Demystifying Video SEO on YouTube as a Novice

Demystifying Video SEO on YouTube as a Novice

Kevin Lv12

Demystifying Video SEO on YouTube as a Novice

The 12-step YouTube SEO Guide for Beginners Who Want More Views

Shanoon Cox

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

The joy of creating on YouTube is often dampened by the disappointment of underperforming videos. You have published your content and it’s not getting the views you had hoped.

Well, let’s change that!

In this guide, I’m going to walk you through YouTube SEO from the very start to the very end.

Nothing complicated. No paid programs or expensive apps needed. We are going back to basics and get your videos discovered.

Ready?

Let’s Go!

Part 1: Research Your Topic and Competitors

Come up with a video idea . Can’t come up with one? Let me help. I heard you can make a mean scrambled egg, why don’t you show the world how you do it?

Excellent! Let’s go with that idea.

Wait, don’t go making the video yet. First, we have to do some research. We need to know what videos already exist out there.

Do a quick search on YouTube to see what videos already exist on your topic.

Find Related Videos Sample

Uh oh… your video will be competing against celebrities like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver.

Okay, don’t panic! There is a fantastic quote, credited to bestselling author, Jon Acuff , that goes:

fantastic quote

While researching your competition, you will feel overwhelmed, but remember, you are at the beginning, and Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver are not even at their middle, they are way passed the finish line. You still have a long journey to go, so don’t get discouraged, get inspired!

Watch those videos and understand what they are all about.

Understand that people watch YouTube for 3 key reasons:

- To be entertained

- To learn something new

- To be inspired

A video that can hit all 3 marks is going to be positioned for success. Don’t fret too much about the competition, as long as your content is good, you will see improvement.

So if you think this scrambled egg idea can hit those 3 marks, then I encourage you to go to the next step. If you don’t, let’s regroup and brainstorm some more YouTube video ideas .

Step 2: Find Keywords

Now that we’ve decided that we are sticking with the video idea, we are ready to do some keyword research. Keywords are the words and phrases people type in the YouTube search bar to discover videos.

Come up with as many relevant keywords as you can. Start by entering a keyword into the YouTube search bar. This will tell you what are the most popular searches associated with that keyword:

Once you have an idea of what people are searching for related to your topic, you’ll want to find more relevant keywords. I like to use the free app, Ubersuggest to do that.

Find Keywords with Ubersuggest

This app gives you a whole list of long-tail keywords, which are 3-4-word phrases which is specific to what your video is about.

Some you will use to dig deeper in and other you will deem irrelevant to your videos. A good way of determining the value of a keyword is by the stats the application shows.

 Keywords in Ubersuggest

How to Read Keyword Suggestions

Once you have a list of keywords, you will see some numbers on the right-hand side. Here is what each one is about:

- Search volume is the number used to identify the popularity of the keyword. The higher the number the more people are searching for it.

- CPC is the value accredited by YouTube, determining how much advertisers are paying to target audiences who search for that keyword and click on the link.

- Competition is the number used to qualify how many other content are using that keyword.

The two categories that matter most to us right now is Search Volume and Competition. We want keywords with high search volume and low competition rate.

In the example above, you can see that the keyword “avocado scrambled eggs” has a Search Volume of 1,000 and a competition rate of 0.0. This is a good keyword to target, if you can incorporate an avocado to your dish… which of course you can!

Step 3: Write Title

I know you might want to deal with the Title, Description, and Tags after you’ve filmed and edited your video. But if you want to apply a YouTube SEO-focused strategy, then these should be addressed before you even pick up a camera as it can greatly dictate the content you end up creating.

A good YouTube title sparks curiosity, evokes emotional reaction, and promises value to your viewers.

Of course you can title your video simply: Making Scrambled Eggs

But does it spark curiosity? Not really… most people can make scrambled eggs.

Does it evoke any emotion? Maybe hunger… but even then, not really…

Finally, does it promise value? Well, assuming that most people can at least crack an egg into a pan, then hardly.

Your scrambled egg is special! Your video is special! We need to evoke that in the title — and as long as you are not writing any clickbait and deliver on what the title suggest, you can do this.

So, how about this: Are My Amazing Scrambled Eggs Better Than Gordon Ramsay’s?

Hmmm… Well, is it? We know that the Gordon Ramsay’s video has almost 30M views. Many people have already tried cooking it, I’m sure. There is only one way to find out, by encouraging others to try it over Gordon’s.

You don’t need to go for a somewhat contentious title like this, but that’s the idea, you want something that gets people curious, make them feel a certain way, and in the end, make them better for having watched your video.

See how a good title can guide the rest of your video?

Step 4: Write Description

You aren’t going to be writing the description for the viewers necessarily, you are going to be writing it for YouTube’s algorithms. The better YouTube understands what your video is about, the better they can show it to people searching for it.

This means you need to include the keywords you were researching at the beginning of your description, as YouTube will be using them to identify the content of your video. 1 or 2 keywords that best represent your video is enough. Don’t stuff the title with too many keywords or you’ll risk sounding like a robot.

But also use the description for practical uses too, if you have additional information such as supportive links, outline of the video’s content, a list of materials, step-by-step guide, or a recipe that you think your human viewers will find useful, you should input that in the description as well.

Step 5: Write Tags

Thank goodness we did the keyword research in Step 2, because coming up with tags is not as easy as it looks.

Pull 15 keywords from the list and keep it somewhere safe.

Note: The keywords you used in the title should be found in your tags, and since they are the most important ones, you should place them first.

Organize your keywords in the tag as such:

Have the specific keywords at the top, followed by more general keywords, and then branded ones:

Specific: How to make scrambled eggs

General: Scrambled eggs

Branded: Gordon Ramsay scrambled eggs

Part 2: Make The Best Darn Video Possible

It doesn’t matter how relevant your keywords are or how epic your title is, if you video sucks (i.e. your viewers click in and leave right away), YouTube will not show it in search.

Even if you haven’t created any videos yet, you can follow these next steps to ensure you are following the best practices to structure your video.

Step 6: Plan and Film the Hook

The first few seconds is where the largest percentage of your earned viewership will drop off. Odds are 20% of your viewers won’t even get past the first 10 seconds .

What you need is a hook, an intro that ensures this video is what they want to watch and let’s them know what they can expect.

Step 7: Film B-Roll

One static camera shot of you talking or cooking or giving a tutorial can cause your viewers to lose attention.

In order to keep your viewers interest, you will need b-roll, or supplemental footage you can cut to give you video more life.

While jump cuts (cuts made on a sequential clip of the same subject or in the same camera position) are fine, having additional footage to cut to will make your video feel more fluid.

So when you are filming your scrambled egg video, make sure you get some footage of you cracking the egg, scrambling it, and serving it on the plate.

Step 8: Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video

Liking, disliking, subscribing, and commenting on your video will all help your performance indirectly.

While YouTube wouldn’t rank your video higher simply because you have more likes subscribers, or comments, engagement from viewers help your video get discovered. If you get a like or comment from a YouTuber with a lot of subscribers, your video may be visible to those who are following that YouTuber for a while.

The best way to get engagement from your audience is to encourage them to like and subscribe or ask them a question or start a dialogue.

For example, in this scrambled egg video you are making, at the end you can ask, “So what do you think, is this better than Gordon Ramsay?”

Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video

Who knows, who will respond.

Step 9: Design a Thumbnail

You could have made a brilliant video, but if you have a poor quality thumbnail that is unattractive, then the overall performance of your video will suffer — and good SEO can only do so much after that.

Your viewers will absolutely judge your video by its cover so it’s important to put some thought into it and not solely rely on the three random thumbnail choices that YouTube picks for you.

Design a Thumbnail

Take a look at your competition. If they all look the same, do something different. Add text or a human face (preferably yours) to evoke emotion, as viewers are more likely to click into a video if they see an expressive image.

Don’t want to pay money for a photo editing software such as Photoshop?

You can use an online service called Canva or download GIMP , an open-source photo editor much like Photoshop, but far less powerful. These will help you get the job done as you are starting out.

