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Work Less, Earn More is the podcast that explores how to get the most out of every hour you work. Gillian Perkins brings more than a decade of experience as an entrepreneur and educator to help you design a business that's not only flexible and fulfilling, but highly profitable. She shares strategies that are working in her own business to save time and maximize profits. She also features interviews with successful business owners on how they’re achieving big things in their businesses with crazy-little time investment. Share Work Less, Earn More with an overworked entrepreneur you know who could use a change of pace!
[0:00] You know how sometimes when you go and ask ChatGPT something, it gives you not just a text response, but there are some video results that are part of the answer that it's giving to you? Sometimes these are helpful tutorials or sometimes they're just more information about the topics that you're researching. Well, have you ever wondered how you might be able to get your YouTube videos in those kind of recommendations that ChatGPT is giving people? If you could do that, that could be a way you could get more views on your YouTube videos and not just views from anybody, but views from people who are the most interested in that topic, basically like your target market for your videos. Well, I hadn't thought about this very much until I recently started working with a new brand, like a sponsor. And as they were telling me what they wanted out of the video and their specifications for it, they gave me this checklist right here. And I thought it was very interesting. It says, checklist, how to make sure your YouTube content gets ranked by AI.
[1:01] And I thought, well, that's interesting. I would like my YouTube content to get ranked by AI, whether that means actually getting suggested by ChatGPT or it just means getting ranked better on YouTube where the algorithm is more than ever powered by AI. The other thought that popped into my mind as soon as I saw this checklist was that you guys would probably want to know this information too, right? But then that brought a question into my mind. And that was, where did this information actually come from? And can we actually trust it? I mean, yes, it came from a particular brand that I'm working with. I know that. I know it came from their marketing department. But I don't know where they got these ideas. There's no sources or anything on this doc. So rather than going through this
[1:43] list with you, just as it is, I thought, let's go through it with ChatGPT. Like, let's actually go to the source and see what ChatGPT has to say about which of these things are best practices and things that will actually help your videos get ranked by AI and which of them are maybe myths or misconceptions or downright lies.
[2:03] [intro bumper]
We became entrepreneurs because more than anything, we want freedom. We want to be in control of our own schedule, income, and life. But unfortunately, that isn't always the reality of being a business owner. I'm Gillian Perkins, and I'm on a mission to take back entrepreneurship for what it's supposed to be.
In every episode, I'll share with you how to get the most out of every hour you work so that you can work less and earn more. Let's get to it.
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[2:39] Okay, so here's what I typed into ChatGPT. I said, the following checklist was provided to me by a brand I'm working with. How accurate is it? Which recommendations are good practices for getting YouTube videos ranked by AI and or suggested by ChatGPT? And which are myths or mistakes? And then I gave it the checklist. So let's see what ChatGPT had to say about this. First thing on the list was update titles to match AI questions. And then it gave some examples like instead of saying ultimate website builder or a guide. Use something more like how to build a website for your business, step by step. It says AIs love clear, direct question formats. Now, here's what ChatGPT had to say about this. Verdict, partly correct for YouTube, mostly a myth for ChatGPT.
[3:30] Why it is good for YouTube. YouTube search does prefer titles that align clearly with user intent. Question-based titles often perform well because of how users search in how-to format. So basically what it's saying here is on YouTube, people are typing in questions and the YouTube algorithm loves these kind of exact matches between somebody typed in how to wash my car and now we've got a video that is titled how to wash your car, right? But then ChatGPT goes on to say that this doesn't really matter for ChatGPT.
