Unlock the full potential of your department's YouTube channel by implementing a SEO strategy.
Whether you're creating content for a single campaign or managing an entire channel, understanding how to optimize for search is key to reaching the right audience. This guide walks you through the essentials of YouTube keyword research, video optimization and channel strategy to help your content rank higher and perform better.
Before you can do any SEO work for a video or YouTube Channel, you should do some keyword research to learn what users are typing into a search to find videos similar to yours. There are tools that can do YouTube keyword research, but most of them come at a cost for more than just basic features, so a cheap and easy way to do this for the budget-conscious university employee would be to see what our competitors are using for similar videos.
You should generate one short-tail and one to three long-tail keywords that incorporate your short-tail keyword to use throughout your video.
Broad, general search terms, usually 1 to 2 words.
Examples:
Characteristics:
More specific search phrases, usually 3 or more words.
Examples:
Characteristics:
Now that we know what keyword(s) we are optimizing, how do we use them?
In a perfect world, it would start with the script for the video. Since YouTube has gotten smart enough to translate and transcribe the content of our videos, including the keywords in the script would be an ideal way to boost the search rankings for the video.
Use your keyword near the beginning of the title. For example, if we were trying to rank for 鈥渉omecoming court鈥, we might say 鈥淗omecoming Court 2025: Meet the Candidates!鈥 rather than 鈥淪tudent Spotlight: Meet the Candidates for the 2025 Homecoming Court!鈥.
Keep your title under 60 characters to minimize the risk of the title being truncated on mobile.
Additionally, try to make the title intriguing, descriptive and accurate to entice people to click, but also to make sure they don鈥檛 click away if we don鈥檛 deliver in the video.
From what I鈥檝e read, YouTube is not using the description field as a main factor for SEO anymore, but it still could prove valuable for your users. Organically weave in your primary and secondary keywords to inform the user what the video is about in a natural way. It should be about 150-500 words and can include links to relevant websites or our other social media accounts.
If you add hashtags to your video, YouTube will include up to three above your description.
YouTube automatically creates subtitles, but it is recommended that we upload our own version for accuracy (YouTube is not always able to decipher the words that someone is saying correctly if there is background noise or music or if the speaker is not loud or enunciating clearly enough) and grammar (YouTube often runs sentences together or doesn鈥檛 provide correct punctuation, making subtitles more difficult to read).
The Thumbnail is the most important teaser element to entice a user to click on a video, especially on mobile when users are mostly scanning thumbnails and titles. If the video shows a lot of action, a wide action shot would be the best image to use. If the video is not as action oriented, a close-up of a face showing a lot of emotion would work the best. Additionally, it is recommended to include large, easy to read text within the thumbnail image, just two to eight words that will stick out on mobile devices.
End screens can drive users to more of our relevant content and boost their views and engagement. End screens can be links to other videos, playlists, a subscribe button, other channels and affiliate links.
Cards are set to appear at certain times during a video. They can be links to another video, playlist, channel or affiliate website. It is recommended to limit yourself to three cards per video since they can be distracting, and to place them in later half of video or when specifically relevant.
Again, this would come at the script stage of the preparing for a video, but having the speaker or a pop up recommending that the user comment, like or subscribe would generate engagement and help the video gain more traction in search rankings.
Like individual videos, we should choose keywords for our entire channel and include those keywords where appropriate.
We鈥檙e set for the main university account, but if we were to create a secondary channel for some reason, we鈥檇 want to consider what terms a user would search when looking for the content we鈥檙e promoting in that channel and use our primary keyword here.
Channel Keywords can be set in our YouTube channel鈥檚 settings by going to the YouTube Studio and clicking on Settings. Then click on Channel in the pop-up and look at the Basic Info tab. You are allowed 500 characters.
The first 1鈥2 lines appear in search previews and mobile view, and should immediately explain what your channel is about. Naturally include keywords people might search for (e.g., "student life") and keep sentences short and easily scannable. It could also help to include some text about why the channel exists (informing our community about the great things happening at our beautiful campus in northeast Ohio, etc) as well as a call to action (Subscribe to keep up-to-date with all that鈥檚 going on).
Playlists help organize your content, but when written strategically, their titles and descriptions can also boost discoverability in YouTube and Google search. Write a descriptive, keyword-optimized summary for your playlist.
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