How To Upload a Video To YouTube and Boost Video Discoverability (2025)

You’ve edited a new video to promote your brand, but there’s a step required before anyone can see it: You need to upload it to your YouTube channel. One important part of marketing your business is creating content that can be clicked on, but first you need to make it visible. Utilizing a few optimization techniques could help your uploaded content stand out from the competition. Because of this, Shopify YouTube specialist Rebecca Vilsan is here to offer her expert guidance on how to upload your YouTube video in order to position yourself for success on social media. What you need before you upload videos

A YouTube Brand Account

High-quality content

a video title that is clickable Strategic descriptions

SEO, but don’t hinge on it

A clear, compelling thumbnail

While there’s no guaranteed formula to upload a YouTube video that will go viral, there are key elements that help set your content up for success:

A Brand Account on YouTube You must have a Google account in order to access YouTube. From there, you can create a YouTube account.

For most businesses and serious creators, Rebecca highly recommends clicking on the Brand Account option rather than using a personal creator account. Because Brand Accounts permit multiple members to access the channel without sharing personal login credentials, this can be especially helpful if you have a team working on your YouTube videos. Brand Accounts are also not tied to a single Google account, which means there’s stronger long-term security.

A creator account is fine, though, if you're a solo creator who never intends to build a team. High-quality content

The secret to producing high-quality content on a large scale is having a passion for your work. “If you’re not doing what you genuinely want to do and you’re not passionate about your content, consistency becomes impossible,” Rebecca says. Sure, you might be able to make a great one-off video, but you won’t be able to build an established channel.

You don’t need the latest camera equipment or editing software to create attention-grabbing content either. The most important aspect of your video is its essence, not its production value. This requires finding your sweet spot of content, which is made up of three elements:

What your business is good at

What your audience cares about What you want to do personally

According to Rebecca, "where I see the majority of creators fail is having an overlap of just one or two of these elements, but not all three." Concentrate on practicing and experimenting if you are not naturally gifted at it from the beginning. In the end, the more videos you make to upload to YouTube, the better your style will get. A clickable video title

A good title is one that accomplishes precisely what it promises. Don’t overpromise and underdeliver, and don’t veer off into the weeds, either.

For example, don’t title a video “I Bought a 100-Year-Old Abandoned French Chateau” when it’s a 70-year-old house in good condition. This can lead to “disappointed viewers, shorter watch times, reduced impressions, and ultimately fewer views across your entire channel,” Rebecca says.

Rebecca says to consider these three factors to craft a catchy title:

the type of content you produce. Different content types require different approaches: Educational channels need different title strategies than entertainment or lifestyle channels. The former should have titles that spell out what concepts you’ll cover, while the latter can rely more on building curiosity and mystery.

Who your audience is. The language, interests, and search patterns of each niche are unique. Hyperspecific how-to content will draw in a different audience than video essays about sci-fi movies. Instead of chasing viral formulas, focus on accuracy and language that is appropriate for the audience. Your growth stage. Here’s the breakdown on that:

Early stage (0 to 100,000 subscribers). Titles and descriptions should be as specific as you possibly can. Because you are assisting YouTube in categorizing your content to target the appropriate audience, your titles should clearly describe what your video delivers. This is crucial for organic exposure, since the algorithm needs to understand where you fit.

100,000 to 1 million. Concentrate on gaps in curiosity and emotional hooks. 1 million+ subscribers. Brand recognition allows for more creative, less descriptive titles.

Strategic descriptions

Rebecca cautions that one of the most overlooked elements in uploading a YouTube video is “treating descriptions as an afterthought instead of a strategic tool.” These are the elements she considers most important:

125 of the first characters. This is the most crucial real estate in your description box that appears in search results and video previews. Avoid using it to add details like generic channel intros or filler.

Number of links. Some creators place every social media link, website, and affiliate link into their descriptions, creating clutter that overwhelms viewers. YouTube may also interpret excessive linking as spammy behavior. Linking should remain strategic and pertinent to the video content. Contextual keywords. Use natural language that provides context about your video’s topic, related subjects, and problems it solves. YouTube’s algorithm is advanced and can grasp the context and meaning behind your content, not just exact keyword matches.

Timestamps and chapters. Chapters, which break a video up into sections, help the YouTube algorithm understand your content structure. They also generate additional search entry points and help viewers navigate your video.

Related video links. YouTube encourages viewers to stay in your ecosystem for longer if you link strategically to relevant videos from your own channel. Start selling your products on YouTube from Shopify

Shopify comes with powerful tools that help you promote and sell products on YouTube. Sync your product catalog, tag or pin products in livestreams, and manage all your sales from Shopify.

Start selling on YouTube

SEO, but don’t hinge on it

YouTube SEO in 2025 is far more sophisticated than just adding tags.

Rebecca provides the following explanation: "While keywords still matter for initial discoverability, YouTube's algorithm has evolved to prioritize user behavior signals over metadata." While keywords help with search traffic, most YouTube views come from suggested videos and Browse features. Creators posting successful videos titled, “I Quit” with little to no description prove the point that “compelling content with strong audience connection outperforms perfectly optimized mediocre content,” Rebecca says. The algorithm rewards user satisfaction above all else. If viewers find real value in your content, YouTube will promote it regardless of whether you’ve perfectly optimized every keyword.

A clear, compelling thumbnail

“The thumbnail is your video’s movie poster, book cover, and sales pitch rolled into one tiny image," Rebecca says. Mastering the thumbnail means you’re getting viewers to click on your content. Ryan Trahan, Patrick Cc, Johnny Harris, and MrBeast are a few creators to consider as sources of inspiration. More isn’t better in the world of thumbnails. Avoid multiple text overlays, busy backgrounds, too many faces, arrows pointing everywhere, and other excessive visual effects. Clutter can communicate poor quality and chaos.

You’re also designing for mobile, so your video should be easily understood in a smaller format. Audiences should understand roughly what your video is about from the thumbnail alone, before they even glance at the title.