Want to know more thumbnail maker? Check our picks of the best free YouTube thumbnail makers .

Part 3: Publishing With Attention to Optimization

Well done finishing the video! You are almost there… but not there yet.

XDyocwuGRiSptxueJZ5aokKqKt-JXMbX

Come on, keep going!

Step 10: Fill Out Your Videos Assets

The video is done, the thumbnail is designed, and you have all your title, description, and tags ready to go. This step is easy, upload the video, and fill out the assets, and give yourself a pat on the back.

Fill Out Your Videos Assets

Step 11: Add Transcripts

In addition to making your content accessible for people who don’t want to or can’t listen to the audio in your video, adding subtitles and closed captions will help YouTube understand the spoken content in your video.

While YouTube does have an automatic subtitle generator, it’s not reliable enough to be used for identifying the keywords you use in your video.

You can choose to write out the whole transcript of your video yourself, but if you are press on time, which of course you are, you can simply go and edit the automatic transcript already available in your video. By the way, you can also use some automatic transcription software.

Step 12: Add Video to Playlist

Finally the last thing you need to do for your video is to add it to a playlist. Even though it might be the first video in the playlist, it helps YouTube identify your video if you organize it in a playlist. As you accumulate more content, having videos in playlists makes content easier to find and keeps relevant videos together.

When viewers searches, having your videos in playlists increases the chance of it being discovered.

So if your first video is about scrambled eggs, maybe you next video can be about the awesome butter toasts.

I guess, you are on your way to making a pretty badass breakfast playlist. I personally can’t wait to see it!

If you treat SEO as an afterthought, only after your video is created, you are not using it to its full potential. If you follow these 12 steps during the course of your production, you will find that SEO doesn’t simply help your video perform at the end, but contributes in all the other phases of creating your video as well.

Besides considering YouTube SEO, you should make a good YouTube video as well. Filmora is a powerful video editing software that features lots of templates and effects. Get the free trial version below and have a try today.

Download Filmora9 Win Version Download Filmora9 Mac Version

Do you have any questions about SEO? Please leave us a comment below.

author avatar

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

The joy of creating on YouTube is often dampened by the disappointment of underperforming videos. You have published your content and it’s not getting the views you had hoped.

Well, let’s change that!

In this guide, I’m going to walk you through YouTube SEO from the very start to the very end.

Nothing complicated. No paid programs or expensive apps needed. We are going back to basics and get your videos discovered.

Ready?

Let’s Go!

Part 1: Research Your Topic and Competitors

Come up with a video idea . Can’t come up with one? Let me help. I heard you can make a mean scrambled egg, why don’t you show the world how you do it?

Excellent! Let’s go with that idea.

Wait, don’t go making the video yet. First, we have to do some research. We need to know what videos already exist out there.

Do a quick search on YouTube to see what videos already exist on your topic.

Find Related Videos Sample

Uh oh… your video will be competing against celebrities like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver.

Okay, don’t panic! There is a fantastic quote, credited to bestselling author, Jon Acuff , that goes:

fantastic quote

While researching your competition, you will feel overwhelmed, but remember, you are at the beginning, and Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver are not even at their middle, they are way passed the finish line. You still have a long journey to go, so don’t get discouraged, get inspired!

Watch those videos and understand what they are all about.

Understand that people watch YouTube for 3 key reasons:

- To be entertained

- To learn something new

- To be inspired

A video that can hit all 3 marks is going to be positioned for success. Don’t fret too much about the competition, as long as your content is good, you will see improvement.

So if you think this scrambled egg idea can hit those 3 marks, then I encourage you to go to the next step. If you don’t, let’s regroup and brainstorm some more YouTube video ideas .

Step 2: Find Keywords

Now that we’ve decided that we are sticking with the video idea, we are ready to do some keyword research. Keywords are the words and phrases people type in the YouTube search bar to discover videos.

Come up with as many relevant keywords as you can. Start by entering a keyword into the YouTube search bar. This will tell you what are the most popular searches associated with that keyword:

Once you have an idea of what people are searching for related to your topic, you’ll want to find more relevant keywords. I like to use the free app, Ubersuggest to do that.

Find Keywords with Ubersuggest

This app gives you a whole list of long-tail keywords, which are 3-4-word phrases which is specific to what your video is about.

Some you will use to dig deeper in and other you will deem irrelevant to your videos. A good way of determining the value of a keyword is by the stats the application shows.

 Keywords in Ubersuggest

How to Read Keyword Suggestions

Once you have a list of keywords, you will see some numbers on the right-hand side. Here is what each one is about:

- Search volume is the number used to identify the popularity of the keyword. The higher the number the more people are searching for it.

- CPC is the value accredited by YouTube, determining how much advertisers are paying to target audiences who search for that keyword and click on the link.

- Competition is the number used to qualify how many other content are using that keyword.

The two categories that matter most to us right now is Search Volume and Competition. We want keywords with high search volume and low competition rate.

In the example above, you can see that the keyword “avocado scrambled eggs” has a Search Volume of 1,000 and a competition rate of 0.0. This is a good keyword to target, if you can incorporate an avocado to your dish… which of course you can!

Step 3: Write Title

I know you might want to deal with the Title, Description, and Tags after you’ve filmed and edited your video. But if you want to apply a YouTube SEO-focused strategy, then these should be addressed before you even pick up a camera as it can greatly dictate the content you end up creating.

A good YouTube title sparks curiosity, evokes emotional reaction, and promises value to your viewers.

Of course you can title your video simply: Making Scrambled Eggs

But does it spark curiosity? Not really… most people can make scrambled eggs.

Does it evoke any emotion? Maybe hunger… but even then, not really…

Finally, does it promise value? Well, assuming that most people can at least crack an egg into a pan, then hardly.

Your scrambled egg is special! Your video is special! We need to evoke that in the title — and as long as you are not writing any clickbait and deliver on what the title suggest, you can do this.

So, how about this: Are My Amazing Scrambled Eggs Better Than Gordon Ramsay’s?

Hmmm… Well, is it? We know that the Gordon Ramsay’s video has almost 30M views. Many people have already tried cooking it, I’m sure. There is only one way to find out, by encouraging others to try it over Gordon’s.

You don’t need to go for a somewhat contentious title like this, but that’s the idea, you want something that gets people curious, make them feel a certain way, and in the end, make them better for having watched your video.

See how a good title can guide the rest of your video?

Step 4: Write Description

You aren’t going to be writing the description for the viewers necessarily, you are going to be writing it for YouTube’s algorithms. The better YouTube understands what your video is about, the better they can show it to people searching for it.

This means you need to include the keywords you were researching at the beginning of your description, as YouTube will be using them to identify the content of your video. 1 or 2 keywords that best represent your video is enough. Don’t stuff the title with too many keywords or you’ll risk sounding like a robot.

But also use the description for practical uses too, if you have additional information such as supportive links, outline of the video’s content, a list of materials, step-by-step guide, or a recipe that you think your human viewers will find useful, you should input that in the description as well.

Step 5: Write Tags

Thank goodness we did the keyword research in Step 2, because coming up with tags is not as easy as it looks.

Pull 15 keywords from the list and keep it somewhere safe.

Note: The keywords you used in the title should be found in your tags, and since they are the most important ones, you should place them first.

Organize your keywords in the tag as such:

Have the specific keywords at the top, followed by more general keywords, and then branded ones:

Specific: How to make scrambled eggs

General: Scrambled eggs

Branded: Gordon Ramsay scrambled eggs

Part 2: Make The Best Darn Video Possible

It doesn’t matter how relevant your keywords are or how epic your title is, if you video sucks (i.e. your viewers click in and leave right away), YouTube will not show it in search.

Even if you haven’t created any videos yet, you can follow these next steps to ensure you are following the best practices to structure your video.

Step 6: Plan and Film the Hook

The first few seconds is where the largest percentage of your earned viewership will drop off. Odds are 20% of your viewers won’t even get past the first 10 seconds .

What you need is a hook, an intro that ensures this video is what they want to watch and let’s them know what they can expect.

Step 7: Film B-Roll

One static camera shot of you talking or cooking or giving a tutorial can cause your viewers to lose attention.

