How To Write a YouTube Script That Hooks Viewers Until The End [2024]

Making a YouTube video involves several steps.

You start by thinking of ideas, and then you get all your cameras and lights ready. After that, you record your video and edit it.

We always want to keep our viewers interested for as long as we can, but it's tough to know how. 

That's why writing scripts for YouTube videos is important.

Lucky for you, this is the entire A-Z guide on How To Write YouTube Scripts That Keep People Engaged.

Video scripting is one fundamental step many YouTube content creators don’t seem to pay enough attention to, especially at the beginning of their journey.

You can even make money on YouTube by helping creators with scriptwriting. 

Video scripting is laying down the blueprint and foundation of the project you’re working on. It’s a process that ensures a focused, well-structured, and engaging final video.

If you’re new to YouTube and have difficulty scripting your content, you’ve come to the right place. Learn how to write a YouTube script one step at a time.  

I've been making money online and I've realized that having some kind of YouTube video script template for your videos are vital for growth.

Creating YouTube videos that your audience will actually watch to the end is one of the best feelings and can convince YouTube to push your video to the homepage.

Why You Need to Script Your YouTube Videos

Before we talk about how you can write effective YouTube video scripts, we need to emphasize the importance of writing video scripts and how a script can make or break your entire video creation process. 

Learning how to write the best story ideas and keep people engaged throughout the entire video is important. 

Youtube's algorithm is so fine-tuned that it is able to detect which videos are engaging and reward them by pushing viewers through the recommended feed.

Organizes Your Ideas and Thoughts

As a video content creator on YouTube, you probably have countless ideas and thoughts you want to convey to your audience through your videos. Without a clear outline, this task can be challenging.

You’re organizing your ideas and thoughts into a well-structured outline by scripting your projects. This reduces the amount of time and energy wasted on problems that arise because of poor organization.

You can even use an AI chatbot to help you structure your scripts and topic ideas for YouTube.

Keeps Your Team on the Same Page

If an entire production team is behind your YouTube channel, writing crystal-clear video scripts that detail everything from scene description to camera cues becomes even more paramount.

Keeping an entire team on the same wavelength is hard without a clear vision of how the project should look, sound, and feel.

So, use a Google Doc or an editor that allows team collaboration. This makes video scripting essential for streamlining your video creation process.

Reduces Retakes and Editing Time

Scripting your videos prevents you from going off-topic on long, unnecessary rants that you’ll probably have to cut out during editing.

If you take too much time, you can use an AI video editor to help you remove cuts and pauses.

What’s more, when you have a solid video script, you already know what you need to say and how to say it. This reduces retakes significantly.

Keeps Your Brand Voice Consistent

Scripting your videos plays a major role in building your brand. When you have a well-defined template for your scripts, you’re creating consistency in all your videos despite the difference in content.

When you’re consistent with your video scripts, your audience will know what to expect when you release a new video. This is key for building a brand.

Speaking of templates, Backlinko has an excellent free video script template that you ought to check out.

Makes Your Videos More Engaging

Writing a YouTube video script is like mapping out the story and guide for your video. The more skilled you become at scripting, the better you'll immediately tell your story and grab your audience's attention.

As a result, the overall quality of your YouTube videos will increase, and they’ll be more engaging and entertaining.

This catalyzes earning more views, likes, subscriptions, and revenue. 

How to Write a YouTube Script

Now that you know the importance of scripting your videos, it’s time to discuss how it’s done.

Here are the steps you need to follow to write an engaging YouTube video script:

1. Know What Your Target Audience Likes

Before you start scriptwriting, it's necessary to pinpoint who you're writing for and understand what they're interested in.

This knowledge will guide you in creating YouTube videos with the right style, feeling, and direction.

For instance, video content for video game fans will be quite different from content meant for single parents looking for tips on raising their kids.

To know who your audience is, think about these points:

• Their age range
• Male or female
• What jobs they have
• Their hobbies
• Where they live 

These details shape your target demographic.

After figuring out who your viewers are, learn about their likes and dislikes.

Explore their problems and what they wish for so you can craft video content that fits their needs.

You can also use a tool like ChatGPT to get advice on finding just the right way to speak to your audience through your videos. 

Here's how I would instruct the AI tool when developing ideas for YouTube.

Knowing your target audience’s problems and desires will help you develop video ideas. Not all ideas are worthwhile, though.

So, how do you validate your ideas?

The answer is keyword research, and the best AI tools for YouTube would be VidIQ or Tubebuddy.

Perform Keyword Research

Keyword research is identifying the search terms that your potential viewers are using. This process helps gauge your audience’s interest level in a given idea.

There are quite a few ways to perform keyword research. We recommend starting with Google Trends, a platform that helps users identify trends on most major search engines, as well as YouTube.

Google Trends is super easy to use. All you have to do is type in a keyword or search term and click “Explore.” Then, filter the results using the “YouTube Search” option.

