{"id":5501,"date":"2026-01-24T21:20:40","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T05:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/?p=5501"},"modified":"2026-01-24T21:21:01","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T05:21:01","slug":"optimize-latest-youtube-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/optimize-latest-youtube-video","title":{"rendered":"How to Optimize Your Latest YouTube Video"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5504\" src=\"http:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/How-to-Optimize-Your-Latest-YouTube-Video.jpg\" alt=\"How-to-Optimize-Your-Latest-YouTube-Video\" width=\"629\" height=\"329\" srcset=\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/How-to-Optimize-Your-Latest-YouTube-Video.jpg 629w, https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/How-to-Optimize-Your-Latest-YouTube-Video-300x156.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 629px) 100vw, 629px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>YouTube SEO is all about the little things; there are over a dozen different ways you can optimize a video when you post it.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s not even considering the channel optimizations and various off-site gimmicks you can use to add value to your videos.&nbsp; Each time you post a video, run through this checklist and do what optimization you can.<\/p>\n<h3>Optimize Video Quality<\/h3>\n<p>Video quality comes down to three things.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Quality of the picture itself.&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong> At this point, high quality video equipment is so cheap and easy to obtain that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.videomaker.com\/article\/17034-encoding-youtube-videos-at-the-highest-quality\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">there&rsquo;s no reason not to shoot HD video<\/a>.&nbsp; At the very least, avoid anything at 320 and under; if it looks like it was shot with a webcam from 1995, it&rsquo;s going to turn people away.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Quality of the audio.&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong> Audio equipment is a little more expensive than video equipment, but it&rsquo;s equally essential.&nbsp; Even running your audio through an equalizer to remove the telltale hiss and background noise is extremely important.<\/li>\n<li><strong><em>Quality of the script.<\/em><\/strong>&nbsp; This comes down to how well your writers can write video scripts for your purposes.&nbsp; Try to avoid stilted dialogue and stumbling voice actors whenever possible.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Consider Video Length<\/h3>\n<p>YouTube traditionally had a video length cap of 10 minutes, though that cap has been lifted for all accounts save for those with a copyright violation.&nbsp; However, very rarely should you upload a video longer than 10 minutes.&nbsp; The average attention span of a video watcher is not very long.&nbsp; Try to keep your videos around 3-4 minutes in length maximum for the highest proportion of satisfied users.<\/p>\n<h3>Pick an Appropriate Video Category<\/h3>\n<p>Your video category just helps YouTube classify your video and help serve it at the end of other videos in the related array.&nbsp; It doesn&rsquo;t have a huge effect, but it can help pull in an extra handful of views each time you want to post a new video.&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/how-to-optimize-your-youtube-videos-and-channel\/56708\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Make sure you pick a category that relates to your video content<\/a>, whether it&rsquo;s comedy, education, music, blogs, pets, sports or anything else.<\/p>\n<h3>Consider Title Keywords<\/h3>\n<p>When you&rsquo;re writing the title of your video, make sure you include your target keyword.&nbsp; A long-tail keyword that can be easily used in a normal sentence is ideal.&nbsp; <strong><em>It incorporates the long-tail keyword itself<\/em><\/strong>, as well as the core keyword it&rsquo;s based around.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s important to make sure the keyword makes sense in plain English.&nbsp; Any video with a title that&rsquo;s obviously kludged together around a keyword will dissuade users from clicking.<\/p>\n<h3>Consider Title Readability<\/h3>\n<p><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5505\" src=\"http:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Consider-Title-Readability.jpg\" alt=\"Consider-Title-Readability\" width=\"629\" height=\"329\" srcset=\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Consider-Title-Readability.jpg 629w, https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Consider-Title-Readability-300x156.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 629px) 100vw, 629px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Make sure your title reads as a plain English sentence, for all of the same reasons above.&nbsp; This is important enough that it deserves a point of its own.&nbsp; Err on the side of a longer title to make sense, though <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/yt\/playbook\/metadata.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"broken_link\">be aware of the limits of YouTube&rsquo;s titles<\/a>.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t let your title get cut off because it&rsquo;s too long.<\/p>\n<h3>Include Keywords in Video Filename<\/h3>\n<p>Another minor addition that has minimal impact, the original file name of your video can be an incredibly minor factor in the visibility of your video.&nbsp; If you were posting a video about producing content, and the title was 10 Content Hacks to Make Your Blog Posts Shine, you might want to name your video file something like 10-content-hacks-for-blogs.mpg.<\/p>\n<h3>Use Relevant Tags<\/h3>\n<p>Tags are arguably one of the most important parts of your video SEO.&nbsp; They are also one of the few places left on the Internet you can get away with filling with nothing more than keywords.&nbsp; <strong><em>You should mix up your tags between video-specific and industry-general tags<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; Use as many as you can, as long as they&rsquo;re relevant, and err on the side of fewer tags than vague, harder to connect tags.&nbsp; Also remember that you have a character limit, around 120 characters.<\/p>\n<h3>Upload a Video Transcript<\/h3>\n<p>YouTube has an automatic transcript captioning algorithm, but it&rsquo;s not very good, particularly if your speakers have accents.&nbsp; Rather than risk something embarrassing in the captions, upload a video transcript.&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.seerinteractive.com\/blog\/tips-for-optimizing-your-youtube-videos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">This will also help YouTube searchers find your video<\/a> from a specific line in the video content, even if the full content isn&rsquo;t particularly accessible through that indexing.<\/p>\n<h3>Description: Outbound Links<\/h3>\n<p>Description, like title, deserves two sections due to its importance.&nbsp; This first section covers the initial above-the-fold block of content in your description.