In order to keep your viewers interest, you will need b-roll, or supplemental footage you can cut to give you video more life.

While jump cuts (cuts made on a sequential clip of the same subject or in the same camera position) are fine, having additional footage to cut to will make your video feel more fluid.

So when you are filming your scrambled egg video, make sure you get some footage of you cracking the egg, scrambling it, and serving it on the plate.

Step 8: Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video

Liking, disliking, subscribing, and commenting on your video will all help your performance indirectly.

While YouTube wouldn’t rank your video higher simply because you have more likes subscribers, or comments, engagement from viewers help your video get discovered. If you get a like or comment from a YouTuber with a lot of subscribers, your video may be visible to those who are following that YouTuber for a while.

The best way to get engagement from your audience is to encourage them to like and subscribe or ask them a question or start a dialogue.

For example, in this scrambled egg video you are making, at the end you can ask, “So what do you think, is this better than Gordon Ramsay?”

Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video

Who knows, who will respond.

Step 9: Design a Thumbnail

You could have made a brilliant video, but if you have a poor quality thumbnail that is unattractive, then the overall performance of your video will suffer — and good SEO can only do so much after that.

Your viewers will absolutely judge your video by its cover so it’s important to put some thought into it and not solely rely on the three random thumbnail choices that YouTube picks for you.

Design a Thumbnail

Take a look at your competition. If they all look the same, do something different. Add text or a human face (preferably yours) to evoke emotion, as viewers are more likely to click into a video if they see an expressive image.

Don’t want to pay money for a photo editing software such as Photoshop?

You can use an online service called Canva or download GIMP , an open-source photo editor much like Photoshop, but far less powerful. These will help you get the job done as you are starting out.

Want to know more thumbnail maker? Check our picks of the best free YouTube thumbnail makers .

Part 3: Publishing With Attention to Optimization

Well done finishing the video! You are almost there… but not there yet.

XDyocwuGRiSptxueJZ5aokKqKt-JXMbX

Come on, keep going!

Step 10: Fill Out Your Videos Assets

The video is done, the thumbnail is designed, and you have all your title, description, and tags ready to go. This step is easy, upload the video, and fill out the assets, and give yourself a pat on the back.

Fill Out Your Videos Assets

Step 11: Add Transcripts

In addition to making your content accessible for people who don’t want to or can’t listen to the audio in your video, adding subtitles and closed captions will help YouTube understand the spoken content in your video.

While YouTube does have an automatic subtitle generator, it’s not reliable enough to be used for identifying the keywords you use in your video.

You can choose to write out the whole transcript of your video yourself, but if you are press on time, which of course you are, you can simply go and edit the automatic transcript already available in your video. By the way, you can also use some automatic transcription software.

Step 12: Add Video to Playlist

Finally the last thing you need to do for your video is to add it to a playlist. Even though it might be the first video in the playlist, it helps YouTube identify your video if you organize it in a playlist. As you accumulate more content, having videos in playlists makes content easier to find and keeps relevant videos together.

When viewers searches, having your videos in playlists increases the chance of it being discovered.

So if your first video is about scrambled eggs, maybe you next video can be about the awesome butter toasts.

I guess, you are on your way to making a pretty badass breakfast playlist. I personally can’t wait to see it!

If you treat SEO as an afterthought, only after your video is created, you are not using it to its full potential. If you follow these 12 steps during the course of your production, you will find that SEO doesn’t simply help your video perform at the end, but contributes in all the other phases of creating your video as well.

Besides considering YouTube SEO, you should make a good YouTube video as well. Filmora is a powerful video editing software that features lots of templates and effects. Get the free trial version below and have a try today.

Download Filmora9 Win Version Download Filmora9 Mac Version

Do you have any questions about SEO? Please leave us a comment below.

author avatar

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

The joy of creating on YouTube is often dampened by the disappointment of underperforming videos. You have published your content and it’s not getting the views you had hoped.

Well, let’s change that!

In this guide, I’m going to walk you through YouTube SEO from the very start to the very end.

Nothing complicated. No paid programs or expensive apps needed. We are going back to basics and get your videos discovered.

Ready?

Let’s Go!

Part 1: Research Your Topic and Competitors

Come up with a video idea . Can’t come up with one? Let me help. I heard you can make a mean scrambled egg, why don’t you show the world how you do it?

Excellent! Let’s go with that idea.

Wait, don’t go making the video yet. First, we have to do some research. We need to know what videos already exist out there.

Do a quick search on YouTube to see what videos already exist on your topic.

Find Related Videos Sample

Uh oh… your video will be competing against celebrities like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver.

Okay, don’t panic! There is a fantastic quote, credited to bestselling author, Jon Acuff , that goes:

fantastic quote

While researching your competition, you will feel overwhelmed, but remember, you are at the beginning, and Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver are not even at their middle, they are way passed the finish line. You still have a long journey to go, so don’t get discouraged, get inspired!

Watch those videos and understand what they are all about.

Understand that people watch YouTube for 3 key reasons:

- To be entertained

- To learn something new

- To be inspired

A video that can hit all 3 marks is going to be positioned for success. Don’t fret too much about the competition, as long as your content is good, you will see improvement.

So if you think this scrambled egg idea can hit those 3 marks, then I encourage you to go to the next step. If you don’t, let’s regroup and brainstorm some more YouTube video ideas .

Step 2: Find Keywords

Now that we’ve decided that we are sticking with the video idea, we are ready to do some keyword research. Keywords are the words and phrases people type in the YouTube search bar to discover videos.

Come up with as many relevant keywords as you can. Start by entering a keyword into the YouTube search bar. This will tell you what are the most popular searches associated with that keyword:

Once you have an idea of what people are searching for related to your topic, you’ll want to find more relevant keywords. I like to use the free app, Ubersuggest to do that.

Find Keywords with Ubersuggest

This app gives you a whole list of long-tail keywords, which are 3-4-word phrases which is specific to what your video is about.

Some you will use to dig deeper in and other you will deem irrelevant to your videos. A good way of determining the value of a keyword is by the stats the application shows.

 Keywords in Ubersuggest

How to Read Keyword Suggestions

Once you have a list of keywords, you will see some numbers on the right-hand side. Here is what each one is about:

- Search volume is the number used to identify the popularity of the keyword. The higher the number the more people are searching for it.

- CPC is the value accredited by YouTube, determining how much advertisers are paying to target audiences who search for that keyword and click on the link.

- Competition is the number used to qualify how many other content are using that keyword.

The two categories that matter most to us right now is Search Volume and Competition. We want keywords with high search volume and low competition rate.

In the example above, you can see that the keyword “avocado scrambled eggs” has a Search Volume of 1,000 and a competition rate of 0.0. This is a good keyword to target, if you can incorporate an avocado to your dish… which of course you can!

Step 3: Write Title

I know you might want to deal with the Title, Description, and Tags after you’ve filmed and edited your video. But if you want to apply a YouTube SEO-focused strategy, then these should be addressed before you even pick up a camera as it can greatly dictate the content you end up creating.

A good YouTube title sparks curiosity, evokes emotional reaction, and promises value to your viewers.

Of course you can title your video simply: Making Scrambled Eggs

But does it spark curiosity? Not really… most people can make scrambled eggs.

Does it evoke any emotion? Maybe hunger… but even then, not really…

Finally, does it promise value? Well, assuming that most people can at least crack an egg into a pan, then hardly.

Your scrambled egg is special! Your video is special! We need to evoke that in the title — and as long as you are not writing any clickbait and deliver on what the title suggest, you can do this.

So, how about this: Are My Amazing Scrambled Eggs Better Than Gordon Ramsay’s?

Hmmm… Well, is it? We know that the Gordon Ramsay’s video has almost 30M views. Many people have already tried cooking it, I’m sure. There is only one way to find out, by encouraging others to try it over Gordon’s.

You don’t need to go for a somewhat contentious title like this, but that’s the idea, you want something that gets people curious, make them feel a certain way, and in the end, make them better for having watched your video.

See how a good title can guide the rest of your video?

