How To Optimize These Tools
So now you know all about the tools, time to make those gears turn in your favor my readers!
The first thing to consider is the video's "file name" or the name it has on your computer (usually saved as video1.avi or vid.wmv). Now you "can" upload it to Youtube as video1.avi and change the title to what you want, but you'd be missing out on a few extra drops of juice. You're competing with millions of videos here, an extra drop of Youtube Search Engine Juice is probably worth giving up your arm for.
Name your file based on what keywords you want the video to be known for. If your video is a review on the video game, Katherine, then name it something like "Katherine-Video-Game-Review.avi" remembering to replace the spaces in your video file name with dashes (search engines love it). Now your video will be ranked better for the terms "Katherine", "Video Game", and "Review", which is exactly what you want.
Next you should focus on your video's "Group". This can be less clear than the other tools but Youtube has various groups that you can submit your video to such as "Gaming", "People & Blogs", and "Society".
When choosing which category or "Group" your video is put in, think carefully what your audience will be searching for. Taking the Katherine example again will your audience be searching for people named Katherine or a blog/vlog about a girl (or very creepy boy) named Katherine? No! They want to know about the game, Katherine. So make sure that your video is submitted to the Gaming category. Otherwise you'll have a very frustrated audience if you have one at all.
Third thing to consider would be the Video's "Title". This is fairly easy to find as it's right there when you upload the video but it's an important aspect nonetheless, but you already know that if you remember how the search engine thinks. Unlike the file name, the Title adds a lot more to your video than just a bit of extra juice. The search engine will always look at your video's title FIRST when considering where on the results page you should go. If your title is relevant or nearly an exact match to the search terms it's almost guaranteed to make the first page (unless there are hundreds out there with the same title).
When giving your video a title you have to consider a lot of things. What will the search engine think and what will your audience think. Just because the search engine is in love with your title doesn't mean that the audience will care, they want to see something eye catching before they click. The best possible thing would be to make your video eye candy for both Youtube Search and Youtube Audience, but since you can probably only have one at a time in love with your video I recommend trying to find a middle ground. Make the title eye catching but also relevant, better to be accepted by both than loved by one.
Fourth thing you should focus on are the "Tags". Now these seem pretty obvious and straight forward (and fairly easy to find, right under the description)...but don't be fooled. Tags are the hidden dagger of Youtube. If your video has hundreds of tags about many different things or have tags of a sexual nature (you know XXX, Porn, Pron, etc.) then you're stabbing yourself up the butt with a large, spiked object that I won't go into detail about so that this hub doesn't get removed. Moral of the graphic analogy: a dozen or so relevant tags are worth more than a hundred or so random ones.
When filling out your tags there are a few things you should include. Make sure that every word of your video's file name and title are in your tags, as it makes the search engine read over your video and note that the tags are relevant to the video. Also make sure that you have spinoff words in your tags. For example, you have the words "Video" and "Games" in your tags...well don't forget to also put "Video Games" in there (in quotes so youtube will treat it as a single tag). Remember to include words in your tags that are similar to your video as well, if you have Xbox in your tags make sure you include Microsoft (or for a better analogy if you have Politicians in your tags make sure you include Dishonest as well). Finally make sure that your first three tags are your most relevant, you'll learn why in a few seconds.
The final thing to consider as far as these basic tools go is the video's "Description". This is supposed to be a summary or main idea of your video where you discuss things, make amendments to parts of it, post links to websites outside of Youtube, etc. Under the hood, however, it's a vital part of your video's rank. When deciding what rank your video is, the cogs and gears of Youtube Search will normally take the first 3-5 tags of your video and compare them to your video's description. If you have a lot of tags then they'll compare more of them to the description. The formula used is very simple, "number of times a certain tag is used divided by the number of total words in the description" in other words the percent of your description that has each of those keywords (otherwise known as Keyword Density). A good number to aim for is about 5% or a maximum of 8%.
So what should you write for your description? Well I'd say you should outline the purpose of your video or what your video is about. Post any special thanks or credits here as well as updates about your video or a short message to your audience if you want. Don't make your description too long or you'll have to spam your tags to keep up a good keyword density. On the other hand don't make it too short or you won't have enough room to fit in your keywords and be able to say what you need to. 400 or 500 words is probably at the maximum you want for your description while 200 words is probably at the lower end of what you want. There are exceptions such as if you're doing a video tutorial and want to put the steps in, but this will take some work to make it count so before you start doing video tutorials make sure you already know how to manage a good density.
Subscribers Explained
So a lot of people will advertise Sub4Sub groups and brag about how many subscribers they have. Many people will rush and set their goal at 20,000 subscribers instead of 200,000 views. So subscribers must be a wonderful thing right? Well...not really.
All it means when you have a lot of subscribers is that a lot of people are able to open youtube and on their home page they'll see your videos in a little update frame. Sometimes they won't even see your videos. Sometimes they subscribed to a dozen or more people and their homepage is flooded with "those" videos, not yours. All having a subscriber means is that your video has a slightly greater chance of being viewed when it first comes out. Not bad but not the best.
This is why sub4sub groups are worthless. If you subscribe to a dietary regimen channel and you run a video game channel are you really going to click on any of their videos? Whether it's on your homepage or not you'll ignore it! All sub4sub does is make it look like you have a few people watching you and even then not as much as you'd think (youtube's new channel records your actual total video views now too). Don't get mixed up in this sub4sub crap. However, if you're able to work it so that you have subscribers but aren't subscribing, "then" it'll look a whole lot better. Not much...but it's better than having 20,000 subs and subscribing to 50,000 people.
The Newcomer's Aide
Yeah it has no official name and a lot of people don't even know that it exists, but it's there. The Newcomer's Aide, or more accurately Youtube's way of letting new videos get a chance at the limelight.
For the first week of your video's upload, Youtube will look very very very very closely at your ranking. Any positive things that occur on your video such as favorites, likes, views, and comments will net your video a huge boost. One view will be worth 4 or 5, a favorite may be worth 2, likes could be worth ten, comments worth 3, etc. etc. etc. But what's even better is that these are permanent. So if your video gets 10 likes in the first week of its upload but never gets another like again, (all other things remaining the same) it will be worth more than another video that got 10 likes after the newcomer's aide period was up. Well this is ignoring a lot of other factors but you get the general idea.
So what should you do? Take advantage of it of course! Make sure that Youtube knows your video's there and is watching it. Within the first week try and have it so that every one of your friends both online and in real life have seen and liked your video (and commented). Have your parents and family watch them as well. Every person counts.