You’ll then see a graphical representation of the level of interest surrounding the search term you entered over a period of time. If the interest is high (has a score of 50 to 100), then it’s a search term worth exploring.

Once you’ve validated your idea via Google Trends, it’s time to gather more specific keywords. To do so, type in your main keyword or search term into YouTube’s search bar and check the results that pop up.

The queries that YouTube auto-suggests are the ones users actively search for. With that in mind, writing your YouTube video scripts based on those queries is a good idea.

You can also use tools like Ahrefs to research keywords and validate your ideas based on search volume.

Other keyword research tools that you can use for YouTube include TubeBuddy, vidIQ, and MorningFame.

Establish Your Video’s Goal

Now that you’ve validated your ideas and collected some relevant keywords to work with, you need to figure out the goal of the project you’re working on. Why are you making this video?

Are you trying to educate your target audience about a certain topic? Are you introducing a product or service? Maybe you’re just vlogging or creating a video purely for entertainment!

Establishing a goal for your YouTube video is especially important if you’re working with a production team. A simple video idea can quickly become a convoluted mess if no clear goal is in sight.

2. Choose the Right Video Format

Once you’ve established a logical goal for the video you’re trying to make, it’s time to determine which format is best for achieving that goal and appealing to your target audience.

Here are the most common:

• An explainer video
• Talking headshot content
• A vlog
• Product review

If you want to inform your target audience about a specific topic, educational formats like the ones used in explainers and how-to videos will work best for you.

If your niche is more entertainment-driven, you can opt for plenty of formats, from unboxing and challenge videos to ask-me-anything (AMA) and reaction videos.

Consider producing a documentary-style video if you want to combine education and entertainment. Copywriting, storytelling, and heavy research are especially important for this type of video.

Vlogging is another format you can use to educate, entertain, or both! It’s not as reliant on script writing as most other formats, but it can still use a short script to prevent unnecessary rants.

The great thing about vlogging is that it doesn’t require much. All you need to create an entertaining vlog is an exciting story or topic, a recording device, and a good setting for your video.

The video format you choose will play a big role in determining the tone and style of your videos, which, in turn, will influence your scriptwriting process.

For instance, an entertainment video can benefit from a humorous tone. An educational video can also benefit from some humor and vibrancy in the script, but being informative must remain the priority.

3. Outline Your Video Structure

Creating an outline for your video script before you start writing it is important. An outline will help you separate different parts of your video script and arrange your ideas and thoughts in a way that flows nicely.

You can write YouTube scripts in a structure resembling a blog post outline, which consists of an introduction, body, and conclusion. Try to keep your script organized while ensuring it follows a logical flow.

In most cases, a good YouTube video script outline has the following:

Hook

Tips from the YouTube Creator Playbook indicate that the first 15 seconds of a video can determine whether the viewer will continue to watch the video.

This is why you need to start your video outline with a hook that will entice the viewer to continue watching. So, how do you start your video with an engaging hook?

The best video hooks often highlight what the video is all about and what the viewer can gain by watching it. The hook should be as clear and easy to understand as possible.

Your hook can be an interesting piece of dialogue, stunning visuals, or something else altogether. Just ensure that it’s engaging enough to grab the viewer’s attention.

Introduction

Begin by giving your audience a brief overview of what your video is about. This is a good time to say hello and introduce your brand. 

In your opening, it's useful to outline what viewers should expect. Let them know the purpose of your video, its outline, and the key questions you'll address.

This initial setup is vital for longer videos divided into sections. It allows viewers to jump directly to the parts that interest them the most.

Consider this: when watching a review video on a product you're curious about but not sure how to use, you might skip the general info and go straight to the "How It Works" section. 

The intro's length can change depending on the type of video. A reaction video, for example, would typically start off quicker than a documentary.

Body

The body is the meat of your video script. It carries the bulk of the information your audience seeks and is the longest part.

Write this section with the main points and examples. Keep it simple to avoid the trap of reading directly from the script, which doesn't look great to viewers.

Besides your primary points, throw in some extra ones here and there. They can break up any monotony that might crop up for you or the viewers.

Here are some side points you could sprinkle in,

• Different perspectives
• Debatable topics or opinions
• Frequent errors
• Typical hurdles

Shaking up a predictable pattern is smart because it keeps viewers engaged. It's a solid strategy for maintaining your audience's attention.

Wrapping Up Your Video

Your video's ending is when you review the main points of your script. Here's also where you might add a call to action (CTA).

A CTA tells viewers what you want them to do next. It could be hitting the like button, subscribing, or taking a peek at a product or service.

Remember, you don't have to wait until the end to suggest an action.

CTAs can pop up anywhere in your script the beginning, middle, or yeah, the conclusion works too.

4. Start Writing Your YouTube Video Script

Now that you’ve created the perfect outline, it’s time to start writing your YouTube video script. Here are a few scriptwriting tips:

Be Conversational

When writing a YouTube script, you should avoid big words and overly complicated phrasing. You want to keep your script conversational, but also introduce pattern interrupts.