Step 4: Write Description

You aren’t going to be writing the description for the viewers necessarily, you are going to be writing it for YouTube’s algorithms. The better YouTube understands what your video is about, the better they can show it to people searching for it.

This means you need to include the keywords you were researching at the beginning of your description, as YouTube will be using them to identify the content of your video. 1 or 2 keywords that best represent your video is enough. Don’t stuff the title with too many keywords or you’ll risk sounding like a robot.

But also use the description for practical uses too, if you have additional information such as supportive links, outline of the video’s content, a list of materials, step-by-step guide, or a recipe that you think your human viewers will find useful, you should input that in the description as well.

Step 5: Write Tags

Thank goodness we did the keyword research in Step 2, because coming up with tags is not as easy as it looks.

Pull 15 keywords from the list and keep it somewhere safe.

Note: The keywords you used in the title should be found in your tags, and since they are the most important ones, you should place them first.

Organize your keywords in the tag as such:

Have the specific keywords at the top, followed by more general keywords, and then branded ones:

Specific: How to make scrambled eggs

General: Scrambled eggs

Branded: Gordon Ramsay scrambled eggs

Part 2: Make The Best Darn Video Possible

It doesn’t matter how relevant your keywords are or how epic your title is, if you video sucks (i.e. your viewers click in and leave right away), YouTube will not show it in search.

Even if you haven’t created any videos yet, you can follow these next steps to ensure you are following the best practices to structure your video.

Step 6: Plan and Film the Hook

The first few seconds is where the largest percentage of your earned viewership will drop off. Odds are 20% of your viewers won’t even get past the first 10 seconds .

What you need is a hook, an intro that ensures this video is what they want to watch and let’s them know what they can expect.

Step 7: Film B-Roll

One static camera shot of you talking or cooking or giving a tutorial can cause your viewers to lose attention.

In order to keep your viewers interest, you will need b-roll, or supplemental footage you can cut to give you video more life.

While jump cuts (cuts made on a sequential clip of the same subject or in the same camera position) are fine, having additional footage to cut to will make your video feel more fluid.

So when you are filming your scrambled egg video, make sure you get some footage of you cracking the egg, scrambling it, and serving it on the plate.

Step 8: Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video

Liking, disliking, subscribing, and commenting on your video will all help your performance indirectly.

While YouTube wouldn’t rank your video higher simply because you have more likes subscribers, or comments, engagement from viewers help your video get discovered. If you get a like or comment from a YouTuber with a lot of subscribers, your video may be visible to those who are following that YouTuber for a while.

The best way to get engagement from your audience is to encourage them to like and subscribe or ask them a question or start a dialogue.

For example, in this scrambled egg video you are making, at the end you can ask, “So what do you think, is this better than Gordon Ramsay?”

Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video

Who knows, who will respond.

Step 9: Design a Thumbnail

You could have made a brilliant video, but if you have a poor quality thumbnail that is unattractive, then the overall performance of your video will suffer — and good SEO can only do so much after that.

Your viewers will absolutely judge your video by its cover so it’s important to put some thought into it and not solely rely on the three random thumbnail choices that YouTube picks for you.

Design a Thumbnail

Take a look at your competition. If they all look the same, do something different. Add text or a human face (preferably yours) to evoke emotion, as viewers are more likely to click into a video if they see an expressive image.

Don’t want to pay money for a photo editing software such as Photoshop?

You can use an online service called Canva or download GIMP , an open-source photo editor much like Photoshop, but far less powerful. These will help you get the job done as you are starting out.

Want to know more thumbnail maker? Check our picks of the best free YouTube thumbnail makers .

Part 3: Publishing With Attention to Optimization

Well done finishing the video! You are almost there… but not there yet.

XDyocwuGRiSptxueJZ5aokKqKt-JXMbX

Come on, keep going!

Step 10: Fill Out Your Videos Assets

The video is done, the thumbnail is designed, and you have all your title, description, and tags ready to go. This step is easy, upload the video, and fill out the assets, and give yourself a pat on the back.

Fill Out Your Videos Assets

Step 11: Add Transcripts

In addition to making your content accessible for people who don’t want to or can’t listen to the audio in your video, adding subtitles and closed captions will help YouTube understand the spoken content in your video.

While YouTube does have an automatic subtitle generator, it’s not reliable enough to be used for identifying the keywords you use in your video.

You can choose to write out the whole transcript of your video yourself, but if you are press on time, which of course you are, you can simply go and edit the automatic transcript already available in your video. By the way, you can also use some automatic transcription software.

Step 12: Add Video to Playlist

Finally the last thing you need to do for your video is to add it to a playlist. Even though it might be the first video in the playlist, it helps YouTube identify your video if you organize it in a playlist. As you accumulate more content, having videos in playlists makes content easier to find and keeps relevant videos together.

When viewers searches, having your videos in playlists increases the chance of it being discovered.

So if your first video is about scrambled eggs, maybe you next video can be about the awesome butter toasts.

I guess, you are on your way to making a pretty badass breakfast playlist. I personally can’t wait to see it!

If you treat SEO as an afterthought, only after your video is created, you are not using it to its full potential. If you follow these 12 steps during the course of your production, you will find that SEO doesn’t simply help your video perform at the end, but contributes in all the other phases of creating your video as well.

Besides considering YouTube SEO, you should make a good YouTube video as well. Filmora is a powerful video editing software that features lots of templates and effects. Get the free trial version below and have a try today.

Download Filmora9 Win Version Download Filmora9 Mac Version

Do you have any questions about SEO? Please leave us a comment below.

author avatar

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

The joy of creating on YouTube is often dampened by the disappointment of underperforming videos. You have published your content and it’s not getting the views you had hoped.

Well, let’s change that!

In this guide, I’m going to walk you through YouTube SEO from the very start to the very end.

Nothing complicated. No paid programs or expensive apps needed. We are going back to basics and get your videos discovered.

Ready?

Let’s Go!

Part 1: Research Your Topic and Competitors

Come up with a video idea . Can’t come up with one? Let me help. I heard you can make a mean scrambled egg, why don’t you show the world how you do it?

Excellent! Let’s go with that idea.

Wait, don’t go making the video yet. First, we have to do some research. We need to know what videos already exist out there.

Do a quick search on YouTube to see what videos already exist on your topic.

Find Related Videos Sample

Uh oh… your video will be competing against celebrities like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver.

Okay, don’t panic! There is a fantastic quote, credited to bestselling author, Jon Acuff , that goes:

fantastic quote

While researching your competition, you will feel overwhelmed, but remember, you are at the beginning, and Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver are not even at their middle, they are way passed the finish line. You still have a long journey to go, so don’t get discouraged, get inspired!

Watch those videos and understand what they are all about.

Understand that people watch YouTube for 3 key reasons:

- To be entertained

- To learn something new

- To be inspired

A video that can hit all 3 marks is going to be positioned for success. Don’t fret too much about the competition, as long as your content is good, you will see improvement.

So if you think this scrambled egg idea can hit those 3 marks, then I encourage you to go to the next step. If you don’t, let’s regroup and brainstorm some more YouTube video ideas .

Step 2: Find Keywords

Now that we’ve decided that we are sticking with the video idea, we are ready to do some keyword research. Keywords are the words and phrases people type in the YouTube search bar to discover videos.

Come up with as many relevant keywords as you can. Start by entering a keyword into the YouTube search bar. This will tell you what are the most popular searches associated with that keyword:

Once you have an idea of what people are searching for related to your topic, you’ll want to find more relevant keywords. I like to use the free app, Ubersuggest to do that.

Find Keywords with Ubersuggest

This app gives you a whole list of long-tail keywords, which are 3-4-word phrases which is specific to what your video is about.

Some you will use to dig deeper in and other you will deem irrelevant to your videos. A good way of determining the value of a keyword is by the stats the application shows.

 Keywords in Ubersuggest

How to Read Keyword Suggestions

Once you have a list of keywords, you will see some numbers on the right-hand side. Here is what each one is about:

- Search volume is the number used to identify the popularity of the keyword. The higher the number the more people are searching for it.

