YouTube To Finally Allow Text Markup In Video Descriptions

Here’s something that definitely falls into the “What took them so long?” category. YouTube will finally allow creators to add text markup to their video descriptions soon. You know, like bold, italic and strikethrough. If you ever wanted your descriptions to catch a viewers attention, this is something that you’ve missed for a long time.

Now the funny thing about this is that it’s been available in comments for ages, although a little clunky to implement. For instance, what you had to do is type *bold* for bold, _italics_ for italics, and -strikethrough- for strikethrough text. You’ll soon be able to do the same for your video descriptions as well.

Descriptions Are Important

If you don’t already know, the descriptions to your videos are really important because that’s a major part of YouTube SEO. Generally the more text you have in your description, the better chance you’ll have to rank higher when someone does a search. That means at least between 100 and 200 words, but don’t be afraid to get verbose if you feel like it.

Keywords, like the title, the artist, the director and producer (if you have them), as well as maybe the musicians who worked on the video, are all helpful for SEO as well. Don’t forget those links to your website and social media.

That said, text markup is more for the viewer, since you can now call attention to important aspects of the description that you want to make sure are read.

I’m a big one for formatting, and I think it makes a huge difference in everything you write. For example, keep your paragraphs short, limiting them to only 2 or 3 sentences. Use lists where possible, and mark up that text with lots of bold, colors, caps, and italics. All this is eye candy designed to keep you reading rather than getting subconsciously bored.

YouTube is at least 5 years too late in rolling out description text markup, but better late than never.

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