The YouTube description box is the most overlooked field when it comes to optimization. So many people either leave this field blank or throw a few random words in here. This essential feature on YouTube can help your video rise in the rankings and drive conversions on an everyday basis. Putting a little thought into the video description and utilizing this box to its full potential will lead to more views. It gives visitors a better idea of what the video is about, and YouTube gets more detailed information to help rank the video more efficiently.

Show More Button

This button only displays about 150 characters when opened, so the best thing to do is confirm the video content here. It can be between one and three sentences depending on the author’s style, but it needs to make sense and describe the video. The first 150 characters are vital because they will be pulled through and used as metadata in YouTube search results, Google search snippets, and social media platforms.

The Big Black Box

The description box allows 5,000 characters. That is a lot of valuable real estate for keywords that can help your video get found. YouTube relies on the text in this box to identify the topic of the content for search queries. If there is nothing here, then the video cannot be returned in queries. This place is where you surround your video with valuable context. Long tail keywords flourish here. Depending on your keyword strategy, optimizing for long tail keywords in the description box gives your video the best chance of ranking on YouTube and Google.

Calls to Action

The description box is one of the only places that you can link out to any platform, so it is prime for a call to action. Whether you want the visitor to subscribe to your channel, visit your website or connect with you on social media the description box is the place to tell them. Primarily you are using this box to tell visitors what your video is about, why they should watch it and what to do after they have viewed it. If you only place one call to action in the description box, make it a subscribe. Even if you do this via annotation, do it again here. It is essential, and it works.

Social Media

If you are active on other platforms and you want visitors to connect with you, then tell them in the description box. Even if you have included this information in the About page, it is a good idea to list it here too. YouTube does not allow you to link to any other page from your About page so you should use the description box as well. If you give them the links in the description box, your chances that they will click on them go up dramatically.

Automate Upload Defaults

If you are very active on social media and upload videos consistently, then automation can be your friend. You can automate channel upload defaults so that specific info is added to every description when you upload videos. This magical feature can save a ton of headaches. List out the call to action fields as well as the links for Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others. You can turn this into automatic default uploads in the description box via the Video Manager.

The YouTube description box can do all the work for you from returning queries to calls to action. Be sure to be truthful so as not to violate the YouTube terms. Ultimately, your descriptions can be one of the best funneling tools you have in your marketing arsenal if you do it right. With the tips above, you should have no trouble with increasing your convertible traffic.