Playlists can help you get very organized with all of your videos, but I have a secret to share with you. They can also help you be found on YouTube. This playlist tutorial will show you how you can use your playlists as a search engine optimization tool.

That’s the whole reason you’re on YouTube. You want to be found. You want people to find your videos, watch your videos and gain more views so you can make more money, right? So what I’m going to show you today is how to create a playlist.

Then, I’m going to show you five tips and how you can use your playlist for search engine optimization. It really all depends on how you set it up. So that’s why we’re going to go over that first because the steps that I show you are going to have certain keywords placed in certain places. And then I’m going to show you how to promote that playlist to be found.

How To Create A Playlist

When you’re in your YouTube account, in the left menu, you’ll see the link to your playlists. Click on this link. If you’ve never created a playlist before, you have to click on the link in the right-hand corner that says “new playlist”.

If you already have playlists and you’re wondering how to edit them or revise them or delete them, I do have a video that you can watch here.

But first, I’d like to encourage you to change your mindset. Playlists are not just about organizing your videos. They allow you to create a way to be searched.

Step-By-Step For Creating Your First Playlist

So, let’s create a new playlist by clicking on the link. Here are the steps to follow:

• Put in your title. Make sure you make the playlist public so that people can find it.
• Click on “create”. It’s a good idea to think of your playlist as a video. You want to ensure that you have it optimized for search so that people can easily find it.
• Click on the pencil icon to edit your playlist.
• Put in a description. Make sure that you include your keyword in the description. This ensures that your playlist is picked up by the search algorithm. Of course, your keyword should also be in the title.
• Click on save.
• Now it’s time to add some videos to your playlist. Click on the three dots to see the options that you have. To add videos to your playlist you have three options:

• Add a video – this includes adding the URL of any videos.
• Search for a video – this will allow you to do a search publicly on Youtube.
• Select from my YouTube videos – this is where you can look at your own videos and select the ones that you want to include in the playlist.

Editing Your Playlist

Once you’ve added some videos to your playlist, there are a lot of edits that you can make.

• You can reorder the videos in your playlist by using the “hand” icon.
• You can select one particular video that you want as your thumbnail.
• Also, you can set it to always put your latest video at the top.

What Does A Playlist Look Like?

To give you an example of what a playlist looks like, let’s look at another YouTuber’s channel – Nick Nimmin.

As you can see, he has a title for his playlist and a description. You’ll also notice that his videos all follow that description.

So, what happens when your channel starts to grow and you have a lot of videos that you want to have in playlists? Remember that not all playlists have to be visible. You have two choices here. Either you don’t make the playlist public or you don’t add it to your channel page.

You can easily customize your channel page to show only a selection of your current playlists.

Here’s another channel as an example. This one is for Think Media.

As you can see, they do a good job of making playlists. One of the things that this channel does is that it has a playlist titled “Camera tutorials, best tips and tricks”. This is actually a playlist within a playlist.

This means that they have all these individual playlists, each one focusing on one camera type, within the main playlist. And, each of the sub-playlists only contains around 6 to 18 videos. But all these playlists have the opportunity to be picked up by the search algorithm.

How To Optimize Your Playlist For SEO

Here are five tips that you can use to optimize your playlist for SEO.

1. Have the keyword in your title

2. Include the keyword in your description

3. Make your URL searchable. All the videos in your playlist will pop up next to the video that someone clicks on to watch.

4. Include the URL of your playlist in the description. You can also share this URL on your blog or your social media pages. This will bring people to your playlist and then they can binge-watch all your videos if they want to.

5. Put the link to your playlist in a card that will display on your videos.

How To Add A Link To Your Playlist In A Video

Adding a link to your playlist in a video is just the same as adding links to your other videos.

When you upload a video you have the option of adding cards. You just select the timestamp in your video where you want the card to show up. Then, click on “add a card” and instead of selecting a video, add the URL of your playlist instead.

Bonus Tip

Remember earlier when you added your videos to your playlist? Well, you can also add another channel’s video URL as well. So, you just have to find the URL of the video you want to add and then include it in your playlist. And yes, this is perfectly legal. In fact, the owner of the videos has made it so that these videos can be shared on other channels.

So why is this a good thing? There are two good reasons for you to do this.

1. It links your channel to the other one. This gives you a little more credibility or authority.
2. YouTube sees this as a good thing. In turn, YouTube will start sending a little of the other channel’s traffic to your channel and vice versa. Therefore, it’s a win-win situation for both channels.

I hope that you found all this information helpful. Just remember that your playlist is like a video. It gives you another opportunity to be found. So, make sure you’re using those keywords effectively. This will eventually help you to grow your channel to success.

Don’t forget to check out TubeBuddy if you want help with your YouTube analytics.

You’ve Got This!