YouTube marketing has gone from strength to strength over the last few years. Since YouTube was founded in 2005, the online video-sharing and social media platform has remained one of the most popular platforms to watch video content and promote video marketing for businesses.
How To Elevate Your YouTube Marketing
Utilising YouTube marketing is a fantastic way to improve your SEO and drive traffic to your website. You can elevate your YouTube marketing by completing the following essential steps:
- Optimising the title of your YouTube video.
- Writing a keyword-rich description.
- Including an effective thumbnail.
- Adding YouTube marketing videos to playlists.
- Utilising tags to improve your YouTube marketing.
- Encouraging user engagement.
Completing the steps above for your current and future YouTube uploads will ensure that your content is optimised for SEO purposes. This means that your YouTube marketing will gain more views and engagement as your YouTube videos will rank higher in the YouTube and Google search results.
So, let’s break down how to exactly elevate your YouTube marketing.
1. Optimising the Title of Your YouTube Video
While your YouTube video is processing, the first step to complete is to fill out a title for your video. The title of your video should outline the following points:
- The type of content within your YouTube video.
- Your target audience (if relevant).
- The industry that you’re in.
- Keywords that your target audience is currently using.
For example, if you were a makeup artist looking to enhance your online presence through educational content, you may utilise YouTube to advertise tutorials and demonstrations of makeup techniques. So, let’s break down what an optimised title for YouTube marketing should look like.
Two makeup artists upload a YouTube video outlining how to apply bronzer for a natural finish.
- Makeup Artist A writes the following title for their YouTube video: “How To Apply Bronzer”.
- Makeup Artist B writes the following title: “How To Apply Bronzer For A Natural Finish | Makeup Tutorial | Natural Makeup | Makeup Tutorial For Beginners”.
Which makeup artist do you think has written the best title? Makeup Artist B! This is because Makeup Artist B has not only outlined what type of content is included within the video but has also included additional keywords that their target audience is also searching for.
Adding as many keywords as possible will increase the chances of this video ranking on YouTube and Google as Makeup Artist B has provided further information to describe the content and who would be interested in this video. This is a brilliant way to improve your YouTube marketing strategy as online users may search for more general keywords, such as “makeup tutorial for beginners”, in which the makeup itself is not explicitly stated.
However, adding keywords to describe your content further can direct online users who may not know exactly what content they’re looking for to your channel. This ensures that you are maximising the title of a YouTube video to improve your SEO and ranking in the search results on both YouTube and Google.
2. Writing A Keyword-Rich Description For YouTube Marketing
After filling out the title for your YouTube video, next it’s time to complete the description box. YouTube allows you to use up to 5,000 characters to describe the content included in your video and allows users to find you easily through search. At this stage of the optimisation process for YouTube marketing, business owners and online users generally don’t utilise this section effectively. However, the description of your video is essential to improve the ranking of your YouTube video in search results!
So, how can you utilise as many characters as possible to improve your YouTube marketing strategy? You can improve this section by including the following information:
- Keywords at the beginning of your video description.
- A relevant URL link from your website to provide further information or support for the user.
- Time stamps and chapters.
- The content included in your video with further tips and information.
- A URL link to your website.
- Information about your business and YouTube channel.
- Suggested videos for the user to watch to encourage further watch time.
- Relevant hashtags.
Keywords In Your Video Description For YouTube Marketing
Placing keywords at the beginning of your description will help users discover your YouTube marketing more easily through search. A quick and easy way to include this information is by copying your keyword-rich title and pasting this as your first line in your description. This a great way to ensure that you have included your target keywords at least twice within the optimisation of your YouTube marketing.
Relevant URL Link To Extend The User Journey
Once you have the first description line filled in, next add a relevant URL link to your website that the user may be interested in. This link can direct the user to some booking information on your website, a blog, or a news article to increase traffic to your website and encourage the user to extend their journey with your business online.
Time Stamps and Chapters
Time stamps and chapters are a great user-friendly way to display the points that are touched upon within your content. Social media users appreciate this feature in YouTube marketing videos as it presents transparency about the content and helps the user decide if the content will be beneficial to them.
We recommend utilising this feature in YouTube marketing videos, particularly in videos that are longer than three minutes long. For example, if you were demonstrating how to paint a picture, you could structure your timestamps and chapters in the following way:
00:00 – Introduction
01:00 – Tools You Need
03:00 – Outlining Your Design
04:10 – Brush Techniques
06:20 – Finishing Touches
When including timestamps and chapters to your YouTube marketing strategy, ensure to scroll down in the optimisation settings to the ‘Automatic Chapters’ heading and tick the box next to ‘Allow automatic chapters and key moments’. This box may be already ticked for you when optimising your video, however, double-check this setting to ensure YouTube will recognise your timestamps. Once this box is ticked, this means that users will be able to click on the highlighted time stamp they want to check out and the video will begin playing from their desired chapter!
