Optimizing Your Videos and Screencasts for YouTube

Over the past couple of days, I finished reading a series of booklets from Partha Bhattacharya, founder of HubSkills. This series included:

1. Step-by-Step Guide To Start E-Learning Website In WordPress With Free Tools
2. How To Boost YouTube Video Views Dramatically With Free Tools
3. Create Amazing Clip Art Animation Video In PowerPoint
4. How to Create Crisp-n-Clear Training Video In Simple Steps

Bhattacharya provides a lot of great tips through this series. Here are some of the takeaways I had regarding creating better training videos for YouTube:

1. Create all elements with a 16:9 setting. For example, when creating a screencast, set the window size to 960X540 pixels. Bhattacharya recommends a great little tool called Sizer to do this. You can pick up Sizer at http://www.brianapps.net/sizer/. This tip was certainly worth picking up his book.

2. The next great piece of advice was to record PowerPoint presentations at 16:9. Here is a short video for doing that:

When all elements are set to 16:9, they can be packaged together in a more professional manner. I will certainly be following his advice for my upcoming productions.