&nbsp; Put a quick one-sentence summary of the video.&nbsp; <strong><em>Write a related sentence with a keyword<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; Include a call to action with a link to a website, either your Facebook page, your subscription page, your mailing list opt-in, your website or your blog.&nbsp; You don&rsquo;t have room for more than three sentences, so make them count.<\/p>\n<h3>Description: Text and CTAs<\/h3>\n<p><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5506\" src=\"http:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/DescriptionText-and-CTAs.gif\" alt=\"DescriptionText-and-CTAs\" width=\"629\" height=\"329\"><\/p>\n<p>Below the fold, you have a lot more room to work with for your description.&nbsp; You should continue with a bank of links to other important sites, though avoid distracting users by clustering them together at the top.&nbsp; Use other keywords the same way you might in a blog post.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t paste your video transcript in the description and never write a misleading description or paste a long list of additional tags.<\/p>\n<h3>Custom Thumbnail<\/h3>\n<p>Your custom thumbnail shows up in various sizes depending on where your video is posted or embedded.&nbsp; A high resolution 16:9 image with high contrast and enough detail that it looks good both small and large is recommended.&nbsp; Avoid images that are unrelated to your content, also known as the &ldquo;sex sells&rdquo; approach to thumbnails.&nbsp; If you don&rsquo;t have a thumbnail prepared, YouTube will scan through various points in your video and offer you a selection of stills.&nbsp; Choose the best one and upload a custom thumbnail later.<\/p>\n<h3>Video Endcap CTAs<\/h3>\n<p>A video endcap gives you a short section at the end of your video to include a personal call to action; don&rsquo;t forget this.&nbsp; <strong><em>Make sure to link to at least one other video on your channel<\/em><\/strong>, as well as your webpage and your social media accounts.&nbsp; Use this time to display text or an actor telling your users what to do, and providing them with a link to do it.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s typically a good idea to standardize this endcap, so it&rsquo;s easy to add to the end of any video, though you should customize the message for each video.&nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/yt\/playbook\/annotations.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"broken_link\">Use annotation links<\/a> to link each of these video elements to the location they reference.<\/p>\n<h3>Feature Your Video<\/h3>\n<p>It&rsquo;s typically a good idea to feature a video on your channel.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s up to you whether you want to feature your most popular video, a video that needs a little love, or your most recent video.<\/p>\n<h3>Update Previous Video Endcap CTA<\/h3>\n<p>One standard form of endcap encouragement posts two video clips, one to a popular video on your channel you want to promote and one to the next video in the series.&nbsp; Obviously,<strong><em> you can&rsquo;t link to a video you haven&rsquo;t yet uploaded in an endcap<\/em><\/strong>, so you would need a placeholder link.&nbsp; When you upload a new video, go back and edit the previous video to include the new link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>YouTube SEO is all about the little things; there are over a dozen different ways you can optimize a video when you post it.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s not even considering the channel optimizations and various off-site gimmicks you can use to add value to your videos.&nbsp; Each time you post a video, run through this checklist and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":5504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[180],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v17.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Optimize Your Latest YouTube Video - Boostlikes.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/optimize-latest-youtube-video\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Optimize Your Latest YouTube Video - Boostlikes.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"YouTube SEO is all about the little things; there are over a dozen different ways you can optimize a video when you post it.&nbsp; That&rsquo;s not even considering the channel optimizations and various off-site gimmicks you can use to add value to your videos.&nbsp; Each time you post a video, run through this checklist and [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/optimize-latest-youtube-video\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Boostlikes.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-01-25T05:20:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-25T05:21:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/How-to-Optimize-Your-Latest-YouTube-Video.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"629\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"329\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Boostlikes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Boostlikes.com\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/optimize-latest-youtube-video#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/How-to-Optimize-Your-Latest-YouTube-Video.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/How-to-Optimize-Your-Latest-YouTube-Video.jpg\",\"width\":629,\"height\":329},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/optimize-latest-youtube-video#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/optimize-latest-youtube-video\",\"name\":\"How to Optimize Your Latest YouTube Video - Boostlikes.com\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/optimize-latest-youtube-video#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-25T05:20:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-01-25T05:21:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3b0055d3c64b1867f058b18f5e1fbceb\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/optimize-latest-youtube-video#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/optimize-latest-youtube-video\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/optimize-latest-youtube-video#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How to Optimize Your Latest YouTube Video\"}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3b0055d3c64b1867f058b18f5e1fbceb\",\"name\":\"Boostlikes\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e64e1c4ae212a8e2c0cdfb6b9b605fee?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e64e1c4ae212a8e2c0cdfb6b9b605fee?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Boostlikes\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/author\/boostlikes\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How to Optimize Your Latest YouTube Video - Boostlikes.com","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/boostlikes.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/optimize-latest-youtube-video","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How to Optimize Your Latest YouTube Video - Boostlikes.com","og_description":"YouTube SEO is all about the little things; 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