- CPC is the value accredited by YouTube, determining how much advertisers are paying to target audiences who search for that keyword and click on the link.

- Competition is the number used to qualify how many other content are using that keyword.

The two categories that matter most to us right now is Search Volume and Competition. We want keywords with high search volume and low competition rate.

In the example above, you can see that the keyword “avocado scrambled eggs” has a Search Volume of 1,000 and a competition rate of 0.0. This is a good keyword to target, if you can incorporate an avocado to your dish… which of course you can!

Step 3: Write Title

I know you might want to deal with the Title, Description, and Tags after you’ve filmed and edited your video. But if you want to apply a YouTube SEO-focused strategy, then these should be addressed before you even pick up a camera as it can greatly dictate the content you end up creating.

A good YouTube title sparks curiosity, evokes emotional reaction, and promises value to your viewers.

Of course you can title your video simply: Making Scrambled Eggs

But does it spark curiosity? Not really… most people can make scrambled eggs.

Does it evoke any emotion? Maybe hunger… but even then, not really…

Finally, does it promise value? Well, assuming that most people can at least crack an egg into a pan, then hardly.

Your scrambled egg is special! Your video is special! We need to evoke that in the title — and as long as you are not writing any clickbait and deliver on what the title suggest, you can do this.

So, how about this: Are My Amazing Scrambled Eggs Better Than Gordon Ramsay’s?

Hmmm… Well, is it? We know that the Gordon Ramsay’s video has almost 30M views. Many people have already tried cooking it, I’m sure. There is only one way to find out, by encouraging others to try it over Gordon’s.

You don’t need to go for a somewhat contentious title like this, but that’s the idea, you want something that gets people curious, make them feel a certain way, and in the end, make them better for having watched your video.

See how a good title can guide the rest of your video?

Step 4: Write Description

You aren’t going to be writing the description for the viewers necessarily, you are going to be writing it for YouTube’s algorithms. The better YouTube understands what your video is about, the better they can show it to people searching for it.

This means you need to include the keywords you were researching at the beginning of your description, as YouTube will be using them to identify the content of your video. 1 or 2 keywords that best represent your video is enough. Don’t stuff the title with too many keywords or you’ll risk sounding like a robot.

But also use the description for practical uses too, if you have additional information such as supportive links, outline of the video’s content, a list of materials, step-by-step guide, or a recipe that you think your human viewers will find useful, you should input that in the description as well.

Step 5: Write Tags

Thank goodness we did the keyword research in Step 2, because coming up with tags is not as easy as it looks.

Pull 15 keywords from the list and keep it somewhere safe.

Note: The keywords you used in the title should be found in your tags, and since they are the most important ones, you should place them first.

Organize your keywords in the tag as such:

Have the specific keywords at the top, followed by more general keywords, and then branded ones:

Specific: How to make scrambled eggs

General: Scrambled eggs

Branded: Gordon Ramsay scrambled eggs

Part 2: Make The Best Darn Video Possible

It doesn’t matter how relevant your keywords are or how epic your title is, if you video sucks (i.e. your viewers click in and leave right away), YouTube will not show it in search.

Even if you haven’t created any videos yet, you can follow these next steps to ensure you are following the best practices to structure your video.

Step 6: Plan and Film the Hook

The first few seconds is where the largest percentage of your earned viewership will drop off. Odds are 20% of your viewers won’t even get past the first 10 seconds .

What you need is a hook, an intro that ensures this video is what they want to watch and let’s them know what they can expect.

Step 7: Film B-Roll

One static camera shot of you talking or cooking or giving a tutorial can cause your viewers to lose attention.

In order to keep your viewers interest, you will need b-roll, or supplemental footage you can cut to give you video more life.

While jump cuts (cuts made on a sequential clip of the same subject or in the same camera position) are fine, having additional footage to cut to will make your video feel more fluid.

So when you are filming your scrambled egg video, make sure you get some footage of you cracking the egg, scrambling it, and serving it on the plate.

Step 8: Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video

Liking, disliking, subscribing, and commenting on your video will all help your performance indirectly.

While YouTube wouldn’t rank your video higher simply because you have more likes subscribers, or comments, engagement from viewers help your video get discovered. If you get a like or comment from a YouTuber with a lot of subscribers, your video may be visible to those who are following that YouTuber for a while.

The best way to get engagement from your audience is to encourage them to like and subscribe or ask them a question or start a dialogue.

For example, in this scrambled egg video you are making, at the end you can ask, “So what do you think, is this better than Gordon Ramsay?”

Encourage Viewers to Engage in Video

Who knows, who will respond.

Step 9: Design a Thumbnail

You could have made a brilliant video, but if you have a poor quality thumbnail that is unattractive, then the overall performance of your video will suffer — and good SEO can only do so much after that.

Your viewers will absolutely judge your video by its cover so it’s important to put some thought into it and not solely rely on the three random thumbnail choices that YouTube picks for you.

Design a Thumbnail

Take a look at your competition. If they all look the same, do something different. Add text or a human face (preferably yours) to evoke emotion, as viewers are more likely to click into a video if they see an expressive image.

Don’t want to pay money for a photo editing software such as Photoshop?

You can use an online service called Canva or download GIMP , an open-source photo editor much like Photoshop, but far less powerful. These will help you get the job done as you are starting out.

Want to know more thumbnail maker? Check our picks of the best free YouTube thumbnail makers .

Part 3: Publishing With Attention to Optimization

Well done finishing the video! You are almost there… but not there yet.

XDyocwuGRiSptxueJZ5aokKqKt-JXMbX

Come on, keep going!

Step 10: Fill Out Your Videos Assets

The video is done, the thumbnail is designed, and you have all your title, description, and tags ready to go. This step is easy, upload the video, and fill out the assets, and give yourself a pat on the back.

Fill Out Your Videos Assets

Step 11: Add Transcripts

In addition to making your content accessible for people who don’t want to or can’t listen to the audio in your video, adding subtitles and closed captions will help YouTube understand the spoken content in your video.

While YouTube does have an automatic subtitle generator, it’s not reliable enough to be used for identifying the keywords you use in your video.

You can choose to write out the whole transcript of your video yourself, but if you are press on time, which of course you are, you can simply go and edit the automatic transcript already available in your video. By the way, you can also use some automatic transcription software.

Step 12: Add Video to Playlist

Finally the last thing you need to do for your video is to add it to a playlist. Even though it might be the first video in the playlist, it helps YouTube identify your video if you organize it in a playlist. As you accumulate more content, having videos in playlists makes content easier to find and keeps relevant videos together.

When viewers searches, having your videos in playlists increases the chance of it being discovered.

So if your first video is about scrambled eggs, maybe you next video can be about the awesome butter toasts.

I guess, you are on your way to making a pretty badass breakfast playlist. I personally can’t wait to see it!

If you treat SEO as an afterthought, only after your video is created, you are not using it to its full potential. If you follow these 12 steps during the course of your production, you will find that SEO doesn’t simply help your video perform at the end, but contributes in all the other phases of creating your video as well.

Besides considering YouTube SEO, you should make a good YouTube video as well. Filmora is a powerful video editing software that features lots of templates and effects. Get the free trial version below and have a try today.

Download Filmora9 Win Version Download Filmora9 Mac Version

Do you have any questions about SEO? Please leave us a comment below.

author avatar

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Techniques to Slow Down Online Video Playback (49 Chars)

YouTube Slow: How to Slow Down YouTube Videos [3 Ways]

author avatar

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Have you ever wanted to learn something from a YouTube video, but found that the video is too fast? If you are wondering how to slow down YouTube videos, then you’re in the right place. Well, there are different ways to slow down YouTube videos and in this article, we will show you how to slow down the YouTube videos with 3 most effective ways: slow down the YouTube videos by changing playback video speed at playback, slow down YouTube video using YouTube’s Video Editor tools or change YouTube video speed to slow down or speed up with Wondershare Filmora video editor .

