Uploading your YouTube video correctly to make certain information technology will be shown to as many people as possible doesn't happen naturally. There are precise steps you should follow to ensure maximum exposure for your content.

Imagine this.

You worked really hard, developed your share-worthy video idea, wrote your video script, filmed and edit everything, and are finally ready to share your masterpiece with the world.

What's next?

Follow along with my 25-step system and go from final edit to fully-optimized YouTube video to give your side by side video the best possible outset with my Ultimate YouTube Upload Checklist.

Upload Your First Video on YouTube

Well, we have to starting time somewhere, don't nosotros... 😉

In that location are many apps and software solutions that support native video export to YouTube.

But today, we are doing it the old-fashioned mode, via the YouTube web interface.

Log into your YouTube account and then locate the Creator menu in the meridian right corner of your screen.

Information technology should look something like this, sometimes depending on your screen size yous might merely see the camera icon without the text:

Don't worry, if y'all don't run across a ruby icon on the left side of the "Create" button. I use the TubeBuddy Chrome extension to assist me with my YouTube growth. (On a side note, I've also published an in-depth TubeBuddy Review on how information technology helped me to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 3000 subscribers.)

Next, you click on "Upload videos".

A new popup should open:

Yous might have noticed a small icon at the top right saying "Upload with Classic". This is the old upload function and will disappear very soon.

In this article, I'm showing y'all the new, modern upload workflow that is here to stay.

Yous can either click on "Select files" and locate your video (or multiple videos). Or you tin can locate your video on your computer and elevate and drop it into the gray circumvolve.

Write a Compelling YouTube Video Title

Writing a captivating video title is one of the biggest success factors when it comes to YouTube videos.

Information technology has to exist short and sweet, then people on mobile and desktop devices can apace grasp what your video is all about without getting truncated.

The championship has to communicate two elements. Who is this for? And what's in information technology for them? Why should they watch your video?

It as well should contain specific keywords that someone might type into the YouTube search field to attract organic search traffic. This is especially important for small-scale YouTube channels with less than i,000 subscribers.

If you want to learn more, check out these two articles virtually how to write the perfect YouTube video title, and how to optimize your YouTube titles for YouTube SEO.

Write In Your YouTube Video Clarification

There are three schools of thought when it comes to how to write your YouTube descriptions.

The first approach is to use the description of your video as an extended opportunity to optimize your YouTube videos for SEO purposes.

In other words, y'all're explaining what your video is all near, and topics you lot're roofing. This allows you lot to add a lot of additional keywords, that YouTubers might be searching for.

The next approach focuses on creating a telephone call to activity such as reminding your viewers to subscribe to your YouTube channel, or following you lot on Instagram, or watching some of your other videos well-nigh a similar topic.

And so we have a hybrid approach. It uses the elevation half of your video for additional data almost your video, assuasive you to optimize your video for YouTube SEO. And then it uses the bottom half to promote someone of your existing videos and external links that allow you lot to make coin on YouTube, even when yous're not withal monetized.

Design a Click-Worthy YouTube Video Thumbnail

Together with your video championship, the video thumbnail has the biggest affect on your video click-through rate.

This is very important because it determines if YouTube will recommend your videos to other users who are non nevertheless subscribed to your YouTube aqueduct withal.

I recommend reviewing some of your favorite YouTube creators and to notice a simple way that's resonating with you and the content that you're creating and then using that as the foundation to detect your own style.

At that place are two very of import keys to thumbnail success. Include a photo of yourself and employ a large font to tease what your video is all about.

You tin check out my tutorial on how to create blithe video thumbnails for social media to get a good idea of how to design a simple, nevertheless swell-looking thumbnail for your video.

If you desire to get into the nuts and bolts of thumbnail creation, here's the commodity to read: How to make customized thumbnails that get clicks for your YouTube videos.

Add Your Videos to YouTube Playlists

Every YouTube channel should have at to the lowest degree two plalist.

The first one should contain all of your published videos. This makes it very convenient for people who discover your aqueduct for the first time to binge-watch all of your videos.

The 2d playlist should be ane of many to come and contain all the videos of a detail topic.

