If you’re beginning to dig in to all the ways to optimize your YouTube videos, you’re probably realizing how deep some of these optimization techniques can go. There are a bunch of critical steps to take to properly optimize your video at the time of uploading, including writing strong video titles and video descriptions, using well-researched video tags, and adding each new video to a fully optimized and organized playlist. But then after uploading and publishing your new YouTube video, you need to go back for more.

Yes, there are even more steps to take to do everything you can to get your YouTube videos seen by as many people as possible.

Here’s how to add End screen Elements to your videos and why and how to designate a YouTube Playlist as a Series.

How to Add End Screen Elements to your YouTube Videos

While viewing your published YouTube video, click the blue Edit Video button.

Next, click on the End screen & annotations tab.

Click the blue Add Element button on the right to add your first End screen Element to your video. 

You have the choices of: Video or Playlist, Subscribe, Channel and Link. With Video or Playlist, you can select a specific video or playlist you want to be suggested to the viewer. Subscribe presents viewers with a button to click to subscribe to your channel. Channel lets you recommend another channel to your viewer. And Link allows you to include a link to an approved website. 

When choosing Subscribe, you are required to add at least 1 additional End screen Element.

When selecting Video or Playlist, you have to choose between recommending your most recent upload, what is best for the viewer (YouTube’s discretion), or a specific video or playlist. 

These End screen Elements will be added into your video in the final seconds of it playing. You can determine the location of where each End screen element will go and at what minute and second mark it appears on your video. Simply drag and drop the dotted boxes to arrange the End screen Elements how you’d like. I recommend previewing your video after positioning your End screen Elements to make sure they don’t cover anything important once they pop up.

Also, you can drag and drop the time stamps at the bottom to set what minute and second of the video you want each End screen Element to first appear.

Designating a YouTube Playlist as a Video Series

YouTube Playlists can be designated as a “Series” in the Settings area of your Playlist. The benefit of designating a Playlist as a Series is that doing so tells YouTube that the videos in your Series should be viewed together. This means you are encouraging YouTube to recommend the other videos in the same Series (i.e. Playlist) to your viewer once they are done watching your current video.

YouTube does require that videos included in a Series are listed in only 1 Playlist. So if you typically add a single video to more than 1 Playlist, a YouTube Video Series isn’t a good fit for you.

To designate a YouTube Playlist as a Series, start by visiting your YouTube Dashboard –> Video Manager –> Playlists.

Next, click on the Edit button on the right side of the Playlist you want to designate as a Series.

Click the Edit button again.

Next click Playlist Settings.

On the pop-up, click on the box on the right next to, “Set as official series for this playlist”.

In this same view, you can choose to automatically add new videos to the top of this Playlist. 

Then under the Auto Add tab, you can create a rule for your uploads. In this case, I’m telling YouTube that any video I upload with the word, “YouTube” in the title should be automatically added to this Playlist.

The Collaborate tab lets you turn on the ability to collaborate with out YouTubers on this Playlist.