If you've done any digging into YouTube SEO, you'll know how important it is to create an informative description for your video. Yes, your YouTube video description can be short, but it still requires including keywords and other things. We'll cover all of that below.

Why YouTube Descriptions Are a Powerful SEO Tool

Your YT video description is more than just a brief for your content – it can improve video rankings. It is a powerful SEO tool within the YouTube platform that helps its internal algorithms determine the topic of your video and, thus, offer it in recommendations to users who have already searched for something similar. Moreover, Google is guided by the same algorithms, which means that if a user selects a video format to answer their query, they will receive a search result with a video with the most appropriate text description.

Finally, it is worth noting that users often read video descriptions to understand whether the video contains what they are looking for (so that they are not forced to watch the entire video). Therefore, if you wrote a detailed and concise description, this will benefit you.

Get a Competitive Edge with Smarter YouTube Optimization

As you may have already understood, writing video descriptions is essential for SEO. Therefore, it is not worth neglecting the basic rules presented for descriptions. However, since YouTube SEO is not limited to this, we recommend checking this article as well to better understand how it works and what YouTube SEO tools you will have to deal with.

How to Craft SEO-Friendly YouTube Descriptions That Perform

A good YouTube description is both a synergy of SEO techniques with readability and a viewer-friendly tone. Here are more detailed tips on how to implement this.

Lead with Impact: Use Primary Keywords in the First 150 Characters

The first 150 characters are the part of the description visible to your potential viewer until they click “Show more…”. So, if you can use the primary keyword naturally in this part of the description, it will bring you positive results. Also, don’t forget to add relevant hashtags – yes, they are still important, especially in narrow-focused niches.

Expand Your Reach with Relevant Secondary Keywords

Another equally important aspect you need to consider is using secondary keywords. In addition to the main keyword you insert at the beginning of your description, you will also need to add at least 2-3 secondary ones to its hidden part. They should be distributed evenly, as truly thoughtful descriptions never look machine-made.

Boost Viewer Engagement with Value-Packed Descriptions

It is equally essential to optimize your YouTube description for your audience. To do this, follow the recommendations below.

Make Navigation Easy with Timestamps, Links, and Clear CTAs

When you add a description to the YouTube video, you should also include timestamps to make it easier to navigate (especially if it's long). This is a default automatic feature on YouTube, but it's still better to implement it manually to get better control over time marks.

Also, add keywords to timestamps there, and don't forget to share a few links to your previous videos on a relevant topic at the end. And yes, you just cannot do without a CTA. It should be present not only in the video itself, where you will encourage people to like, comment, and subscribe to your channel, but in the YouTube video's description, too.

Promote Your Brand with Smart Social and Cross-Channel Links

If you already have several YouTube description ideas, you can add at least one more, namely, the one that contains links to your profiles on other social networks. It will allow you to gradually grow your audience on all digital platforms where you are present and increase your credibility.

Use Strategic Keywords to Improve Your YouTube Rankings

Finally, a few more tips on how to write compelling YouTube descriptions.

Find High-Intent Keywords That Your Audience Is Searching For

High-Intent keywords are phrases that, in addition to the main keyword, contain a specific user intent, for example, “buy”. In general, if this does not contradict the subject of your content, then be sure to try it, and this will bring you a lot of organic traffic not only from YouTube but also from Google.

Focus on Long-Tail Keywords to Beat the Competition

Due to their diversity of variations, long-tail keywords can bring you more views than using only general keywords (from an SEO point of view, such content can be easily lost in millions of others). It also makes sense to check Google Trends to understand the most relevant user queries. In general, before you create YouTube descriptions, develop a short list of 3-5 key phrases that consider trends and long endings to make them as relevant as possible. 

Conclusion

Now you know how to optimize a YouTube description and can boost your content in search results and recommendations. You can also check our blog for other materials that will be useful to you for YouTube SEO.