When you're just starting out the "all videos" and "all about topic X" might contain the same videos, but that'south going to alter really quickly as you make more and more videos.

I use TubeBuddy to go on all of my YouTube playlists organized. It allows me to chop-chop sort all of my playlists with the click of a button. I love to sort all of my playlists by watch fourth dimension and put the most pop videos at the top.

This has significantly increased the average lookout time per viewer on my channel.

If you want to larn more almost YouTube, cheque out my YouTube Success playlist.

YouTube's Community Guidelines

The first question is, has this video been made for kids?

In the Us, the age of a "kid" is divers as anyone under the historic period of 13. However, this number may be higher in other countries.

If your channel is not made for kids, and then you should select "No".

The next question is, do you want to restrict your video to an adult audition?

You should select "Yes" if your video covers any of the post-obit topics or themes: Violence, disturbing imagery, nudity, sexually suggestive content, or portrayal of unsafe activities.

Otherwise, select "No" and move on.

If all of your YouTube videos are not made for kids, yous tin can visit the YouTube Studio, click on "Settings" and so nether "Aqueduct" select "No" every bit your aqueduct default for new uploads.

If your video contains paid promotion or has been sponsored by a tertiary party, you might be nether a legal obligation to disembalm this information to your viewers.

In that location are two options.

If you enable the first checkbox, y'all notify YouTube that your video contains paid promotion. YouTube may verify that your promotion complies with their ads policies.

If y'all bank check the 2d box, YouTube volition notify viewers that your video contains paid promotions. This happens in the class of a small overlay for the get-go few seconds of your video.

In some jurisdictions, this is voluntary, in some, it's mandatory to disclose this.

I recommend checking both boxes if your video has been sponsored to be on the condom side.

Tags are i of the most underrated features on YouTube.

Many content creators don't use them. And if they practice, they often utilise them incorrectly and add together worthless tags to their videos.

Keywords are essentially piffling text snippets that people might type into the search field. If one of your keywords matches the search term, at that place is a proficient probability that your video will prove upward.

Especially, if you picked a "very good" keyword, that both have a loftier search volume and very niggling completion in terms of similar videos.

I apply TubeBuddy to notice the best keywords for my YouTube video tags. To activate this characteristic, I click on the "TubeBuddy Tag Tools" characteristic below the tags field.

It opens up the TubeBuddy Keyword Explorer. In the top left corner, I can type in any keyword I want to inquiry.

TubeBuddy will then access the YouTube database and notice the search book for this specific keyword and how many "competing" videos will exist displayed on YouTube.

Base on these recommendations it volition summate the overall keyword score from ruby-red to green.

Information technology will also give me related keyword ideas that I might add to my tags based on what some of the almost popular YouTube videos with similar topics use in their videos, as well equally some of the nigh popular, related searches on YouTube and Google.

Set the Language for Your YouTube Video

Setting your video language is an important stride. It ensures that, if your video contains spoken words, it will mostly be promoted to people who speak the language of your video.

Funny compilations of cats and dogs volition yet exist shown to anybody because they don't really contain whatsoever spoken words. In this case, you tin can just select your default language or English language.

YouTube tracks all video views and then determines what languages each viewer is speaking, based on how many foreign linguistic communication videos someone has watched.

Upload Subtitles for Your Video

The checkbox nigh caption certification is merely relevant to a very small part of the YouTube creator community.

It'southward specifically targeting creators and publishing companies whose videos take previously aired on US television. These videos are legally required to continue to display subtitles even when re-uploaded to platforms such as YouTube.

In about cases yous desire to select the default setting, "This content has never aired on telly in the U.Southward."

Using subtitles is a very skillful practice in general. Information technology helps you to optimize your videos for YouTube SEO, as YouTube uses your subtitles as a full-text search engine.

Information technology likewise helps people who accept hearing problems, those who speak a foreign language and everyone, if your groundwork audio level is very noisy to enjoy your videos.

I utilize a tool chosen Otter to transcribe all of my YouTube videos. If you sign up via this link, you get 100 extra minutes of complimentary transcriptions.

