YouTube is the 2d largest search engine, with over 2 billion users per month -- so it'south an undeniably powerful channel for your marketing efforts.

However, if you don't use YouTube for your electric current marketing strategy, you're not alone. In fact, businesses choose Facebook equally a channel over YouTube, even for video content.

In 2018, the HubSpot Academy team didn't take advantage of YouTube, either. Simply in the latter one-half of the twelvemonth, the team feared the major losses in traffic they could face if they didn't hop on board -- so they implemented a strategy that enabled them to grow YouTube subscribers by 25% in just two months. Because YouTube is a search engine, part of that strategy relied on optimizing the videos to increment the chances of discoverability.

One of the nigh important tactics for optimizing your YouTube channel is writing descriptive YouTube descriptions.

→ Download Now: 7 YouTube Video Description Templates [Free Prompts]

YouTube Description

The term YouTube clarification refers to the text that a content creator supplies to describe their content, making it like shooting fish in a barrel for YouTube to categorize and serve that content to users who are searching for information technology. At that place are ii types of YouTube descriptions: the overall clarification of the aqueduct and the descriptions for each video you upload.

YouTube Aqueduct Clarification

A YouTube aqueduct clarification is similar to the "Nearly" page of a website. In fact, it even appears nether the "About" tab of your channel'due south YouTube folio.

youtube-channel-descriptionThe YouTube channel description is meant to convey to potential viewers what your content is about: the topics you cover, the themes you tackle, and why. You'll not merely demand to convey whatyou discuss only too what you bring to the discussion and why they should listen to you lot. The goal here is to turn a 1-time viewer into a long-term subscriber and consumer of your content. Yous'll exist able to add this when setting up your YouTube channel.

In addition to its chief goal of turning viewers into subscribers, this text can too be crawled by YouTube and could help your channel get found by people who are looking for channels like yours. With that in mind, be certain to use the terms that you think people would use to search for your content.

YouTube Video Description

The YouTubevideodescription tin can be found underneath the viewport of the video itself.

youtube video description underneath video viewportWhile the YouTube channel description talks about the body of video content that you upload, each video will also need a unique description to increase the likelihood of your video getting found when someone is searching for a detail topic.

In this video, the creator summarizes the question beingness asked and specifies the audience that the video is meant for. This text will help audiences (and YouTube) sympathize what the video is well-nigh. In addition, it's likewise prime real estate to include contact information and calls to activeness.

youtube-video-description-example

Ultimately, if you're ready to brainstorm using YouTube to attract and convert an audience, information technology's disquisitional you optimize your video descriptions for SEO. If you're unsure how to start crafting compelling YouTube descriptions, keep reading -- hither, we'll explore various tactics you tin can employ, and provide templates to ensure you have everything y'all need to excel on YouTube.

How to Create Compelling YouTube Video Descriptions

1. Use YouTube Description Templates [Gratuitous Prompts]

HubSpot has compiled seven YouTube video clarification templates to help your business concern provide context to your viewers, rank ameliorate in search, organize your team, and link out to relevant webpages on your site.

HubSpot's 7 YouTube Video Description Templates Download These Templates for Complimentary

2. Explicate what your video is about.

To explore the all-time tactics for writing YouTube descriptions, I spoke with Eric Peters, a Senior Growth Marketing Manager on HubSpot's University team. He told me, "[YouTube descriptions] is 1 of the primary means YouTube knows what your video is about. Include links, additional resource, links to other videos and playlists, etc. Brand sure the description box is easy to read."

As Peters notes, explaining your YouTube video and incorporating keywords into your description doesn't only help with SEO rankings -- information technology also helps with accessibility for people who are deafened and hard of hearing. For that reason, adding closed captions to your videos is an accented must, also.

For instance, take a expect at 1 of HubSpot University's YouTube video descriptions:

Transcript for a YouTube Video Description

As you lot can come across, a YouTube description is incredibly different from a web folio meta description. In a YouTube description, you have the space to go in-depth and explain what your entire video is about, and fifty-fifty link to external resources.

Peters told me, "You get 5,000 characters total, so make use of it. A lot of creators use asterisks or all-caps to differentiate titles from body copy because it'due south all plain text. Consider writing up a text version of the central points from the video, or even copying the transcription of the video into the clarification."

three. Include a CTA.

Your YouTube clarification is a fantastic opportunity to ask viewers to go along to engage with your channel or find additional resource that volition help them learn more than about a topic of interest.

For example, let'due south say yous create a brief "How to add together filters to Instagram" YouTube video, but you lot besides have an in-depth, "How to Use Instagram for Marketing" web log mail service -- why non link to it in the description? More than probable, anyone who is watching your Instagram video on YouTube would be equally grateful for the opportunity to learn more than via a weblog mail service.

Alternatively, perhaps you simply desire to ask viewers to subscribe, turn on notifications, or share your content with their networks. These are all acceptable CTA's for your description.

Additionally, information technology'due south critical you format your description to ensure yous put the most important information offset -- equally Peters advises, "The showtime 200 characters are higher up the 'more' fold on the description box, so if you desire your CTA/link to be seen by the most people, go on it within the outset 200 characters."

Collapsed YouTube Video Description With Show More Box Highlighted

After the first 200 characters, your text will be cutting-off, and viewers will need to click "Show more" to see the rest -- so it's vital you brand your first 200 characters count.

4. Add together your personality.

A YouTube description should be fun, and demonstrate your make's personality or unique vocalization to an audition. Unlike more than traditional forms of advertising, this is an opportunity for yous to instill inventiveness and humor into your content.

Brian Dean's YouTube channel is a great example of this -- his YouTube descriptions often mirror the way he speaks. The descriptions are aboveboard and casual, and he makes it feel like he'due south writing to a friend.

Brian Dean YouTube Video Description

To learn more about using YouTube for marketing purposes, consider checking out HubSpot Academy'southward comprehensive YouTube Marketing course.

YouTube Description Templates

Now that we've covered the basics, take a wait at a few templates you tin can use to craft compelling YouTube descriptions today.

Templates for Your Channel Description

Y'all might create a playful, piece of cake-going channel 'About Me' clarification, like this one:

Alternatively, yous can craft a YouTube description that describes what your company does from a tertiary-person indicate of view, like this i:

Templates for Your Video Descriptions

If you've conducted an internal interview, you might go along your description short-and-sweet to describe your chat and why it matters to your audition, as well as a CTA:

Alternatively, if you want your clarification to help new viewers detect your diverse channels, try crafting a clarification like this one:

Finally, if you desire to focus on crafting a clarification that explains what your video is about and incorporates a keyword clarification, try this:

Ultimately, YouTube clarification templates can help you reduce the amount of time it takes to upload and optimize your YouTube videos, getting them out to your audience quickly and with less try. Only be sure to customize the text to raise the reading feel because you want to be as helpful as possible for your audience.

Editor'due south note: This post was originally published in March 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Originally published Mar 17, 2021 7:00:00 AM, updated August 25 2021