Chapter 7. How to Upload and Edit a Video to
YouTube
Uploading Your Videos
After putting the finishing touches on your video, it's finally time to upload
your hard work. Open up YouTube and access your account. On the top-right
side of your web page, you'll see an “Upload” button which will take you to
an upload landing page. On it, you'll see a large “Drag and Drop” button to
upload your files directly onto the browser. Once you've dragged the file and
dropped it to initiate the upload (which takes a while, depending on the size
of your video and the speed of your internet connection), you'll be directed to
a video details page where you can input the video's name and Meta tags.
Spend some time figuring out the tags since that will play a crucial part in the
ease with which people find your content through the YouTube search engine
—claimed by some to be the second largest search engine in the world.
The easiest way to figure out popular tags is to break down your content into
its basic elements—if you're making a tutorial video, add “How-To”,
“Tutorial”, “DIY”, or whichever other tag would be appropriate. Be sure to
not over-crowd the bar, and cram in as many tags as you can think of. Most
people don't realize it, but today's search engines automatically place such
content with an overwhelming number of tags lower among search results.
Also, some monetization options such as Google AdSense have strict policies
against supporting video content with too many tags. You can also simply
enter the text which you think your potential viewers would ask into the
search engine to see which other tags you could enter. Don't make tags overly
specific as that will narrow down the scope of the audience which could
potentially be led to your doorstep. Think about it—if you opened a
restaurant, even if it were an unusual Nordic-Thai fusion food place, you
wouldn't put up signs saying “Come right along, for people who want to
experience the ultimate clash between two cultures who never rightly met in
medieval times. Perfect for those times of weird craving you never knew you
had, when you wish you could get some Lutefisk served on a bed of Pad
Thai”. No, you'd say, “Yum Yum. Awesome Grub. Step right here”, or
something of the sort—you get my point.