Optimize your YouTube channel

Kite reads your whole channel before it changes anything, because the right plan depends on what's already working. It lists every upload with its title, description, tags, views, likes, and comments, and it reads your playlists and the sections on your channel page. With YouTube Analytics connected, it also reads watch time, average view duration, and the traffic sources that brought viewers to each video.

This audit usually turns up a few familiar problems:

• Videos with titles like "Product walkthrough v3" or "Q2 webinar" that tell a searcher nothing.
• Descriptions that are empty, or that bury the only link under a paragraph of text.
• Links to your homepage instead of the page that fits the video.
• Popular videos that end with no next step.
• Playlists organized by upload date, or no playlists at all.

Kite also reads the comments on your videos. Questions like "does this work with Stripe?" or "how is this different from Wave?" show what viewers were trying to decide, which tells Kite which stage a video actually serves.

Kite uses its built-in search data to see which videos YouTube shows for the searches your buyers make, so your titles and descriptions use their words rather than yours. For any search term, it reads the top YouTube results and the channels behind them. For any public video, it reads the title, description, view and like counts, the comments, and a full transcript. None of this needs a YouTube account.

This research tells Kite which searches are worth targeting and how crowded each one is. Say you sell bookkeeping software to freelancers. Kite finds that the top results for "how to do taxes as a freelancer" are long walkthroughs from accountants, and that the comments on those videos keep asking what counts as a home-office deduction. That question becomes a title worth writing, either for a video you already have or for one you should make.

Kite assigns each video to the stage of buying it serves, so it can decide what that video should ask a viewer to do next. It uses three stages that most companies recognize:

• Learning. The viewer has a problem and is looking for how to solve it. These are tutorials, explainers, and how-to videos. The next step is a related video, a playlist, or a free resource on your site.
• Comparing. The viewer knows the kind of product they need and is weighing options. These are comparisons, reviews, and "is it right for you" videos. The next step is your comparison page or your pricing page.
• Getting started. The viewer is close to buying or has just signed up. These are product demos, setup walkthroughs, and onboarding videos. The next step is your signup page, a trial, or a booked demo.

Kite decides the stage from the video's topic, its transcript, the search terms that bring people to it, and the questions in its comments. A video can serve more than one stage, and Kite says so when it does. The result is a map of your channel: every video, its stage, the page it should send viewers to, and the gaps where a stage has no video at all.

Kite rewrites each video's title, description, and tags for the people searching at that stage. A title leads with what the viewer will learn or decide, using the words from the search research, and keeps the important words first because search results cut long titles short. A demo called "Product walkthrough v3" becomes "How to send an invoice in under a minute."

The description opens with the point of the video in its first two lines, because that's all a viewer sees before they click to expand it. The tracked link to the next step goes right there, so it's visible without expanding. Below that, Kite adds a short summary, chapters with timestamps for longer videos, and any other links worth clicking.

Kite also makes custom thumbnails that read clearly at the size of a search result, in your brand's colors and fonts, or it uses artwork your designer supplies. YouTube only allows custom thumbnails on channels that have verified a phone number.

Kite starts with the videos where the change matters most: videos that get steady views but send nobody to your site, and videos with vague titles on topics your buyers search for. It shows you the new title, description, tags, and thumbnail for each video side by side with the current ones.

Every link Kite puts in a description carries tags that name the source, the stage, and the video, so your analytics can show which video sent each visitor. A link in a comparison video might read yoursite.com/compare/wave?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=comparing&utm_content=quickbooks-vs-xero. Kite uses the same naming for every video, so the results add up cleanly by stage and by video instead of scattering across spellings.

End screens and cards are the clickable boxes that appear in the last seconds of a video and in its corner. YouTube doesn't let outside tools edit them, so Kite can't set them on your channel directly. Instead, Kite writes the end-screen plan for each video: which video or playlist to show, which one to show second, and whether to add a subscribe button. A learning video points to the next tutorial in its playlist. A comparing video points to your best getting-started video. You add the plan in YouTube Studio's End screen editor, which takes a minute or two per video.

End screens and cards can only link to your own website if your channel is in the YouTube Partner Program. For most company channels, that makes the description the main place for website links, and the end screen the place to keep viewers moving to the next video in the journey.

Kite builds a playlist for each stage of buying, so a viewer who finishes one video is offered the next one that matters. It creates each playlist, writes its title and description for search, adds the videos, and puts them in a sensible order, starting with the strongest video for that stage. A playlist has its own page that can show up in YouTube search, so a good one brings in viewers on its own.

Kite then arranges the sections on your channel's home page, putting those playlists where a new visitor sees them first. It also updates your channel's description and keywords to match your current positioning. When your positioning changes, Kite carries that change through to the channel the same way it carries it through your website.

Comments are where viewers ask the questions that stand between watching and signing up. Kite reads the comment threads on your videos and writes replies in your brand voice, with a link to the page that answers the question when one exists. It can also post a comment on your own video, and it can hold or remove spam.

When the same question shows up across several videos, Kite tells you. That usually means the answer belongs in a video's description, in a new video, or on your website.

Kite reads YouTube's numbers and your website's numbers together, so it can tell a video that gets attention from one that brings in customers. From YouTube, it reads views, likes, and comments for each video and your channel's subscriber count, and with YouTube Analytics connected, watch time, average view duration, and traffic sources. From your website, it reads the visits and signups that arrive through each tracked link.

On a site Kite hosts, its built-in analytics count the visitors and signups that come from YouTube and break them down by the campaign tag on each link, which shows how each stage performs. If your site runs elsewhere, Kite reads the same breakdown by source, medium, and campaign from your connected Google Analytics property.

Put together, the numbers sort your videos into clear groups. Some videos get views and send visitors who sign up, so Kite proposes more videos like them. Some get views but send nobody, so the next step or the link placement needs work. Some get almost no views, so the title, thumbnail, or topic needs another look. And some stages have no strong video at all, so Kite proposes what to make, writes the script, and can produce a short video from your own footage and images. Kite can add these results to a regular report, next to your website traffic and signups, and it runs the same comparison after each round of changes so you can see what moved.