YouTube Video Best Practices

If you’re looking to attract an audience and gain subscribers to your YouTube channel, producing and publishing quality video content on a regular basis is a given. Even if you aren’t able to produce a large amount of video content, there are still ways to improve the visibility of your videos and YouTube channel.

Here are some common best practices for YouTube:

Plan your videos. Be strategic and come up with a plan for the types of videos you can produce specifically for YouTube, or ones that you’re producing for other platforms that you can leverage. Some videos you could upload to your YouTube channel include:

• Product demonstrations – Showcase your products and describe or demonstrate operations and features.
• Answering Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - Support your customer service efforts by providing video responses to questions you hear most often from customers.
• Customer or client testimonials – Ask your customers to submit video feedback on your products or services or film them yourself.
• Educational/Tips – showcase your expertise in your field and educate your audience.

Plan out your video publishing schedule as you would for any other social media platform, incorporating YouTube into your social media calendar. Even if you cannot post frequently to YouTube, look for ways to post as often as you can without placing a major burden on your resources.

Compose compelling titles. Once you are ready to upload videos to your YouTube channel, pay close attention to the titles of your videos. The titles of your videos can serve multiple purposes, including grabbing attention, quickly conveying the general content of the video, and even improving search engine optimization or SEO. Your titles should be clear and descriptive so people know what to expect when they watch your videos.

Optimize keywords. Search engines and searchable sites operate on keywords – words and phrases that are used to conduct searches for specific content. Use the “Tag” feature to add specific keywords to each video. YouTube videos often show up in Google search results, so picking relevant keywords can potentially increase the visibility of your videos.

Archive your video content. Use YouTube as a one-stop place for all your company’s videos. If you’re not in the business of producing videos, you may still be generating video content that you can make available on your YouTube channel. Some video content you can leverage includes:

• Television commercials – If you’re producing commercials for your local TV station, those could be uploaded to YouTube, although you may need to compress them to a more manageable upload size.
• Television interviews – If your company has been featured by the media or a spokesperson from your company has been interviewed, obtain a copy of the interview and permission to upload it from the media outlet.
• Video podcasts – If you host a podcast or have been interviewed on a video podcast, upload the clip and credit the podcast.
• Virtual webinars – If you host or participate in a virtual webinar, upload the recording. Make sure to get permission from the webinar host if it is not your company.
• Real-world events such as tradeshows and lectures – When you participate in or attend events, it is common to take videos at the event. Archive that content on your YouTube channel.

When uploading content from outside sources or if you’ve filmed events hosted by third parties, be sure to get permission in writing to upload that content to your YouTube channel. Once you have permission, remember to tag the sources in your caption if they have a YouTube channel.

Organize your content into playlists. One easy way to organize your YouTube video content is to create playlists that group your videos together. Videos in YouTube playlists automatically play one after another. Playlists can be grouped by topic such as “Product Demos” or “Commercials” or by social network such as “Instagram Reels” or “TikTok Videos.”

While not a guarantee, following YouTube best practices gives you a better chance of attracting an audience and gaining subscribers. Your content will be more strategic, your channel will be well organized, and your videos will be optimized for greater visibility.