Update the Recording Date and Location of Your Video

If yous want to requite viewers on YouTube the power to search by date or location to notice your video, you may desire to enter the appointment and location in the next section.

This is specially useful for fourth dimension-relevant content such as news and allows YouTube to use both information to align information technology with a viewer's search intent.

Review Your YouTube Video Licenses

You take a choice between the Standard YouTube license and the Creative Commons Attribution license.

The Standard YouTube license is the default setting for all uploads. I highly recommend to stick with the Standard YouTube license, to maintain all of your rights.

By marking your original video with a Creative Commons license, you're granting the entire YouTube community the right to reuse and edit your video.

Because of that, you may simply mark videos with the Artistic Commons license, if your unabridged video consists entirely of content that you can license under the CC BY license, you tin can too switch to a Creative Eatables license.

This could be your own, originally created content, other videos marked with a CC BY license, or videos that are in the public domain.

YouTube will prevent y'all from switching to the Artistic Eatables license if at that place is a Content ID claim against it.

Review Your YouTube Video Distribution Settings

You accept two choices when information technology comes to distribution. You can testify your videos "Everywhere" or simply on "Monetized Platforms".

Now what's the difference?

Co-ordinate to YouTube, the following platforms are examples of platforms YouTube considers monetized:

  • www.youtube.com
  • YouTube app
  • YouTube app on TVs including Xbox, Android Idiot box, PlayStation and Chromecast
  • m.youtube.com accessed from most smartphones
  • YouTube app on Apple TV

"Everywhere" also includes the post-obit placements:

  • YouTube app pre-installed on iOS 5 and below
  • YouTube legacy apps on feature phones and TVs
  • one thousand.youtube.com accessed from feature phones

The number of unmonetizable placements is steadily declining, as it more often than not covers deprecated technology. I, therefore, recommend keeping the default setting of "Everywhere" for your video.

Allow Embedding of Your YouTube Video

Why wouldn't you want someone to embed your video on someone else's website? Doesn't it all add together upwards to your views and watch time?

At that place are many reasons why you might want to plow embedding off.

Some users don't desire to protect their brand by preventing their videos from appearing alongside content they don't approve of.

Some websites are able to hijack embedded videos and supersede YouTube's built-in ads with their own. Outcome? You get your views and lookout man time only no AdSense revenue.

In short, there is no telling where your videos might testify up.

If control over your brand is of the highest priority to y'all, I recommend restricting embedding.

Delight note, that this also prevents yous from embedding your videos on your ain website. If y'all desire to have both, you might want to check out Vimeo.

Notify Subscribers About Your New YouTube Video

This is such an important setting.

Did you know that your subscribers can receive a maximum of three new video notifications from your channel in a 24-hour menstruation?

What if you take to upload more than than three videos and you want to be selective about which videos you want to promote via email notification?

Imagine you lot want to upload a webinar replay to your YouTube channel, but you lot don't desire to ship out an electronic mail to each and every one of your subscribers.

In this case, just uncheck "Publish to subscriptions feed and notify subscribers" and you're good.

The video volition be public and available in your videos feed for those looking for it.

Update Your YouTube Video Category

YouTube allows you to choose between 15 different categories for your videos.

  • Autos & Vehicles
  • Comedy
  • Pedagogy
  • Amusement
  • Film & Animation
  • Gaming
  • Howto & Style
  • Music
  • News & Politics
  • Nonprofits & Activism
  • People & Blogs
  • Pets & Animals
  • Science & Technology
  • Sports
  • Travel & Events

The question is, which is the right one for your video?

To answer these questions, it's worth looking back in time, to see where these categories originated from. In the early days of YouTube, these categories were actually explorable.

Yous were able to go to the YouTube Browser page and so click-through any of the 15 categories to watch more videos.

Call back of YouTube's internal categorization engine more as a dynamic machine learning algorithm, that's constantly identifying, updating, and creating new categories. Everything is fluid and based on user behavior.

And then while it doesn't actually matter anymore which of the fifteen categories you pick, merely pick the i closest to your video. In doubt pick either "Teaching" or "Entertainment"

Comments are an important factor when it comes to ranking your videos on YouTube.

