Titles, descriptions and metadata
A clear title, a useful description and chapters that help viewers find what they came for.
The short version
What starts working. A page that reads as if one person built all of it: a clear promise, a video a learner can navigate, and one obvious thing to do at the end.
Is this for you? For videos whose titles, descriptions or navigation need to communicate their value more clearly. A relevant next step is included where there is one. Where tags are the plan, expect little from them; the words people search for go in the title and description.
What leaves your plate. Metadata written by the people who just cut the video, while they still know which forty seconds are the reason to watch, and pointed at one destination.
Start with the Free Audit.
Written by the people who cut it
Metadata is written while somebody still remembers the video
We draft titles, descriptions and chapters with knowledge of the finished content, its audience and its purpose. Working alongside the edit makes it easier to keep the promise and the video aligned.
One destination, and the page is built around it
We make the main invitation easy to find while keeping useful supporting links. Chapters help the viewer navigate, and the opening description lines explain the video clearly even before the full text is expanded.
The research is into search words
What a niche searches for is not what its adjacent niche searches for, and a term that carried one brand will quietly underperform for another, so the research runs per category and per channel: the phrases with real demand, and the words the audience uses rather than the ones the industry does. Those words earn their keep in the title, the first lines of the description and the spoken track, because that is where the platform reads them. The tag field itself moves very little on its own, and we treat it as such: filled lightly, mostly with the spelling variants and near-misses a viewer might type, weighed rather than stuffed, and never sold to you as the thing that made a video work. The platform's own guidance says as much: the title, thumbnail and description are the metadata that matter for a video's discovery, and tags mainly help when the subject is one people commonly misspell.
Subtitles are part of this job
Caption files are prepared as standard and routed only once the cut is locked, so subtitles never chase a moving edit. They serve accessibility first and search second, and both of those are real. Where a partner publishes for themselves, the files arrive in the video's own folder with the music licences beside them.
The watch page
What is prepared for each long-form piece
Several title options, so there is something to choose between. A description written for a reader and indexed by a machine. Chapters and timestamps. Playlist placement. Tags filled from that same research, a minor field weighed rather than stuffed. Caption files in SRT and plain text, and the end screens and cards that decide where a finished viewer goes next.
How it is checked
We review click-through, watch time and relevant traffic patterns after publishing. Changes can suggest what to test next, but several simultaneous changes do not reveal which one caused the result.
At the bench
The work, demonstrated
Try a decision from the craft: drag, tap or toggle, then read the trade-off.
These are illustrative models; no partner’s results are shown.
More demonstrations at the bench →Metadata written after the export is a guess about a video everybody involved has already stopped thinking about.
It is written while somebody still knows which forty seconds are the reason to watch.
What changes for you
A clear promise, a video the viewer can navigate and an appropriate next step. The title and page prepare people for the work they will see.
Related: Thumbnails · Between the uploads · CTA and funnel design · Subtitles and captions
Send your channel. We will review publishing, packaging and the next steps the available evidence supports.
Request your Free Audit.
Three fields, and a written reading back.
Your audit usually arrives within three working days. We use your details only to reply to your enquiry.
What you will get
What is working, what could improve and whether we can help.
Two or three priorities, with the reason for each.
A recommended next step, even if that step is not us.
There is no obligation to continue. We only arrange a call if you ask for one.
The work, written up
The case studies keep their dates, sources and limits visible.
See the casework →