YouTube video optimization: 2021 Edition

Simply uploading your latest music video or live performance clip to YouTube just won’t cut it these days, but – fortunately enough – optimizing your video isn’t actually all that hard. Here, we look at how it’s done.

Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0

Just putting a video up on YouTube is not enough these days. If your video isn’t optimized properly then the YouTube algorithm won’t drive traffic to it, so it doesn’t do you much good at that point regardless of its quality. Luckily, optimizing a video isn’t that difficult, it just takes a little extra time and knowledge of what the algorithm is looking for. Follow these 5 steps in order to get the most optimization.

Step 1. Create A Descriptive Title

You can’t just post the title of the song as the video title, you need more. For instance, if the song was called “Homeless Clown,” that title alone won’t cut it. The best thing is to include the name of the artist first, then the title, so it would look like “The Unsigned – Homeless Clown (Official Video). So what you have is:

• The most important element, which is the artist’s name, first.
• A description of the asset in parentheses, so (Official Video), (Official Audio), (Lyric Video) will all work.
• Make sure you use the same naming convention across your channel.

Step 2. Include Tags

Now there’s some evidence that as many as 40 tags might be optimal (which seems excessive to me), but you do need a good many of them since this is one of the ways that will allow YouTube to recommend the video to people. It’s the key to having people unfamiliar with you find you find you during a search. A combination of branded and unbranded ones are what you’re going for, but at the very least:

• Be sure to include the name of everyone who appeared in the video and is in the band, along with video director and producer
• Include the name or the artist or band along with “music” and “songs,” i.e. The Unsigned Songs and The Unsigned Music
• Include the sentiment of the song – i.e. happy, upbeat, noisy, electronic, etc.
• Include channel tags as well

Step 3. Include A Detailed Video Description

Writing a video description is like pulling teeth for many artists, but again it’s something that the YouTube algorithm keys on when it comes to optimization. What you’ll need is:

• At least 100 to 200 words of keyword rich body copy (more is better) describing the song and it’s creation
• The links to all appropriate websites, social media, and streaming platforms
• Links to other music videos by the artist

Step 4. Include An End Card

YouTube videos have a cool feature called an End Card which can appear in the last 15 to 20 seconds of the video where you can promote up to 4 other videos or playlists. Generally these are links to either to your most popular videos, new videos, or links to subscribe to the channel.

5. Include A High-Res Thumbnail

While you might get lucky and have a thumbnail that comes directly from the video that works, it’s even better to create a special high-res version that catches the viewers attention. That way you can make sure that whatever text you include looks good on both phones and desktop computers.

Now one wants there video to just sit there with fewer views that you think it deserves. You can up its chances for being seen with just a little optimization.