Video SEO: How to Write Titles, Descriptions and Tags That Get Found

A good video is half the job. The other half is making sure people can find it. Search engines — the search inside a video platform and Google itself — cannot "watch" a video. They read text: the title, description, tags, category and captions. Get that text right and a video keeps bringing new viewers for months. Get it wrong and it is forgotten the day after upload.

1. Keyword first, video second

A keyword is the phrase people type into search. Three easy ways to find one:

• Type into the search box. Start a phrase in Facetiv, Google or YouTube search — autocomplete shows real queries: "plov recipe" → "plov recipe at home", "plov recipe 1 kg rice".
• Look at competitors. Which words repeat in the titles of the most-viewed videos on your topic?
• Specific beats generic. Ranking for "repair" is impossible; "replace Samsung A54 screen" is easy and brings exactly the right viewer.

Pick one main keyword and 2–3 secondary phrases per video.

2. The title: 40–65 characters

1. Keyword at the start. "Plov recipe: exact proportions for 1 kg of rice" — not "Today I will show you how plov is made".
2. Promise something concrete: a number, a year, a result. "2026", "in 5 minutes", "for beginners", "without mistakes".
3. No ALL CAPS and no triple exclamation marks. They lower trust for both search engines and people.
4. Stay under 65 characters — the rest is cut off in the card.

Weak	Strong
Vlog #12	Tashkent to Samarkand by train: prices and timings (2026)
About my car	Chevrolet Cobalt after 2 years: every downside
English	English: 500 words in 30 days — my method

3. The description: the first two lines matter most

The first 150 characters appear in search results. Structure it like this:

• Sentence 1 — contains the keyword and says what the video is: "In this video: a plov recipe for 1 kg of rice — ingredients, proportions and the 3 main mistakes."
• Sentences 2–3 — who it is for and what they get.
• Timestamps (0:00 Ingredients, 2:10 Zirvak…) — Facetiv turns them into chapters, Google shows them as key moments.
• At the end — links, social profiles, 2–3 hashtags.

300–800 characters is enough. Repeating the keyword twenty times (keyword stuffing) does not work and gets penalized.

4. Tags: 5–10, precise

• 1–2 exact phrases: plov recipe, plov 1 kg rice
• 2–3 topics: uzbek cuisine, cooking, national dish
• 1–2 synonyms or other spellings: osh, palov
• 1 brand/channel tag that is the same on all your videos

5. Category and thumbnail

Category feeds the recommendation algorithm. A cooking video filed under Entertainment is shown to the wrong audience. Choose the most precise of the 31 categories.

Thumbnail does not affect search directly, but it decides click-through rate (CTR), and CTR affects ranking. Rules: a large face or object, 3–5 words of text, contrasting colors, and do not repeat the title — the thumbnail should complement it.

6. Captions and chapters

Upload subtitle files (SRT/VTT). Captions are extra text for search, a convenience for silent viewers, and they increase watch time. Chapters in long videos raise completion rates because viewers can jump to the part they need instead of leaving.

7. After publishing

• The first 24–48 hours matter most: share the link, post to your community, publish a Short cut from the video.
• After a week open analytics: which search queries brought viewers? Add those words to your next video.
• CTR below 3% — change the thumbnail. Short watch time — re-edit the first 30 seconds. On Facetiv you can change the thumbnail and title without re-uploading.

Checklist

• One main keyword chosen
• Title 40–65 characters, keyword first
• Keyword in the first sentence of the description, timestamps added
• 5–10 precise tags
• Correct category
• Thumbnail with a large object + 3–5 words
• Captions uploaded