The more conversational your writing is, the more relatable and easier to comprehend it will be.

To be conversational with your writing, you should avoid the passive voice, use day-to-day words and phrases, tell a story with your writing, and ask relevant questions.

Use Short Sentences and Paragraphs

In line with the previous tip, one of the best ways to maintain a conversational tone in your video script is to write short sentences and paragraphs.

The longer your sentences and paragraphs are, the harder they’ll be to follow and the more convoluted the ideas will come across.

Incorporate Storytelling Techniques

One of the oldest yet most effective storytelling techniques is the three-act formula. The three acts are the setup (first act), conflict (second act), and resolution (third act).

Here’s a brief breakdown of the purpose of each act:

• Setup (Act One)–This act is for exposition. It’s where you introduce a problem that your target audience is facing.
• Conflict (Act Two)–This act is for escalation. It’s where you discuss the pain point associated with the problem.
• Resolution (Act Three)–This act is for resolution. It’s where you present a solution to the problem at hand.

Emphasize Key Points

If you’re tackling a broad topic, emphasize key points using simple italics, underlining, and bolding. This will help you stay focused on what’s most important.

Use AI Writing Software

If you’re not much of a writer or your schedule is too hectic to sit down and write a detailed video script, you can use AI writing software such as ChatGPT, Jasper.ai, and Rytr.

Such tools can help boost your productivity, but they’re not perfect. You’ll need to revise and edit their writing to ensure it hits the mark.   

5. Revise and Refine Your Video Script

Once you’ve done writing your script, you’ll need to revise and edit it to ensure good flow and digestibility.

One of the best ways to refine your video script is to read it aloud. Doing so makes it easy to detect problems with flow, communication, awkward phrasing, typos, etc.

You can then fix any errors using an AI text generator, which can help with talking points.

Reading your writing out loud also lets you explore your audience’s perspective. It will help you focus on big-picture elements like tone and narrative.

Reading your writing out loud forces you to be more intentional in your choice of words. It helps you slow down and pay attention to each word, ensuring it serves a purpose.

6. Optimize Your Video Script for SEO

Yes, YouTube SEO is a thing, and it’s important for your video marketing strategy.

That doesn't mean you should include unnecessary words in your video, and you need to make sure that it is relevant to your video topic.

There are several ways to optimize your YouTube video script for SEO. First, you must naturally insert the main keyword into your video a few times. It also helps to insert variations of the main keyword.

You can also use VidIQ or Tubebuddy to help you with a few ideas and add keywords for engaging videos.

Further, you must consider what your target audience might search for when looking for similar video content. Then incorporate those keywords in your script.

Another thing that you can do to boost your SEO is to use a mix of long-tail and short-tail keywords.

Also, ensure you scatter your keywords throughout the entire script rather than focusing them in a single section.

Other YouTube SEO tips:

• Including accurate closed captions
• Writing a keyword-optimized video title, description, and tags
• Saying your target keyword a few times in the video
• Using a compelling thumbnail
• Naming the video file using the target keyword
• Adding a transcript to your video description
• Tagging your video with other relevant keywords
• Adding hashtags to increase reach
• Adding cards and end screens to boost viewership

7. Create A YouTube Script Template

Now that you have created your first script, you can customize this for every use.

Creating a template will simplify the video production process, and you even have ChatGPT to help you.

Final Thoughts

There you have it!

Now you know how to write a YouTube video script that will engage your target viewers, improve the overall quality of your videos, and help your YouTube channel get more views and subscriptions.

You can use scripts to capture your viewers' attention and say the proper callout for each video you produce.

I recommend using a YouTube video idea generator to craft the perfect topic for your outline.

The process detailed in this article can be a little time-consuming initially, but it’s guaranteed to take your videos to the next level.

And the more you keep at it, the less time-consuming it will be. 

FAQs for YouTube Scriptwriters

Should I Write a Script for My YouTube Videos?

Yes, you should write a script for your videos. It will help organize your ideas and thoughts and improve the overall quality of your video.

Plus, writing a script for your videos helps reduce retakes and editing time. It can also help you with brand building and keeping your brand voice consistent.

Don't forget that scripting is just a part of the writing process for each video, and it will make the process run smoothly.

What Is a YouTube Script?

A YouTube script is the blueprint of the video you’re working on. It outlines all the important aspects of your video production, including dialogue, scene description, special effects, images, etc.

How Long Should a Script Be for a YouTube Video?

You should make your YouTube video scripts as concise and easy to follow as possible. While a video script might be long, you want to keep your sentences short.

What's the Key to a Great YouTube Script?

A great script balances simple structure with engaging storytelling. Start with a hook, outline your main points, and end with a call to action.

How Long Should My YouTube Script Be?

Aim for a script that translates to a video length of 7-15 minutes, ideal for viewer engagement and YouTube's algorithm preferences.