YouTube Tips Writing Titles & formatting of Titles

[MattCommand1]

I wanted to open a thread of discussion about people's opinions and thoughts about the appearance and format of video titles.

1. SOME PEOPLE USE ALL CAPS IN THEIR TITLES.

2. some people never cap anything in their titles.

3. Some People Cap The First Letter of Each Title

4. Some people like to use EMOJIs in titles.

5. SoMe PeOple LiKe to mIX tHinGs up!

6. sum peeple dont kare bout spelling or punktuation .....

I've seen all kinds of crazy variations. And some youtubers seem to INTENTIONALLY pursue a certain style of titles.

I tend to be conservative by using good spelling, punctuation, and caps, and of course, a bit SEO friendly without sounding like a robot.

What am I missing with all the "crazy" styles I see? Are they valid title formatting strategies to stand out?

 

[BraveStar]

Here's my thoughts on each point.

1) I believe this is meant to get attention and it can sometimes work but comes off trying too hard.
2) I find this to be lazy and that is a big turn off for me.
3) That's how I like to do it. It gives me the sense of a title. A way to separate it from regular text like the description.
4) I don't think emojis help with SEO but it will definitely catch some people's attention.
5) It can cool but that's just too much for me. And sometimes it's not as cool if done wrong.
6) This is even worse than 2, not just lazy but uneducated as well. With the exception of those who don't use English as their first language. Still...

 

[MattCommand1]

Brave,

I am in agreement with you on almost everything you wrote. I really dislike some of the stuff I see. However, I am trying to be open-minded and perhaps be persuaded. Or at least get a rational explanation.

Honestly, I really do see some very successful YTubers like Kelly Stamps adopt the "all small caps approach." She is smart & articulate and popular as heck. She really defies many guidelines espoused here on TB. She even defies guidelines espoused by Derral Eves camp.

But I think I get people's attraction to her channel. She is different, quirky, smart, and has interesting viewpoints which seems to attract viewers in droves regardless of her title style. I am a subscriber of her just to try to understand her style of success better.

But I have seen this "all small caps" approach from many others that is just mind-bending for me.

I am thinking perhaps it is a generational thing? If people are from Millennial or Z generation, that is the style to use? That seems to be the only correlation I can find.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

This is an awesome topic, I love this. Happy to discuss!

1. SOME PEOPLE USE ALL CAPS IN THEIR TITLES.
Like Brave said, people do this because they think it captures more attention. They are wrong. Using all caps can have the opposite affect (it can look spammy if the title is lame). And when pitted against the exact same video, same thumbnail, same title etc but without all caps the difference in the number of clicks you get is going to be negligible.

2. some people never cap anything in their titles.
This comes across as lazy, maybe a little uneducated or uncaring. It definitely isn't going to draw anyone in.

3. Some People Cap The First Letter of Each Title
When in doubt, turn to the pros. And in this case I refer to the guys who have been doing this for hundreds of years. Newspapers. They write their titles like this and as antiquated as the medium may be they have a far larger sample size audience to refer to. It looks more professional. There is a reason the APA style guidelines exist.

4. Some people like to use EMOJIs in titles.
How fun! Yay! Go right ahead... but I don't think anyone clicks on a video simply because they use emoji's. That just seems like a way to mask an inability to write a title. Also, emoji's aren't searchable via YouTube search parameters, so any space spent on emoji's is a waste of potential SEO real estate.

5. SoMe PeOple LiKe to mIX tHinGs up!
Can be fun... I like to all caps a word from time to time. But looking at the basics this serves only to make the title more difficult to read. Not something you necessarily want to do when your viewer has a tenth of a second to decide whether they are watching this video or not.

6. sum peeple dont kare bout spelling or punktuation .....
theas peeps dunt get vues