Youtube Optimization Guide please?

[OOMDODigital]

I'm trying to do youtube optimization for some videos right now. I wanted to know what the maximum length of a title should be, and what the maximum description should be as well.

Are there any other best practices I should know about?

Thanks,
James

[Chris.Menke]

James, you should use 65-70 characters for the title and 2 or 3 sentences for the description.

[KevinBudzynski]

Here is a good checklist (although 2 year old) and a good checklist from YouTube (the whole optimization section--on left menu is excellent as well).

[SEO5Team]

Hi James,

I've highlighted some resources below addressing this topic. The standard format is 120 Characters for the video title and 1000 characters for the description

You Tube Optimization

There was a cool post recently on Clickz regarding this topic. Link available here

You Tube Ranking Factors - Whiteboard Friday

Cheers,

SEO5

[PhilNottingham]

Hi James,

As far as I'm concerned, this remains the best and most comprehensive post on the topic that i've seen despite being a few years old

http://www.distilled.net/blog/social-media/youtube/youtube-seo/

However, the TL:DR is...

• Description length doesn't really matter, but I'd try to keep it punchy so no more than a few sentences. Include a naked url link in there if you like in order to drive a bit of traffic
• Keywords at the start of the title seems to help. Keep the title normal Page Title length, so... 70 characters ish max
• Make sure you upload a closed caption file (which will be read as akin to page copy for the video)
• Tags do seem to help, so include any that you care about
• Most important thing when optimising for YouTube is actually driving retained views. Make sure people watch the video all the way to the end and don't drop out early on.
• Embeds of the videos count kinda like links and, assuming they drive quality views, they will also help increase your rankings.