an academic fashion; if you're targeting those who are trying to learn about the topic, you don't want to use technical terms they don't yet understand; etc.
  • Keep your description organized. You don't want to have one gigantic paragraph that talks about everything, but at the same time, you don't want to have a dozen tiny paragraphs with information that jumps all over the place.
  • Just like a woman's skirt, it should be short enough to keep it interesting, but long enough to cover what's important.
  • Make extra sure you don't have typos; so much as one type in a description is enough to make a person question the entirety of your credibility!
  • Use action words when trying to get your viewers to like, comment, share, subscribe, etc.; try to get them excited!
  • Stay relevant, brief, and concise; yes, an effective description is important, but remember the reason the person is there is to watch the video, not read the description.
SAMPLE DESCRIPTION

Here is a sample description from one of my videos that follows the format I described above:
BABYMETAL is touring with Lady Gaga in the USA for a handful of shows. This really is a historic day for both pop and metal. Hooray for LADY METAL!

BABYMETAL is a Japanese group consisting of 3 teenage girls who dance and sing a fusion of pop and death metal. There really is nothing else like it. Their video "Gimme Chocolate!!" has received millions of views from across the world. Please check them out if you haven't already; it's worth it!!! And I assume you already know who Lady Gaga is...

Like the video if you like good music.
Subscribe if you like good videos: [subscribe URL]

If you went to one of the shows, please share your experience in the comments!

If you like BABYMETAL, check out some of my other BABYMETAL videos:
[video URL]
[video URL]
[video URL]

Stalk my Face: [Facebook URL]
Tumbl with me: [Tumblr URL]
Watch me Tweet myself: [Twitter URL]

This video is meant solely to promote BABYMETAL and Lady Gaga. I claim no ownership of either. All music and rights belong to BABYMETAL and Lady Gaga and their respective producers.
Please let me know what you think! Is there anything you particularly agree with? Is there anything you disagree with? Do you have any other suggestions I didn't discuss?

I hope this was helpful for someone! :D
 
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L.G.

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I've noticed that even though most Youtubers do put something in their video descriptions, they are still vastly empty. Sometimes, the only thing written there is links to social media.

I think it's important to create quality descriptions because believe it or not, people often do read them. They will usually read them to get an idea of what the video is about as they begin watching it, especially if they're unfamiliar with your work. Moreover, the description is what shows up when people search Youtube AND other search engines, such as Google.

With that in mind, here are some tips I have for crafting effective video descriptions:

STRUCTURE

Section 1: Short, Vivacious Summary
The first few lines of the description are what shows up in searches, so make them count! Offer an attractive description that not only adequately summarizes what your video is about, but suggests why your video is unique and is worth checking out. Remember to keep it short (no more than 2-3 sentences).

Section 2: Detailed, Interest-peaking Summary
Start another section after your awesome summary offering more details about the video. If a viewer has continued reading after your initial summary, that means you've at least mildly captured their interest. Here, you want to elaborate further on what the viewer can expect from your video in order to get them to not only pay attention, but watch it through until the end.

This is a good place to put time stamps if doing so would be applicable (i.e. "The most important part of baking a cake is blah blah blah (1:54).").

While you want your description to be detailed enough to adequately summarize the content of your video and steal the viewers attention, you also want to keep it general enough so you don't give away everything and leave no surprises. If you can phrase it in a way that previews what to expect from the video and leaves the viewer curious to find out more by actually watching it, you're golden.

Section 3: Call to Action
Tell the viewer to act. For one, it creates a "personal touch" when the viewer performs some sort of action because you asked them to. For two, this is a great way to get likes, comments, subscribers, and more views, all of which feeds into the life force of your channel.

This is a great place to ask the viewer to leave comments. You can simply leave a statement like "Leave a comment telling me about blah blah blah", but I think it's most effective to ask questions; you can say something like "What kind of cake is your favorite? Do you have any tips for baking a better cake? Let me know in the comments!".

In my videos, in this section, I always say "Like this video if... (something funny)" and "Subscribe if... (something funny)" followed by a subscription link. If I have other pertinent videos, I will also link them in that section and tell them to "Check out this video..." (or some kind of clever phrasing).

Use action words! Try to get the viewer to get involved!
Viewers who feel a connection to a Youtuber, or are compelled to act on a video (liking, commenting, sharing, etc.) are much more likely to watch again, share, subscribe, and watch future videos.

Section 4: Connect and Share Links
After you're done discussing the video at hand, you can share links to external sources (i.e. "Check out this website for more information about..."). This is the place where you'd want to put your social media links and such as well. Keep this section short and sweet.

