Last updated on June 14th, 2024
Why is keyword tag stuffing bad? Why is the “About” tab so underrated? What is the YouTube Creator Academy, and should businesses use it, too?
HOSTS:
- Dane Golden: VidAction.tv | LinkedIn
- Tim Schmoyer: VideoCreators
- Matt Ballek: VidiSEO
Tip #1: Why is Keyword Tag Stuffing Bad?
Tim Schmoyer says that YouTube keyword tag stuffing is an outdated process of putting keywords in the description field in the hopes of getting ranked higher in search results. This tactic is against YouTube policy and actually doesn’t work. Moreover, YouTube decided to terminate accounts that were using keyword stuffing. Some of these were small accounts and others had millions of subscribers. The small accounts remain closed, but some larger channels have been reinstated once they conformed to the rules.
Tim says you should write your description in normal everyday English. Keep keywords in mind while writing, but don’t focus on it.
Tip #2: Why is the “About” Tab so Underrated?
Dane Golden says that the YouTube channel “About” tab is perhaps one of the most underrated features for promoting your business YouTube channel. The About page is not just a text box because both YouTube and Google include it as a factor in indexing your channel. There are four features:
1) Description
The Description can be up to 1000 characters in length. This is where you tell users what the channel is about. It’s a Great branding opportunity where you can use tonality of your channel – is it serious, fun, what? Include your weekly content schedule – what types of videos are you releasing on different days?
2) Icon Links
These are your social media and website links. YouTube allows four icon links to appear as an overlay onto your channel art, along with one custom link, which can be to whatever you want with a name up to 30 characters long. You can add more social media and custom links, however, and they will appear on your About page.
3) Featured Channels
You edit Featured Channels in right column of About tab. You can add any YouTube channel, including multiple related brand channels if you have them. These channels appear in the right-hand column of your YouTube channel page and on the About tab and on the Channels tab.
4) Subscriptions
YouTube shows the channels you subscribe to publicly by default. In most cases you should probably make these private.
Matt and Tim say you should focus on the first few paragraph because that appears in your hover card, which is a crucial way of getting people to come to your page. The About page is also the snipped page that shows up in your search results, so it should be brief, concise, enticing, and include some keywords in normal conversational English.
Tip #3: What is the YouTube Creator Academy?
Matt Ballek says that the YouTube Creator Academy is a educational portal developed by YouTube to help you strengthen your YouTube skills. It has some free online lessons that include some videos and text content and community message boards and sample quizzes. It’s like YouTube Certification Lite.
There are four main areas:
- Core building blocks
- Grow your audience
- The art of getting viewers
- Earn money
The videos are hosted by popular YouTubers who provide insight into their how they found success. For each tip there is a message board that keeps the conversation going with great insights.
Matt says that business can learn from this by acting more like YouTubers with their own channels.