Disabling tin accept a negative impact on your discoverability on the platform and should only be disabled in rare cases.

  • You stirred upwardly a hornet's nest. This is probably ane of the most mutual reasons why people disabled comments on their channel.

    When a YouTuber or brand is involved in a scandal or controversy, information technology's a very common miracle that all, or some of their videos get spammed with negative and hurtful comments. Even if it's a completely new video and has nothing to do with the controversy. If you lot desire to avoid hour-long cleanup sessions for your comments feed, temporarily disable your comments until everything has blown over.

  • Your new video is controversial. Sometimes everything is fine, just the video your uploading right now contains a controversial opinion, you lot might want to proactively turn off your comments.

Alternatively, and that's my recommendation, plow on comment moderation.

There are three settings for comments.

  • Allow all comments. Comment moderation is turned off. Everything is published instantly.
  • Hold potentially inappropriate comments for review. Annotate moderation is on. YouTube uses its comment AI to identify three types of comments. "All good" get published instantly. "Held for review" is a perhaps where the AI isn't 100% certain about the content. This might contain a give-and-take from your block list, swear words, or links. The last category is "Likely spam". In this category, you observe comments where YouTube is fairly certain that anyone would consider them spam. This can exist triggered by the content of the comment itself, past past behavior of the person commenting, or past spam reports for similar comments.
  • Hold all comments for review. This setting works exactly similar the previous one, with the exception that even the "All skillful" comments are moved to the "Review" tab.

Either style, this is hands reversible later.

Display the Number of Likes and Dislikes on Your YouTube Video

The question is closely related to the previous question about disabling comments.

Sometimes a video might embrace a sensitive topic or event and yous don't feel it's appropriate to like to dislike something. Think of a funeral for example. In this example, turning off likes would be ok.

Another reason for disabling likes are controversial video topics when uploaders wait an overwhelming number of dislikes, turning off the likes feature might be an option.

I personally don't recommend doing information technology. Get-go of all, likes or dislikes make no difference to the YouTube algorithm, both count equally engagement and help your video to be seen by more people.

Secondly, those people who dislike your videos are only at that place for the short term and will eventually disappear.

Enable Monetization for Your YouTube Video

If yous want to make coin and run YouTube as a business, this is the nearly important setting of all.

Starting time, y'all want to turn monetization to "On" at the height.

Side by side, y'all want to enable all ad placements that don't have a checkmark next to information technology.

If your video is longer than 8 minutes you tin can add boosted mid-roll ads during the video. This tin can brand a huge affect on the earning per video and I highly recommend turning it on.

Notation: this feature is but available if yous determine to join the YouTube Partner Program (so advertisers can run ads on your videos) and accept fulfilled the requirements of thousand YouTube subscribers and 4,000 public picket hours.

When you lot turned on monetization, YouTube volition ask you to categorize the video based on YouTube's advertising guidelines.

For about content creators, none of these will apply, and they should select "None of the to a higher place" at the bottom of the page.

Endeavour to exist truthful, as YouTube volition still run automatic tests to make up one's mind if your video is ok or not.

If YouTube finds that y'all didn't accurately categorize your video, they might take away your power to declare the advertisement suitability for your next video.

Why should you lot care nearly that?

Because if a video is on a knife's edge, YouTube will take the creators' self-certification into consideration and might permit a video for monetization.

While someone else who has been mendacious in the past might get the identical video demonetized based purely on an overly cautious AI algorithm.

Add End Screens to Your Video

What are end screens?

Those are little boxes that video creators can identify on summit of their videos for the last 5 to 20 seconds of their videos.

There are five different elements that yous can place on your end screen.

  • Video. Link to another YouTube video. In nigh cases, you want to link to related videos of your own channel to maximize lookout man time and earnings.
  • Playlist. Another bully way to boost your views. Link to a topic-specific playlist of your own YouTube channel.
  • Subscribe. Adding a subscription button on top of your terminate screen can boost the number of new subscribers.
  • Channel. Accept a second YouTube channel that yous want to promote? Or did your video characteristic a collaboration with another channel? Why not requite them a shout out past promoting their channel in your cease screen.
  • Link. This tin link to an approved website. This tin be YouTube partners such every bit Teespring, or your ain website. You have to link and verify your domain to your YouTube account in order to make this work.

