YouTube video title: 4 Proven methods to write a title for any video…

This is a complete guide for writing intriguing YouTube video titles by naturally including your keyword for SEO purposes.

Let me just state a clear statement about something:

This is not your regular “tips” post for writing video titles, which explain length, emotions feelings etc, etc. This guide includes formula-based proven methods, using which you can write a title that sells, in just a few seconds.

This guide is structured into three sections. The first one is about the basic factors, the second is about the methods using these factors, and the last is about the application (real examples).

I explained the importance of the YouTube video title in the 16-step YouTube SEO checklist, so I advice you to refer that article.

Without further ado, let’s get started…

Table of Content:

The Factors

When it comes to writing a YouTube video title, the intent behind the video plays a major role.

This intent can be structured into four factors.

The question factor
The keyword factor
The action factor
The hook factor

These four factors are something you know, but dividing them helps in having a clear understanding when creating a title. Let me just brief about each one of them:

1. The ‘Question’ factor:

The question factor revolves around the “concern” of your viewer. When a person wants to know about something, they usually start their sentence with “question words like ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘why’, ‘when’ etc”.

So if your video is about solving or explaining something targeting the concern of your viewer, then it is a must to include these words.

Further, in terms of SEO, any search engine highly promotes content starting with these words as they directly cite the searcher’s query.

The question factor doesn’t end here. At times, it is also used to attract people towards something huge you did. But, there is a constraint. Only use them if it is relevant, instead of just as a clickbait. YouTube strictly doesn’t encourage such clickbait techniques.

2. The ‘Keywords’ factor:

Indeed, I need not explain the importance of keywords in your title.

To choose a relevant keyword, start by browsing for a set of keywords that provide weight to your content. By the time you start writing the title, you must already be ready with the keywords, hence I assume you already have one. If not, you can refer to this article by Semrush.

Now, the important part comes- Naturally using your keyword. For a YouTube video, usually, the keyword would be the topic. Hence, when aligning with the question factor, and the other factors, it naturally becomes a prominent part of the title.

So, instead of stuffing, you are going to make the factors revolve around the keyword, giving meaning to the title. You can decide on how to select the keyword for the title later in the methods section.

3. The ‘Action’ factor:

The action factor is all about what you did in the video. The question factor revolves around this action.

Writing the ‘action’ factor is simple, but deciding with one is tricky. So, refer to videos from the same niche for inspiration. But, always be on-point, no need to add any extra fluff, which instead would make the title boring.

For example, if the video is about how your new transcription AI tool can transcribe precisely; then the action factor would be: “precise transcription.“

It seems simple now, but when applying the methods you will understand the importance of noting the action factor of your video.

4. The ‘Hook’ factor:

This is the creative part of the title. The hook factor is the one that should hook up your audience towards your videos.

For example, let’s consider that you are a gamer. You created the complete New York skyline in the Minecraft game. Then your hook factor would be “Complete New York skyline in 14 days” whereas the single word “creating” is your action factor.

In a sense, you can easily decide on the hook factor of your video as that would naturally be your primary focus from the beginning. But do make a note of it.

The Methods

Using the four factors in different combinations create different types of video titles in relevance to your topic. Hence, combining them, I formulated four different methods with a corresponding formula.

Let’s dive in…

1. The Director Method:

The director method is the method used to create a title that states the purpose of the video without any explanation.

Let us consider that you are a tech review channel and you are giving a review about the new iPhone 15.

In this case, the action of review itself is the concern of the viewer. Hence, no question factor is required and we can directly start with the Keyword “iPhone 15” and add the action “review.“

Further, under the name of review, you cannot specifically take out something like “drop test” as the hook point as the other review points would lose weight. So, no hook factor. The formula for this video is :

“Keyword” + “Action”

It is a direct approach that guides the whole video as a director of a film, hence the name. You can observe that without the keyword, this title is meaningless. So, you are not stuffing the keyword, but the title itself is formed from the keyword.

2. The Exaggeration Method:

The exaggeration method is used when you do something big. This is useful for personal YouTube channels, but extremely useful for branding.

In this method you are going to state a fact, that is unbelievable and make the viewer feel exaggerated. The example follows:

The Minecraft example discussed previously fits perfectly for this method. With “Minecraft” as the keyword, “create” as the action, and “New York skyline in 14 days” as the hook, the title comes as:

“In Minecraft, I created the complete New York skyline in just 14 days !!!”

The formula for the exaggeration method is:

‘Keyword’ + ‘Action’ + ‘Hook’

The order is not fixed and depends on how they can be arranged. Even though it has a high click-through rate, there is a possibility to backfire both from the audience and YouTube, if the title and thumbnail are just used as a clickbait.

I repeat! Only state facts.

3. The ‘QnA’ Method:

The ‘QnA’ method is predominantly used for explaining something. It is best preferred for tutorial-type videos. It has high conversion rates. The reason is simple. In most of the cases, a person would click on this video intentionally out of need.

The QnA method is similar to acquiring clients using long-tail keywords on website SEO in e-commerce. Even though the initial traffic would be low, with good feedback, the retention rate of your channel increases, driving more traffic. The example follows:

Let’s say you provide courses on Front end development and you are making a video about using Angular JS to increase the load time of a website. Then using “How to” as the question factor, “Angular JS” as the seed keyword, and “use” as the action, the title would be:

“How to use Angular JS to decrease your website load time?”

