%% date:: [[2022-08-14]] %% # [[Publishing a video on YouTube]] Publishing a video on [[YouTube]] is one of the last step of the [[Producing videos|video production process]]. But it may be more involved than you think. ## Title and description You should have already [[Create engaging titles|settled on a title]]. This is your time to make sure the description matches and reinforces it. - Include the exact title in the first sentence of the description. - In the second sentence, reinforce it by including elements of it in a different way. For example, if your title is "How to create a good YouTube videos", you might say something in the description like "Creating a video for YouTube can be difficult, so here are a few ways..." - Note that everything after the second sentence of the description is going to be hidden "under the fold". Most people won't click *more* to see the rest, so plan accordingly. - Add some links in the description to your other social networks or other places people can follow you. This is also a good place to add affiliate links. - Add links to resources you mentioned in the video. ## Chapters Chapters are ways to break up a video into different sections to make it more skimmable... and also easier to find on Google. Make your chapters concise but specific so that they're easy to search for. In the description, create chapters by using timestamps: ``` 0:00 Intro 00:30 This is part 1 05:19 This is part 2 08:50 This is part 3 ``` The chapters will be automatically created from these. You always have to start with `0:00`. Don't create *too* many chapters-- this actually reduces skimmability when chapters are too close to each other. Think of four or five things that people may be interested in. Do chapters encourage people to jump around and not view the whole video? The answer is yes, but you can decide whether or not it's worth the loss in watch time to improve usability (it totally is). ## Captions I don't think it's been confirmed that captions improve the [[SEO]] of a video, but anecdotal evidence suggests so. I use a service called [Rev](https://rev.com) to create captions, but you can create them yourself. Either way, you should *at the very least* set the language of your video(s) or channel so that YouTube can automatically generate subtitles and even auto-translate them into other languages. ## Tags It's unclear how much of an effect tags have on how searchable a video is, but YouTube suggests that tags are best for common misspellings of a keyword, especially in the topic. ## Thumbnail Upload [[Create engaging thumbnails|the thumbnail you created]] and make sure it still works on YouTube - [ThumbsUp](https://thumbsup.tv) helps with this. Thumbnails have to be 2MB or smaller. ## End screen An end screen consists of elements that can link to: - Another video - A playlist - A channel The best way to use end screens is to integrate them into the video. At the end of the video, talk about how what you're discussing links to another video, and then later, add an end screen element to link to it. Adding a related video is the best way to keep people clicking on more of your videos. Another approach is to choose "Best video for viewer", where YouTube will automatically add a link to a video of yours that the algorithm thinks the viewer would be interested in. This can help when most of your viewers have already seen the video you would otherwise recommend. ## Cards Cards are overlaid popups on the right corner. They are links to another video or even an external site. They can be useful, but be wary of including too many, lest your viewers be tempted to stop watching your video to go elsewhere. ## Monetization settings If you are part of the [[YouTube Partner Program]], you'll also be able to change your monetization settings after you upload the video. Choose the type of ad you want to be shown on your videos (I've selected all of them) and add mid-roll ads to run in the middle of longer videos. You can control *when* and *how many* ads get shown, but you can't control what types of ads are shown.