End screens are a great asset when it comes to increasing watch time and earn more than money with your YouTube channel and I highly recommend adding terminate screens to all of your videos.

Add Info Cards to Your YouTube Video

What are YouTube cards? Same thought as finish screens, just less obtrusive nudges during your video itself.

Elements are slightly unlike. You withal accept videos, playlists, channels, and links. Subscribe buttons are not available. Just instead, you can add polls.

From my feel, the all-time use of cards is to promote videos and links that you lot're mentioning during your video. But identify a card for the exact time code and the direct link to either a video or link will pop upward at the top right (i) info icon.

Cull the Right Visibility for Your YouTube Video

The video visibility screen looks a little intimidating at first.

Here is what you have to know. If you want to continue your video private for now, select "Save or publish" at the top, and then "Private".

If you want to share the link video link with someone without publishing it, for example as an early-access membership do good for your Patreon membership site, then select "Salve or publish" and "unlisted.

If you want to publish it right at present, select "Relieve or publish" at the summit, and and then "Public".

This choice allows you lot to mark a second checkbox. "Prepare as instant Premiere" is similar to a alive stream watch party. If your viewers tune in halfway through your video, they can't go dorsum until your Premiere has finished.

At that point, your Premiere turns into a regular YouTube video.

If yous want to publish your video at a specific time and date, you want to switch over to the "Schedule" section.

This allows you to select a date, time, and time zone when your video switches from "individual" to "public". It'south non possible to schedule an "unlisted" video with YouTube.

It is also possible to plough your scheduled YouTube video into a Premiere.

If you lot desire to schedule an "unlisted" video, you can sign up for a TubeBuddy account.

This allows you to schedule any transition at whatever time. Private to Unlisted, Unlisted to Public, Public to Private. Whatever your heart desires.

If you are not set to make your video public yet merely want to run it by a couple of shut friends, y'all can set it to unlisted and share the link with them.

Don't worry, YouTube subscribers can't run across unlisted videos.

In one case you fabricated your selection, just click on the "Save" push button at the bottom right and your video is prepare to go.

YouTube will start to upload your video file during editing, so with a bit of luck, it might be already encoded by now, especially if it was a brusk video.

Apply Additional Privacy Settings for Your YouTube Video if Necessary

In some cases, y'all might desire to enable boosted privacy features for your videos.

A skilful case could be if you wanted to mistiness out the faces of people who walked into your frame.

YouTube has a built-in AI to detect and blur faces.

  1. Open YouTube Studio.
  2. Click on "Videos" on the left.
  3. Open whatever video of your pick.
  4. In the left sidebar, click on "Editor".
  5. In the video timeline located the "Add Blur" push and click it.
  6. Next to "Blur faces" click on "Edit".
  7. Wait for the video to process.
  8. Select any specific or all faces that yous desire to mistiness.
  9. Then click on "save" and you're done.

Once your video is live or scheduled, it's time to promote it. I recommend a iii-angle arroyo.

  • Share your video on social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (You can also share your video to Twitter using TubeBuddy), LinkedIn, TikTok, and Pinterest are adept starting points and allow you lot to drive free organic traffic to your videos.
  • Share your video with your e-mail list. If you don't have an email listing yet, sign upwards for a Moosend business relationship and beginning edifice ane. Email marketing is ane of the most powerful promotional tools when it comes to edifice a successful and profitable YouTube channel.
  • Share your video on your website or weblog. If you have your ain website or blog, why non link to some of your YouTube videos within one of your manufactures? This is some other easy to implement manner, how to get free traffic to your YouTube videos.

Side by side Steps

Yay, yous made it! Congratulations.

Now that you understand how to upload a YouTube video, it's time to work on other aspects of your YouTube channel.

Check out my YouTube articles on my blog to learn more nearly building a profitable YouTube business, lookout my YouTube Success playlist, and subscribe to my YouTube channel to learn how to build a assisting YouTube business.