Describing The Content In Your YouTube Marketing
Now that you have included your keywords, a useful link to your website, and video chapters, it’s time to describe the content in your video. For this step, imagine you had to take the information and content from your video and transform it into a blog. As you describe the content included in your YouTube marketing video, ensure to mention the keywords from your title to optimise your video even further.
Directing Users To Your Website Using YouTube Marketing
To improve your SEO and direct more traffic to your website, add a link to your website to encourage the user to discover more about your business and browse your products or services. When adding your website link, encourage your audience to click on your URL link by including text such as:
- “Learn more about renewable energy by checking out our website”.
- “Want to discover more gift guides? Click our website link for more information”.
- “Improve your fitness level by contacting us today on our website”.
Inserting this call to action will increase the chances of directing users to your website and browsing your products and services online.
Information About Your Business and YouTube Channel
To fill out the description section even more, ensure to include some information about your business and YouTube channel. If you have an ‘About’ section on your website, utilise this information to help guide your content writing. Providing this information will also increase your brand awareness and promote the benefits of investing in your products or services.
Video Suggestions To Increase Watch Time
A great way to encourage online users to watch more videos on your YouTube channel is by listing suggested videos with URL links that will interest the user. For example, if you were a piano teacher uploading a video for students working towards a Grade 3 in piano, you may list videos that would help build their existing skills and encourage their confidence in piano playing.
This means that you are making the user journey online simple as you eliminate the need to spend time searching for similar videos on your channel. This is a great opportunity to increase the watch time and views for other YouTube marketing videos, and potentially gain subscribers.
Relevant Hashtags To Improve SEO For YouTube Marketing
Finally, complete your description by adding hashtags at the end of your YouTube video description. Similar to other social media platforms, hashtags are a fantastic digital marketing tool to expand your reach online. To ensure you include target keywords, copy your video title and paste it as the final line in your description. Then, remove the spaces between your keywords and add these as hashtags to optimise your YouTube marketing even further.
Although these may seem like a lot of steps to take for each YouTube marketing video, steps such as the information about your business and website links may always remain the same. This means that once you optimise one of your YouTube videos using the steps above, you may find that general information can be copied and pasted into future videos, therefore saving you time in the future!
3. An Effective Thumbnail To Improve YouTube Marketing
When searching for YouTube content, online users may look at the title of the video first or the thumbnail to determine whether they will click on the video link. To ensure you attract the correct target audience, add an effective thumbnail to your video.
Think of your thumbnail as a book cover that the consumer will judge to determine whether they would be interested in picking up the book and reading your story. With this perspective in mind, we would recommend creating a graphic for your thumbnail rather than a frame from your video. This is because creating a graphic allows you to screenshot one or more effective frames within your video and add some text to summarise your title and video content.
Don’t have experience in graphic design? No problem! We recommend using Canva to design your thumbnail as it’s very user-friendly and easy to navigate.
4. Adding YouTube Marketing Videos To Playlists
Utilising playlists is a fantastic YouTube marketing tool to not only organise your content but also to guide the user to watch more videos on your channel. Aim to add each of your YouTube videos to at least two playlists to increase the watch time of your videos. When an online user clicks into a playlist and watches the first video until the end, the next video in the queue will automatically play. This is an amazing way to increase the watch time of your videos and motivate users to remain on your channel!
5. Utilising Tags To Improve Your YouTube Marketing
When your YouTube video is being processed, there will be a section called Tags. These are words or phrases that help YouTube to understand the context of your videos. Completing this section assists the YouTube algorithm when ranking videos in the search results. Tags also improve your SEO on Google as these will increase the chances of your YouTube marketing appearing in the search results, particularly in the ‘Videos’ tab on Google.
Think of YouTube tags as if they’re hashtags or keywords! Add the keywords included in your title as tags and try to use between 400 and 500 characters to maximise this YouTube marketing tool.
6. Encourage User Engagement For YouTube Marketing
Once you have uploaded and optimised your YouTube marketing content, remember to regularly check your notifications for any comments left by online users and reply to these to increase engagement. To help with this, leave a comment on your video encouraging users to leave their thoughts in the comment section!
Want to learn more about how YouTube marketing can improve your business? Contact ProfileTree today to take your YouTube marketing to the next level!
Claire Mulligan
Fatma Mohamed // 11th February 2024 
ProfileTree // 30th October 2023 