How to write a YouTube description: structure, keywords and a template

What the description does and what it does not

The description is not a ranking switch you flip. YouTube goes mainly by viewer behaviour, that is click-through rate and watch time. What the description does deliver: the text YouTube and Google Search use to work out the topic, the chapters, and a way to send viewers on to another video, your website or your contact form.

• Context: what the video is about, who it is for, which question it answers.
• Chapters: the timestamps that turn a long video into a searchable structure. See the guide on setting YouTube chapters.
• Next step: links to a playlist, the next episode or your website.
• Disclosures: sources, tools mentioned, music licences, advertising notices.

What it cannot do: turn a video nobody searches for into a video that gets found. Topic choice comes first, the description second.

The opening lines decide

Only the first few lines are visible, everything else appears after a click on “Show more”. On a phone the visible part is shorter still. So put the most important statement first, in full sentences and without pleasantries.

• Sentence one: what the viewer gets from this video, in the words they would have used themselves.
• Sentence two: who it is for, or what will be different afterwards.
• Links, chapters and everything else come after that.

A common mistake is spending those lines on a subscribe call and a list of social media links. They are the place where you deliver on the promise made by the title.

A structure that works

1. Summary: two to four sentences on the content.
2. Chapters: the timestamps starting at 00:00, one per line.
3. Further reading: links to a playlist, the previous video or the matching page on your website.
4. Background: tools mentioned, sources, data.
5. About the channel: a short paragraph that may stay the same for every video.
6. Required notices: advertising disclosure, music licences, contact details.

The order is deliberate: what interests the viewer goes at the top, what has to be there goes at the bottom.

Keywords without keyword soup

Use the terms your audience searches for, in ordinary sentences. If your video explains how to bleed a heat pump, write exactly that, and write it in the summary at the top rather than in a list at the bottom. Two or three related phrasings are enough, for example the question form and the short form.

• No strings of keywords. They do nothing and they read like spam.
• No terms that do not appear in the video. Viewers leave, and that is precisely what YouTube measures.
• Few hashtags: the first three show above the title. More than a handful look untrustworthy.
• The same language as the video. A German video does not need an English description.

A template to copy

Save this as a text snippet and fill it in per video:

• In this video I show how [topic] works, so that afterwards you can [outcome].
• Suitable for [audience]. Prior knowledge: [none, or what].
• Chapters: 00:00 Introduction, 01:12 [section], 04:35 [section], …
• More on this: [link to playlist], [link to website]
• Mentioned in the video: [tool, source, product]
• About the channel: [two sentences, always the same]
• Notices: [advertising disclosure, music licence, contact]

What matters is that the first two points are written fresh for every video. Everything below may repeat.

Common mistakes

• The same description on every video. YouTube finds it harder to tell the videos apart, and viewers cannot find the pointer they are looking for.
• Links right at the top. They push out the statement that matters.
• Never touching old videos again. Descriptions can be rewritten at any time. On existing channels this is the fastest lever there is, see the channel audit checklist.
• Promises the video does not keep. That costs watch time and with it reach.

Frequently asked questions