• The Spot
  • Posts
  • Are Your YouTube Titles the Optimal Length?

Are Your YouTube Titles the Optimal Length?

Author

Creators
August 29, 2024

Hi there. We’re looking forward to VidSummit in Dallas next week and hope to see you there. As the title sponsor of the event, we’ve got some great programming lined up, including several panels, such as The State of the Creator Economy: What Does the Future Hold for Creators, Creator Support Live with Colin & Samir, Live Thumbnail Roast with Experts Jay Alto and Brittney Carlini, and The Three Ways AI Will Change YouTube Forever. Speakers will include Kinigra Deon, Colin & Samir, Sambucha, and more, along with Spotter CEO Aaron DeBevoise and EVP of Product and Creator Tools Paul Bakaus. Let us know if you’ll be attending – we’d love to see you there.

—The Spotter Creator Team

What Is the Optimal Title Length for Your YouTube Videos?

As a Creator, you know that video titles can help make or break a video’s success. You want to capture the right sentiment and entice viewers to watch, while accurately presenting the subject matter so your audience knows what to expect. That’s a lot to accomplish in a few words. But, how many words should a title have? 

We looked at the data from long-form uploads for ~5,000 channels and found that titles with 4-7 words tend to perform better than extremely short or long titles. Here’s a closer look at our findings, as well as our recommendations. 

Key Findings: 

  • Title length is among the factors that contribute to video performance.

  • Normalized Views Performance drops when the length of the title is under 4 words or over 7 words. A similar pattern exists between Normalized Views Performance and Title Character Length.

  • Shorter, more succinct titles (4-7 words or 20-45 characters) may be more effective because they capture attention more quickly. Additionally, on mobile devices, limited screen space often results in longer titles being shortened or cut off, making them less effective.

Illustrative Example: 

To demonstrate the effect of title length on new upload performance, we looked at the predicted views for the first 30 days for a sample Creator. These were the three title options: 

  • Weird Amazon Products That You Will Instantly Regret Trying (9 words)

  • We Tried Every Weird Product on Amazon (7 words)

  • Testing Weird Amazon Products (4 words) 

Compared to the 9-word title, our model shows a 1.2x increase in predicted views for the 7-word title and a 1.5x increase for the 4-word title. 

Recommendations: 

  • Focus on keeping the video’s title short and crisp (4-7 words or 20-45 characters are optimal) 

  • Look to incorporate compelling keywords within the video title to evoke curiosity while conveying what the video is about 

Reach out if you have any questions. And join us in Idea Lab, Spotter’s new Discord community, to access discussion and support with ideation and experimentation.

Spotter

Jobs

YouTube