You can also add any data as the hook factor such as ” to less than 1 second” for the above example. But it is not always feasible. Another example follows:

“What is electromagnetic induction and its applications?”

Hence, the formula is:

“Question factor” + “Keyword” + “Action” + “Hook” (optional)

Again the order is not fixed. Include hook factor only when required. Let’s dive into the final method.

4. The ‘Curiosity’ method:

The curiosity method is the most used method on YouTube. It is also the type of title, where many people simply stuff their keywords. This method uses all factors to create a meaningful title and can be used in any niche.

The importance of using the keyword in this type of title doesn’t come from the factors. Instead, it comes from the topic of the video itself. If the topic is not good enough to create curiosity in the audience, then it turns useless.

So, it is only best to use it when required. here is an example:

“How to use Semrush’s Keyword magic tool to get best keyword suggestions that sell!!”

Here, the keyword is “Semrush’s Keyword magic tool”, action is “use Keyword suggestion” and, “How to” is the question factor with “that sell” being the hook.

The formula:

“Question factor” + “Keyword” + “Action”+ “Hook”

Hence this ends the four different methods I formulated to make my video scriptwriting easy and SEO-optimized at the same time. Now it is time to look at the breakdown of some real examples. Let’s get started…

The Examples

Example for Director method:

Let’s take this video by TD Bricks. We can see that Tyler (the YouTuber in the video) creates a complete theme park using Lego.

He travels to Legoland, Florida for inspiration. Now, back at the studio, he creates a similar theme park with massive astonishing elements from a large gate to multiple rides.

Here’s the breakdown. First, no one would ask how to build things with Lego bricks (except for kids). So, there is no need to include the question factor in the video title.

Next, the keyword of this video is Lego. This keyword does have high competition, but he has enough authority to rank for it. “Lego creation” or “Created using Lego” would be a better choice for new channels, Even if they don’t have much search volume in comparison to “Lego” they perform well if the content is good.

The third step is the action factor. In this case, the action factor is creating the theme. He would have used lengthy words such as “visited Legoland, gathered data, and created” which do create interest. But ultimately it makes the title boring. Instead, a simple action term “built” adds the essence of how?

The final step is the hook. In this case, Tyler had a lot of elements that he could use as a hook. It includes visiting Legoland, building a roller-coaster with a 90-degree drop, a Ferris wheel, and many more. He could just pick one of these for the title just like beginners do. But he didn’t. The reason is, that by taking one of these, the importance of other elements decreases. Hence, no hook factor.

Hence he ended up with the Director method: I built a (Action) + Lego Theme Park (Keyword).

Now it’s your turn to try. Let’s say that you are making a video of your experience with a brand-new MacBook. You need to mention its features. What would your title be? Do comment in the section, and I will provide my insight on it.

Example for Exaggeration method:

I am not going to explain as elaborately as in the previous example, but here is the gist. This channel (Hell’s Kitchen) made a compilation of a set of situations as the title suggests. Now, they need to decide on a title.

Simple, no question factor needed as the action “eliminated” gives the essence of “why?” Now the action combined with the hook “10 times” played a key role in making this title ideal.

Now, the keyword “Gordan Ramsay” is a very competitive keyword. He himself has his own channel, yet this video still comes in the top 10. The reason is its ability to pull people, by making them feel shocked or exaggerated.

The formula is: 10 times (hook) + Gordan Ramsay (keyword) + eliminated a chef in the middle of service (action)

Now it’s your turn. Let’s say that you have a digital marketing agency providing services in social media marketing, email marketing, and advertising. You need to create a YouTube video showing how you increased sales of your client’s company by 20% using these marketing methods. What would your title be? Comment below.

Example for QnA method:

Let’s take this title as an example. For the search “How to make an application” this video is in the top 10. The channel has less than 1000 subscribers. But the views are more than 27 times the subscribers. The reason is predominantly title.

As I said, QnA is specifically useful for long-tail keywords and best for getting leads or sales. The breakdown follows:

“How to” (question factor) + “make” (action) + “Desktop application” (Keyword) + “Using Python and HTML CSS” (action)

There is no need to add any hook element because the searcher came to get his important problem solved, so it is not good to make him feel excited. Instead, simply answering is the best way.

Now is your turn. You need to create a video showing how to use a new ergonomic soldering iron. The soldering iron is targeted for university students. You need to decide on a title. What would it be? Comment below.

Example for Curiosity method:

This is the most used method on YouTube. When I searched for “how to get more traffic to my website” I got this as the first result.

It includes all four factors. The “I found” is the question factor, whereas the “website traffic” is the keyword, “get traffic” is the action, and finally, “3 free ways, tons” are the hook factors.

The breakdown is: “I found” (question factor) + “3 free ways” (hook) + “to get Tons of traffic” (action) + “to any website” (keyword)

So using all these elements he got ranked higher than SEO leaders such as Neil Patel, SEMrush, etc. for this search query. Now it’s your turn.

Let’s say that you created an application that can help people find the best restaurants nearby and your metrics revolve around customer reviews you received. You provide services in many cities. Now, you need to create a video such that you can answer a searcher’s query for the best restaurants and you shouldn’t mention any city’s name. What your title would be? Mention that in the comments.

Conclusion

This ends the four methods to write a YouTube video title for any video. You would be wondering about the need for such a long article, just for the title.

But, once you start using these methods, you will realize the ease of making a title with no effort.

Please give your views on the article in comments and also try to try the example questions I gave under every method. I will come up such great topics twice a week, so do subscribe to my blog. Thanks in advance.