Section 5: Administrative Junk
The final section of the description is the best place to put any legal disclaimers and all that extra mumbo-jumbo that no one is actually interested in reading, but you still feel is important to include.

TIPS FOR CRAFTING AN AWESOME DESCRIPTION
  • Use as many keywords as possible because not only do search engines scan for these, but so do viewers when they skim over your description
  • Try to write it like you would a blog. A cold, mechanical description will come off as boring, but a blog-like description will seem much more appealing and open the possibility of creating a connection with the viewer. However, if your videos are meant to be professional, a cold, mechanical description might be a better choice.
  • Remember who your target audience is when writing descriptions. For example, if you're targeting scholars, you might want to make your description sound more professional and non-personal; if you're targeting those who are trying to learn about the topic, you want to be careful not to use terminology they don't yet understand.
  • Keep your description organized. You don't want to have one gigantic paragraph that talks about everything, but at the same time, you don't want to have a dozen tiny paragraphs. Just like a woman's skirt: it should be short enough to keep it interesting, but long enough to cover what's important.
  • Make extra sure you don't have typos; so much as one type in a description is enough to make a person question the entirety of your credibility!
  • Use action words when trying to get your viewers to like, comment, share, subscribe, etc.; try to get them excited!
  • Stay relevant, brief, and concise; yes, an effective description is important, but remember the reason the person is there is to watch the video, not read the description.
SAMPLE DESCRIPTION

Here is a sample description from one of my videos that follows the format I described above:


Please let me know what you think! Is there anything you particularly agree with? Is there anything you disagree with? Do you have any other suggestions I didn't discuss?

I hope this was helpful for someone! :D
Wow i didn't know it was like this…very good and informative post! I'ma have to go back to my videos and do that now…lol
:D
 

konisbored

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Wonderful! I actually style my descriptions to take advantage of SEO.
You should point out that tags at the bottom like "call of duty 2014" are against Youtube's TOS though.
 

CoolMoo5

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Wow! Great stuff! I agree I see so many empty description boxes. A good description box is important for small YouTubers especially because it could get them better seo and better chance to end up in related videos.
Also, as some of the comments pointed out, yes it is against YouTube's terms of service to put tags in the description. You can use the tags in the description in a sentence, but what you can't do is the use the description as a second tag box and just list off tags. You can't put tags with no words surrounding them for no reason.
 
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asher zero

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...it could get them better seo...
This is the second comment I've seen in this thread that uses the term SEO. It's probably pretty obvious, but... what does that mean? ^^;;
Also, as some of the comments pointed out, yes it is against YouTube's terms of service to put tags in the description. You can use the tags in the description in a sentence, but what you can't do is the use the description as a second tag box and just list off tags. You can't put tags with no words surrounding them for no reason.
Yes that is a very good point. I never really thought about it because to me, it seemed obvious, but you guys are right that it's probably not obvious to everyone and certainly worth mentioning.

There is a huge difference between a description that says...
When it comes to baking a cake, there are many different types of cake out there. Some popular kinds of cake include Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Birthday Cake, Strawberry Shortcake, and more. If you want to learn how to bake a cake of all different kinds, this video will teach you.
...and a description that says...
This video will teach you how to bake a cake.
Strawberry shortcake, pineapple upside down cake birthday cake how to bake a cake learn how to bake a cake teach how-to tutorial baking a cake types of cake kinds of cake popular cakes lessons boobs naked girls Shane Dawson Lady Gaga challenge video dance tutorial make-up tutorial Gangnam Style
Descriptions like the second one will not only get you in trouble with Youtube, but will cause you to lose credibility and respect from your viewers (and probably attract haters). If I saw a description like that, I would think "Clearly this person only cares about getting views and is willing to use deceptive means to do so. Not cool".

Thank you guys for pointing that out! ^_^ I added a note about that to the post.
 

CoolMoo5

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Seo=search engine optimization

Basically getting you ranked higher in the searches. YouTube is not a person they don't actually watch your videos. When people search something on Youtube usually only look at the first page or so. This ranking is improtant, if your video is really good but on the 29th page for the search "how to bake cake", no one will find it. When you type in "how to bake a cake" the videos you see are based on videos about how to bake a cake. Now, how YouTube knows the videos are about how to bake a cake based on things like title,tags, watch time, rating, views, comments and more. If you are a small YouTuber and you make cake videos, there is no way it will be on the front page or close to it if you only get 10 views and 1 like. . . unless you utilize keywords. And how do you utilize keywords? Through title,tags and the description.
 
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