It is my understanding from Derral Eves that while Titles and Descriptions are certainly important, SEO of the actual content also matters because Google scans videos and create closed-caption texts which supposedly is indexable. Hence, each time I upload a video, I take the extra step to go to Subtitle to review & edit the closed-caption text that is being generated. I make sure all misspelled or wrong words are corrected and add some basic punctuation. I am lazy so I don't really focus on capitalization or punctuation. But I do make sure every word is transcribed the way it is supposed to be.
Supposedly, if you want to rank in SEO, you have to be mindful of the content in the video as well. In practice, I don't spam my videos with key words or phrases. I speak as naturally as I can using natural language.
1. I move to prioritizing the title and subtitle. I write a natural sounding title incorporating certain keywords/phrases IF it sounds reasonable. I add a supporting subtitle after the title to enhance it. But I am mindful the title needs to appear in its entirety viewing it on my phone because that is where most people view videos nowadays.
2. I focus on writing the first 2 lines in the Description section since they are the most important in terms of what users see. I get rid of extraneous, filler words.
3. I then add 3-10 relevant hashtags to the Description.
4. Although it is definitely work, I almost always add a Timestamps section. I verify its accuracy during replay. With each timestamp, I write a relevant description for each timestamp.
5. I then move to tags and add some relevant and helpful tags people might want to search on.
6. To give additional juice, I add the video to a couple of relevantly named Playlists. Each of those playlist descriptions are appropriately created earlier and then the playlist description is written.
What I listed is what anecdotally seems to work for me the majority of the time in terms of Youtube and Google SEO visibility. "Youtube Search" ranks #2 as a leading traffic source of how people find my videos which is nice to see. My #1 traffic source is Suggested Videos which makes me happy.
It also helps to choose niches to go after vs. broad topics. It is my hope that my going after several niches in a successful manner, I can then leverage into more broader topics.
I want to point out that this little system that I following is a conglomeration of many great suggestions by experienced successful Youtubers as well as putting my own twist into them. I tweak and refine it as I learn more. Everyone will have to come up with their own ways of executing to get their videos found.
I didn't go through all of this in the beginning as I rolled out new videos in an attempt to quickly learn and populate my channel. I've had to go back frequently to older videos to refine and optimize them during down times when I didn't feel like writing, recording, or editing since they require much more mental energy for me.