Part 1: YouTube Slow Down: How to Play YouTube Videos in Slow Motion

While, you can now change the speed of any YouTube videos easily and watch YouTube videos in slow motion in a few steps. Below is how to slow down YouTube Videos:

  • Open the video in YouTube
  • Click the Settings icon on the bottom right and then you will see Autoplay, Annotations, Speed, Subtitles, and Quality options. By default, the speed is set to Normal. Click Speed and open the speed change options. The speed options are in multiples.

 change youtube speed

  • Choose the target video speed from 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x to slow down the play back speed of the YouTube video. You can also select 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x or 2x to fast forward this YouTube video depending on how fast or slow you want the playback of the YouTube video to be.
  • That’s it how to make a YouTube video slow down by changing the playback speed. If you selected 0.5X, you will see the playback speed is half of the original speed. You can now see the YouTube video is played back in a slower speed.

You May Also Like: Take good use of YouTube’s Enhancements feature to improve your video quality.

Besides, watching YouTube videos in slow motion, you can also make a slow motion video and upload to YouTube. The Flash from Zootopia is so impressive and you can see a lot of memes and gifs online about this funny cute sloth. In the following part, we will show you how to make a slow motion YouTube video like the sloth Flash in two ways by adding slow motion effects.

Part 2: Add Slow Motion to YT Videos with Wondershare Filmora video editor [3 Steps]

Wondershare Filmora is an easy-to-use yet powerful video editing tool to which let beginners edit their YouTube videos in minutes. It includes every classic video editing functions including adjust playback speed, trim, crop, rotate, split as well as many special editing features like Jump Cut, Mosaic Blur and Tilt Shift. Now let’s see how to add slow motion with this video editing software.

Download Win VersionDownload Mac Version

Step 1. Import Video Footage to Filmora Video Editor

First of all, you need to import all your video footage for YouTube videos to Filmora. If you want to slow down a video downloaded from online, like youtube, please make sure there is copyright issue for you to use the video before processing. In case that you want to download YouTube with free youtube downloader, you can try Wondershare Free Youtube Downloader and Video DownloadHelper (Firefox Add-on).

After downloading YouTube videos on hard disk, you can now import it to this YouTube video editor. The downloaded YouTube videos is usually in FLV format, and Filmora has a wide range of support for video formats, which includes FLV as well. You can either click “Import” on the primary windows and select YouTube FLV video file from your computer, or simply drag and drop YouTube FLV file to the User’s Album. Next, drag YouTube video from User’s Album to Timeline for editing.

YouTube Slow Motion

Step 2. One click to add slow motion to YouTube video

On the Timeline, click on the added YouTube video and select Speed and Duration to open up the video custom speed window. You will see the Speed option, Duration, Reverse Speed and Ripple Edit options. and the speed number indicates fast or slow motion. To slow down the YouTube video, drag the speed slider to left and you get a slow down version of the YouTube video. You can slow down the YouTube video in 0.01x. Click the OK button to save the slow motion settings and then click the Play button in the preview windows to have a look at the new YouTube slow down video. You can also change the duration of the YouTube video to change the YouTube video speed. For example, if you want to slow down a 30-second YouTube video to half speed, you can just enter the duration to 60 seconds to get a slow down motion effect.

 YouTube Video slow down

With Filmora youtube video editor, you can also add the slow motion effects to some certain clips of the video footage. What you need to do is use the split feature to split the video first. Learn more details about How to Cut / Split / Trim Videos without Quality Loss

Step 3. Export slow down YouTube video

You could continue editing YouTube videos. When all done, click “Export” to save the result. You can save YouTube video in any popular formats on the computer by clicking “Format”. If you want to play YouTube video on iPod, iPhone, iPad, click “Device” and select your device. You can also share the YouTube video up to YouTube or Vimeo directly or burn YouTube video to DVD.

Export

Download Win VersionDownload Mac Version

See, with Filmora video editor you can slow down YouTube videos with ease, what’s more, you can also apply reverse effects to play Youtube videos backwards. Download and try this YouTube Slow motion effect and you will master how to slow down YouTube videos.

Related:How to Make Slow/Fast Motion Videos

Part 3: Slow down YouTube videos with Slow Motion in YouTube Video Editor

Updated: From 20th September 2017 users will no longer be able to use the complimentary editing suite. Check the best YouTube video editor alternatives from this complete guide.

If you’ve ever been annoyed by the speed of your user-generated videos on YouTube, try out its own video editor. As YouTube has added a new “slow motion” tool to its YouTube Editor, it does pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Here is a simple guide on how to add slow motion with it.

Step 1: Get Access to YouTube Video Editor. You can either go directly to the URL, which is https://www.youtube.com/editor , or click “Upload”>”Edit” to the Video Editor tab.

Step 2: Drag your video on the timeline and double click it. In the pop up window, you will see the “Slow Motion” option. Enable it and then select how slow you want the video to be. This applies the effect to the entire video that you’ve selected.

slow motion youtube video

If you just want to slow down parts of the video, go back to the main editing tab, clip it from the original video using the slicing tool and add the slow-motion effect to that clip only. You can then arrange the different clips you have in the editor to create your final video.

Step 3: Tick the option “Preview effects side-by-side” with original video and then you can see how the original video plays compared to the one you’ve slowed down. If you’re happy with the result, hit “Done” to save the settings.

Conclusion

Above are the 3 ways that you can watch a YouTube video in slow motion, and slow down YouTube videos. You can directly change the playback speed of the YouTube video on Youtube, or download the YouTube video first and then slow down the speed of the YouTube video with some video editing software for YouTube like Filmora. No matter which way you prefer, we hope these information can help you slow down youtube videos.

Download Win VersionDownload Mac Version

author avatar

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Have you ever wanted to learn something from a YouTube video, but found that the video is too fast? If you are wondering how to slow down YouTube videos, then you’re in the right place. Well, there are different ways to slow down YouTube videos and in this article, we will show you how to slow down the YouTube videos with 3 most effective ways: slow down the YouTube videos by changing playback video speed at playback, slow down YouTube video using YouTube’s Video Editor tools or change YouTube video speed to slow down or speed up with Wondershare Filmora video editor .

Part 1: YouTube Slow Down: How to Play YouTube Videos in Slow Motion

While, you can now change the speed of any YouTube videos easily and watch YouTube videos in slow motion in a few steps. Below is how to slow down YouTube Videos:

  • Open the video in YouTube
  • Click the Settings icon on the bottom right and then you will see Autoplay, Annotations, Speed, Subtitles, and Quality options. By default, the speed is set to Normal. Click Speed and open the speed change options. The speed options are in multiples.

 change youtube speed

  • Choose the target video speed from 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x to slow down the play back speed of the YouTube video. You can also select 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x or 2x to fast forward this YouTube video depending on how fast or slow you want the playback of the YouTube video to be.
  • That’s it how to make a YouTube video slow down by changing the playback speed. If you selected 0.5X, you will see the playback speed is half of the original speed. You can now see the YouTube video is played back in a slower speed.

You May Also Like: Take good use of YouTube’s Enhancements feature to improve your video quality.

Besides, watching YouTube videos in slow motion, you can also make a slow motion video and upload to YouTube. The Flash from Zootopia is so impressive and you can see a lot of memes and gifs online about this funny cute sloth. In the following part, we will show you how to make a slow motion YouTube video like the sloth Flash in two ways by adding slow motion effects.

Part 2: Add Slow Motion to YT Videos with Wondershare Filmora video editor [3 Steps]

Wondershare Filmora is an easy-to-use yet powerful video editing tool to which let beginners edit their YouTube videos in minutes. It includes every classic video editing functions including adjust playback speed, trim, crop, rotate, split as well as many special editing features like Jump Cut, Mosaic Blur and Tilt Shift. Now let’s see how to add slow motion with this video editing software.

Download Win VersionDownload Mac Version

Step 1. Import Video Footage to Filmora Video Editor

First of all, you need to import all your video footage for YouTube videos to Filmora. If you want to slow down a video downloaded from online, like youtube, please make sure there is copyright issue for you to use the video before processing. In case that you want to download YouTube with free youtube downloader, you can try Wondershare Free Youtube Downloader and Video DownloadHelper (Firefox Add-on).

