Crafting the perfect video title
When uploading to YouTube, your video’s title is one of the first things a potential viewer will see. Like a great book title, your video title needs to intrigue viewers instantly and make them eager to watch. Let’s take a look at a few strong practices to attract viewers and help your video rise to the top in the search engine rankings.
INCLUDE YOUR KEYWORDS!
When thinking up an effective title, keep the subject of your video in mind. Focus on keywords and include them in the description and tags as well—that’ll help with search visibility (which we’ll touch on in upcoming articles).
For example, if creating an unboxing video on the Samsung Galaxy S5, use “Samsung Galaxy S5” as your main title keyword—and don’t forget to include it in the description and tags too.
KEYWORDS FIRST!
The first few words of your video’s title are the most important—they tell both viewers and search engines what the video is about. Once you’ve settled on the target keywords, put them very close to the beginning of your title.
Do: Samsung Galaxy S5 Unboxing | John’s Tech Reviews
Don’t: John’s Tech Reviews | Samsung Galaxy S5 Unboxing
Why is it so important for your keywords to come at the beginning of a title? Most people read left to right, so you’ll want the main keywords on the left. Plus, if you have a long title, YouTube may cut off the end of it, leaving the viewer unsure what the video is about.
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TO CAPITALIZE OR NOT TO CAPITALIZE?
Some video creators go crazy using all caps in their titles. Though this may certainly attract some viewers’ attention, it may annoy others and deter them from clicking on the video. If you do want to capitalize the title, consider capitalizing only the key focus words. For example:
Samsung Galaxy S5 UNBOXING | John’s Tech Reviews.
EXCLUSIVE: Samsung Galaxy S5 – First Look
PUT IT TO — USE
You can apply these tips to both new and existing videos. Keep in mind that if you go back and change the titles of older videos, it may take a few days to update in search results—and during that time, you may see a temporary drop in views. But with proper titling, you’ll likely see the videos perform much better in the long run. Read more here
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