Titles and descriptions

What titles and descriptions are

A video title is the one line a person reads before deciding whether to press play. For most viewers it is the whole decision. The description is the block of text underneath it: what the video covers, who is speaking, the links it refers to, the timestamps for each section, and the wording that lets somebody find the video months later by typing what they are looking for.

This is not the file name your camera produced, and it is not the first sentence of the script pasted into a box. It is also not the text inside the picture, which is on-screen text and lower thirds, and it is not the spoken words shown as text, which is captions. This is the writing that sits around the video on the platform, where a viewer is still deciding and has given you about two seconds.

When you need them

You need this the moment a video is uploaded anywhere with a title field, which is everywhere. It matters most on YouTube and Vimeo, where the title carries nearly all of the persuasion and the description is the part that makes the video findable long after it was posted. It matters on LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok too, where the first line of the description decides whether anyone taps to read the rest of it.

The common case is a back catalogue. A business has thirty or forty videos already posted, named things like “Interview final v3”, with the description box left empty. Nothing is wrong with the footage. Nobody can find it, and the people who do see it cannot tell what it is.

You do not need this as a paid job for a single video whose name you already know. Write it yourself in ten minutes and spend the money on the recording. And if the words already exist and the real problem is that nobody has typed them into the fields on forty uploads, that is metadata entry, which is cheaper and is the honest answer.

What I write

• The title. Three candidates per video, front-loaded so the subject survives being cut short on a phone, with a note saying which one I would use and why. No overselling, because a title that promises more than the video delivers is paid for in people leaving after eight seconds.
• The first two lines of the description. The only part shown before a viewer taps to expand it. Written to say what they get from watching, not to repeat the title in different words.
• The full description. A short paragraph on what the video covers and who is in it, written with the words a buyer would actually type rather than your internal name for the subject.
• Timestamps. A labelled chapter list, so a viewer can jump to the part they came for and so the platform can show the sections rather than one undifferentiated hour.
• The end matter. The links the video refers to, the page on your own site it belongs with, and one plain instruction about what to do next.

If the video was recorded from a script, the script gives me the section breaks and the exact wording of anything quoted, and the work is faster and more accurate for it.

What you get

A titling document. One row per video: the current file name, three title options, the recommended one, the description in full and the timestamp list, formatted so it can be pasted into the upload form without editing.

The timestamp lists on their own. The same chapter markers as a plain text block per video, which doubles as the outline if the recording is ever turned into a written page.

A pattern sheet. After the first batch, one page recording how your titles are built, the terms you use for your own products, the description structure and the standard end matter, so your staff can do the next ones without asking me.

A worked example

An illustration, not a client. A farm equipment dealership in southern Manitoba has forty-one videos posted on YouTube over four years: walkarounds of used tractors, short maintenance demonstrations, and three interviews with the owner about buying second-hand. They are titled by stock number and date. Twenty-nine of them have an empty description box. The buyers are farmers who type a make, a model and a problem.

All forty-one are retitled so each one names the machine, the model year and what the video actually shows. The maintenance videos get chapter timestamps, because a farmer wants the third minute, not the first. The three interviews get full descriptions linking to the used-equipment pages on the dealership's own site. The pattern sheet says how to title the next one before it is uploaded. Nothing new is filmed and nothing is re-edited. The same forty-one videos now say what they are.

How it runs

1. A half-hour call. How many videos, where they are posted, who the buyers are and what they call the things you sell. No charge.
2. A fixed price in writing. Per video or per batch, agreed before anything starts.
3. The list. You send a list of the videos with links, plus the names, products and terms that must be spelt your way. If you want the text entered as well as written, you give me access to the account.
4. The work. Every video is watched before it is written about. Three to five working days for a batch of twenty, longer if the recordings are long.
5. Delivery. The titling document, the timestamp lists and the pattern sheet, with the first three videos sent early for you to approve the approach.

What it costs

This is quoted as a fixed price in CAD after the half-hour call, because a batch of six short clips and a back catalogue of ninety are not the same job. The price depends on how many videos there are, how long each one runs, whether scripts or transcripts already exist, and whether I am also entering the text into the platform. The pricing page shows the four ways of working, and the number is fixed in writing before anything starts.

What happens next

People who fix their video text usually do the same for their audio, because the problem is identical: episode titles and descriptions are the only thing most listeners see before pressing play. If the recordings turn out to be better than the pages on your site, the next step is turning a talk into a written page. And if the videos are long and only parts of them are worth posting, that is short-form cutting. This job is complete on its own, though. Retitled videos with real descriptions work whether or not anything else is ever commissioned.