After downloading YouTube videos on hard disk, you can now import it to this YouTube video editor. The downloaded YouTube videos is usually in FLV format, and Filmora has a wide range of support for video formats, which includes FLV as well. You can either click “Import” on the primary windows and select YouTube FLV video file from your computer, or simply drag and drop YouTube FLV file to the User’s Album. Next, drag YouTube video from User’s Album to Timeline for editing.

YouTube Slow Motion

Step 2. One click to add slow motion to YouTube video

On the Timeline, click on the added YouTube video and select Speed and Duration to open up the video custom speed window. You will see the Speed option, Duration, Reverse Speed and Ripple Edit options. and the speed number indicates fast or slow motion. To slow down the YouTube video, drag the speed slider to left and you get a slow down version of the YouTube video. You can slow down the YouTube video in 0.01x. Click the OK button to save the slow motion settings and then click the Play button in the preview windows to have a look at the new YouTube slow down video. You can also change the duration of the YouTube video to change the YouTube video speed. For example, if you want to slow down a 30-second YouTube video to half speed, you can just enter the duration to 60 seconds to get a slow down motion effect.

 YouTube Video slow down

With Filmora youtube video editor, you can also add the slow motion effects to some certain clips of the video footage. What you need to do is use the split feature to split the video first. Learn more details about How to Cut / Split / Trim Videos without Quality Loss

Step 3. Export slow down YouTube video

You could continue editing YouTube videos. When all done, click “Export” to save the result. You can save YouTube video in any popular formats on the computer by clicking “Format”. If you want to play YouTube video on iPod, iPhone, iPad, click “Device” and select your device. You can also share the YouTube video up to YouTube or Vimeo directly or burn YouTube video to DVD.

Export

Download Win VersionDownload Mac Version

See, with Filmora video editor you can slow down YouTube videos with ease, what’s more, you can also apply reverse effects to play Youtube videos backwards. Download and try this YouTube Slow motion effect and you will master how to slow down YouTube videos.

Related:How to Make Slow/Fast Motion Videos

Part 3: Slow down YouTube videos with Slow Motion in YouTube Video Editor

Updated: From 20th September 2017 users will no longer be able to use the complimentary editing suite. Check the best YouTube video editor alternatives from this complete guide.

If you’ve ever been annoyed by the speed of your user-generated videos on YouTube, try out its own video editor. As YouTube has added a new “slow motion” tool to its YouTube Editor, it does pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Here is a simple guide on how to add slow motion with it.

Step 1: Get Access to YouTube Video Editor. You can either go directly to the URL, which is https://www.youtube.com/editor , or click “Upload”>”Edit” to the Video Editor tab.

Step 2: Drag your video on the timeline and double click it. In the pop up window, you will see the “Slow Motion” option. Enable it and then select how slow you want the video to be. This applies the effect to the entire video that you’ve selected.

slow motion youtube video

If you just want to slow down parts of the video, go back to the main editing tab, clip it from the original video using the slicing tool and add the slow-motion effect to that clip only. You can then arrange the different clips you have in the editor to create your final video.

Step 3: Tick the option “Preview effects side-by-side” with original video and then you can see how the original video plays compared to the one you’ve slowed down. If you’re happy with the result, hit “Done” to save the settings.

Conclusion

Above are the 3 ways that you can watch a YouTube video in slow motion, and slow down YouTube videos. You can directly change the playback speed of the YouTube video on Youtube, or download the YouTube video first and then slow down the speed of the YouTube video with some video editing software for YouTube like Filmora. No matter which way you prefer, we hope these information can help you slow down youtube videos.

Download Win VersionDownload Mac Version

author avatar

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Have you ever wanted to learn something from a YouTube video, but found that the video is too fast? If you are wondering how to slow down YouTube videos, then you’re in the right place. Well, there are different ways to slow down YouTube videos and in this article, we will show you how to slow down the YouTube videos with 3 most effective ways: slow down the YouTube videos by changing playback video speed at playback, slow down YouTube video using YouTube’s Video Editor tools or change YouTube video speed to slow down or speed up with Wondershare Filmora video editor .

Part 1: YouTube Slow Down: How to Play YouTube Videos in Slow Motion

While, you can now change the speed of any YouTube videos easily and watch YouTube videos in slow motion in a few steps. Below is how to slow down YouTube Videos:

  • Open the video in YouTube
  • Click the Settings icon on the bottom right and then you will see Autoplay, Annotations, Speed, Subtitles, and Quality options. By default, the speed is set to Normal. Click Speed and open the speed change options. The speed options are in multiples.

 change youtube speed

  • Choose the target video speed from 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x to slow down the play back speed of the YouTube video. You can also select 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x or 2x to fast forward this YouTube video depending on how fast or slow you want the playback of the YouTube video to be.
  • That’s it how to make a YouTube video slow down by changing the playback speed. If you selected 0.5X, you will see the playback speed is half of the original speed. You can now see the YouTube video is played back in a slower speed.

You May Also Like: Take good use of YouTube’s Enhancements feature to improve your video quality.

Besides, watching YouTube videos in slow motion, you can also make a slow motion video and upload to YouTube. The Flash from Zootopia is so impressive and you can see a lot of memes and gifs online about this funny cute sloth. In the following part, we will show you how to make a slow motion YouTube video like the sloth Flash in two ways by adding slow motion effects.

Part 2: Add Slow Motion to YT Videos with Wondershare Filmora video editor [3 Steps]

Wondershare Filmora is an easy-to-use yet powerful video editing tool to which let beginners edit their YouTube videos in minutes. It includes every classic video editing functions including adjust playback speed, trim, crop, rotate, split as well as many special editing features like Jump Cut, Mosaic Blur and Tilt Shift. Now let’s see how to add slow motion with this video editing software.

Download Win VersionDownload Mac Version

Step 1. Import Video Footage to Filmora Video Editor

First of all, you need to import all your video footage for YouTube videos to Filmora. If you want to slow down a video downloaded from online, like youtube, please make sure there is copyright issue for you to use the video before processing. In case that you want to download YouTube with free youtube downloader, you can try Wondershare Free Youtube Downloader and Video DownloadHelper (Firefox Add-on).

After downloading YouTube videos on hard disk, you can now import it to this YouTube video editor. The downloaded YouTube videos is usually in FLV format, and Filmora has a wide range of support for video formats, which includes FLV as well. You can either click “Import” on the primary windows and select YouTube FLV video file from your computer, or simply drag and drop YouTube FLV file to the User’s Album. Next, drag YouTube video from User’s Album to Timeline for editing.

YouTube Slow Motion

Step 2. One click to add slow motion to YouTube video

On the Timeline, click on the added YouTube video and select Speed and Duration to open up the video custom speed window. You will see the Speed option, Duration, Reverse Speed and Ripple Edit options. and the speed number indicates fast or slow motion. To slow down the YouTube video, drag the speed slider to left and you get a slow down version of the YouTube video. You can slow down the YouTube video in 0.01x. Click the OK button to save the slow motion settings and then click the Play button in the preview windows to have a look at the new YouTube slow down video. You can also change the duration of the YouTube video to change the YouTube video speed. For example, if you want to slow down a 30-second YouTube video to half speed, you can just enter the duration to 60 seconds to get a slow down motion effect.

 YouTube Video slow down

With Filmora youtube video editor, you can also add the slow motion effects to some certain clips of the video footage. What you need to do is use the split feature to split the video first. Learn more details about How to Cut / Split / Trim Videos without Quality Loss

Step 3. Export slow down YouTube video

You could continue editing YouTube videos. When all done, click “Export” to save the result. You can save YouTube video in any popular formats on the computer by clicking “Format”. If you want to play YouTube video on iPod, iPhone, iPad, click “Device” and select your device. You can also share the YouTube video up to YouTube or Vimeo directly or burn YouTube video to DVD.

Export

Download Win VersionDownload Mac Version

See, with Filmora video editor you can slow down YouTube videos with ease, what’s more, you can also apply reverse effects to play Youtube videos backwards. Download and try this YouTube Slow motion effect and you will master how to slow down YouTube videos.

Related:How to Make Slow/Fast Motion Videos

Part 3: Slow down YouTube videos with Slow Motion in YouTube Video Editor

Updated: From 20th September 2017 users will no longer be able to use the complimentary editing suite. Check the best YouTube video editor alternatives from this complete guide.

If you’ve ever been annoyed by the speed of your user-generated videos on YouTube, try out its own video editor. As YouTube has added a new “slow motion” tool to its YouTube Editor, it does pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Here is a simple guide on how to add slow motion with it.

Step 1: Get Access to YouTube Video Editor. You can either go directly to the URL, which is https://www.youtube.com/editor , or click “Upload”>”Edit” to the Video Editor tab.

Step 2: Drag your video on the timeline and double click it. In the pop up window, you will see the “Slow Motion” option. Enable it and then select how slow you want the video to be. This applies the effect to the entire video that you’ve selected.

slow motion youtube video

If you just want to slow down parts of the video, go back to the main editing tab, clip it from the original video using the slicing tool and add the slow-motion effect to that clip only. You can then arrange the different clips you have in the editor to create your final video.

Step 3: Tick the option “Preview effects side-by-side” with original video and then you can see how the original video plays compared to the one you’ve slowed down. If you’re happy with the result, hit “Done” to save the settings.

Conclusion

Above are the 3 ways that you can watch a YouTube video in slow motion, and slow down YouTube videos. You can directly change the playback speed of the YouTube video on Youtube, or download the YouTube video first and then slow down the speed of the YouTube video with some video editing software for YouTube like Filmora. No matter which way you prefer, we hope these information can help you slow down youtube videos.

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author avatar

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Have you ever wanted to learn something from a YouTube video, but found that the video is too fast? If you are wondering how to slow down YouTube videos, then you’re in the right place. Well, there are different ways to slow down YouTube videos and in this article, we will show you how to slow down the YouTube videos with 3 most effective ways: slow down the YouTube videos by changing playback video speed at playback, slow down YouTube video using YouTube’s Video Editor tools or change YouTube video speed to slow down or speed up with Wondershare Filmora video editor .

Part 1: YouTube Slow Down: How to Play YouTube Videos in Slow Motion

While, you can now change the speed of any YouTube videos easily and watch YouTube videos in slow motion in a few steps. Below is how to slow down YouTube Videos:

  • Open the video in YouTube
  • Click the Settings icon on the bottom right and then you will see Autoplay, Annotations, Speed, Subtitles, and Quality options. By default, the speed is set to Normal. Click Speed and open the speed change options. The speed options are in multiples.

 change youtube speed

  • Choose the target video speed from 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x to slow down the play back speed of the YouTube video. You can also select 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x or 2x to fast forward this YouTube video depending on how fast or slow you want the playback of the YouTube video to be.
  • That’s it how to make a YouTube video slow down by changing the playback speed. If you selected 0.5X, you will see the playback speed is half of the original speed. You can now see the YouTube video is played back in a slower speed.

You May Also Like: Take good use of YouTube’s Enhancements feature to improve your video quality.

Besides, watching YouTube videos in slow motion, you can also make a slow motion video and upload to YouTube. The Flash from Zootopia is so impressive and you can see a lot of memes and gifs online about this funny cute sloth. In the following part, we will show you how to make a slow motion YouTube video like the sloth Flash in two ways by adding slow motion effects.

Part 2: Add Slow Motion to YT Videos with Wondershare Filmora video editor [3 Steps]

Wondershare Filmora is an easy-to-use yet powerful video editing tool to which let beginners edit their YouTube videos in minutes. It includes every classic video editing functions including adjust playback speed, trim, crop, rotate, split as well as many special editing features like Jump Cut, Mosaic Blur and Tilt Shift. Now let’s see how to add slow motion with this video editing software.

Download Win VersionDownload Mac Version

Step 1. Import Video Footage to Filmora Video Editor

First of all, you need to import all your video footage for YouTube videos to Filmora. If you want to slow down a video downloaded from online, like youtube, please make sure there is copyright issue for you to use the video before processing. In case that you want to download YouTube with free youtube downloader, you can try Wondershare Free Youtube Downloader and Video DownloadHelper (Firefox Add-on).

After downloading YouTube videos on hard disk, you can now import it to this YouTube video editor. The downloaded YouTube videos is usually in FLV format, and Filmora has a wide range of support for video formats, which includes FLV as well. You can either click “Import” on the primary windows and select YouTube FLV video file from your computer, or simply drag and drop YouTube FLV file to the User’s Album. Next, drag YouTube video from User’s Album to Timeline for editing.

YouTube Slow Motion

Step 2. One click to add slow motion to YouTube video

On the Timeline, click on the added YouTube video and select Speed and Duration to open up the video custom speed window. You will see the Speed option, Duration, Reverse Speed and Ripple Edit options. and the speed number indicates fast or slow motion. To slow down the YouTube video, drag the speed slider to left and you get a slow down version of the YouTube video. You can slow down the YouTube video in 0.01x. Click the OK button to save the slow motion settings and then click the Play button in the preview windows to have a look at the new YouTube slow down video. You can also change the duration of the YouTube video to change the YouTube video speed. For example, if you want to slow down a 30-second YouTube video to half speed, you can just enter the duration to 60 seconds to get a slow down motion effect.

 YouTube Video slow down

With Filmora youtube video editor, you can also add the slow motion effects to some certain clips of the video footage. What you need to do is use the split feature to split the video first. Learn more details about How to Cut / Split / Trim Videos without Quality Loss

Step 3. Export slow down YouTube video

You could continue editing YouTube videos. When all done, click “Export” to save the result. You can save YouTube video in any popular formats on the computer by clicking “Format”. If you want to play YouTube video on iPod, iPhone, iPad, click “Device” and select your device. You can also share the YouTube video up to YouTube or Vimeo directly or burn YouTube video to DVD.

Export

Download Win VersionDownload Mac Version

See, with Filmora video editor you can slow down YouTube videos with ease, what’s more, you can also apply reverse effects to play Youtube videos backwards. Download and try this YouTube Slow motion effect and you will master how to slow down YouTube videos.

Related:How to Make Slow/Fast Motion Videos

Part 3: Slow down YouTube videos with Slow Motion in YouTube Video Editor

Updated: From 20th September 2017 users will no longer be able to use the complimentary editing suite. Check the best YouTube video editor alternatives from this complete guide.

If you’ve ever been annoyed by the speed of your user-generated videos on YouTube, try out its own video editor. As YouTube has added a new “slow motion” tool to its YouTube Editor, it does pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Here is a simple guide on how to add slow motion with it.

Step 1: Get Access to YouTube Video Editor. You can either go directly to the URL, which is https://www.youtube.com/editor , or click “Upload”>”Edit” to the Video Editor tab.

Step 2: Drag your video on the timeline and double click it. In the pop up window, you will see the “Slow Motion” option. Enable it and then select how slow you want the video to be. This applies the effect to the entire video that you’ve selected.

slow motion youtube video

If you just want to slow down parts of the video, go back to the main editing tab, clip it from the original video using the slicing tool and add the slow-motion effect to that clip only. You can then arrange the different clips you have in the editor to create your final video.

Step 3: Tick the option “Preview effects side-by-side” with original video and then you can see how the original video plays compared to the one you’ve slowed down. If you’re happy with the result, hit “Done” to save the settings.

Conclusion

Above are the 3 ways that you can watch a YouTube video in slow motion, and slow down YouTube videos. You can directly change the playback speed of the YouTube video on Youtube, or download the YouTube video first and then slow down the speed of the YouTube video with some video editing software for YouTube like Filmora. No matter which way you prefer, we hope these information can help you slow down youtube videos.

Download Win VersionDownload Mac Version

author avatar

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Also read:

  • Title: Demystifying Video SEO on YouTube as a Novice
  • Author: Kevin
  • Created at : 2024-05-25 14:58:01
  • Updated at : 2024-05-26 14:58:01
  • Link: https://youtube-videos.techidaily.com/demystifying-video-seo-on-youtube-as-a-novice/
  • License: This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
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Demystifying Video SEO on YouTube as a Novice