[4:02] It says that ChatGPT does not index YouTube titles the way Google search indexes web pages. So basically what it's saying here, if you want to kind of read between the lines, is that ChatGPT is a little bit smarter and it's not just looking for matches between keywords, but it's actually kind of like it's thinking in a more big picture sort of way. It's more like it's understanding what you're actually looking for. And he's able to find the content that will be a match, even if there isn't this exact match with keywords. So it doesn't matter for ChatGPT as much if you title your video in a way that's going to match like their exact inquiry. So for example, if someone is typing into ChatGPT, how to wash my car, your video doesn't need to be titled how to wash my car. It could be titled something like car wash beginners guide. So should you do this? Should you title your videos with AI questions, things that people are typing into Google or typing into YouTube or typing into ChatGPT? And the answer is it's not going to hurt anything, but that alone is not going to get you suggested by ChatGPT. So let's keep going here. The next thing it says on this list is repeat the question in the video intro.
[5:17] Example, in this tutorial, I'll show you how to create a professional website for your business using Hostinger step by step. And it says, this simple line increases matchability with AI queries. So here's what ChatGPT had to say about this. The verdict is that it's a myth for AI and a minor benefit for YouTube only. So is it worth doing for YouTube? Sort of, says ChatGPT.
[5:41] Saying the topic in the intro reinforces viewers' expectations and improves retention. And I love that ChatGPT highlighted that because I think that so often people do try to play to the algorithm and just kind of the AI robotic side of the algorithm. And they forget that the most important thing and the thing that the algorithm has actually been optimized for is the viewer's response to your video. So anything you can do in your video to give your viewers a better experience and get them to keep watching longer is going to improve your video's ranking and your video's suggestibility over on YouTube.
[6:17] Now, for getting your video ranked on ChatGPT, ChatGPT says that you don't need to do this at all. It says that it's not going to be searching your transcript for matching phrases and then choosing the video and that repeating the question is not a known ranking signal for any large language model retrieval pipeline. So basically what it's saying here is it's not really going to help you with the YouTube algorithm. It's not going to help you with ChatGPT at all. But actually, you should still do this. And it's even admitting it here because it will improve your viewer retention. It's going to get people to understand that your video is going to help them
[6:54] so they will keep on watching longer. So you should do it. And it will actually help you on YouTube and even with ChatGPT, just not directly. Next up, number three is add full transcripts plus chapters. It says YouTube videos should include chapters with clear names and full transcript either in the description or on a connected blog. And here's what ChadGBT has to say about this. It said that it is a good practice for YouTube, but it's misunderstood for AI.
[7:24] Okay, so first of all, it says the chapters are very good. That YouTube prioritizes videos with chapters for user experience. It also says that YouTube uses chapter titles as semantic markers and that chapters help viewers jump around, which means you'll have higher retention and stronger ranking. So according to ChatGPT, not only does the algorithm itself like this and find it helpful for understanding what your video is about and considering that that video will provide the users with a better experience. So it's going to be more likely to suggest your videos. Gotta admit, I'm a tiny bit skeptical of some of those points. But I totally agree with what it says here, that those chapters are going to help with the user experience and that that is going to lead to a stronger ranking. Okay, now here's what it says about adding a transcript to your video. It says you do not need to upload a transcript manually because YouTube's auto-generated transcripts are already extremely accurate and fully indexed by search. Providing your own transcript only helps when you want perfect accuracy.
[8:31] Your video uses jargon or accents that auto-captions are going to misinterpret, or you're publishing the transcript elsewhere for SCF. Now, keep in mind that everything you just said there about the transcript not being that important, that was for YouTube. OK, but now listen very carefully about what it says about how transcripts can help with getting your video suggested by ChatGPT. And this is also going to impact how your video might get ranked by other AI powered search engines. OK, so it says ChatGPT does not index the transcript directly from your YouTube video. So in other words, ChatGPT, it can't see that transcript that YouTube automatically generated. However, ChatGPT may know about the video if the transcript is published on a publicly accessible web page that OpenAI models have crawled and the page has significant authority or links. So simply putting the transcript in your YouTube description does not impact ChatGPT's recall or ranking. But what we're going to see a little bit later on is that if you have that transcript.
[9:41] Whether you got it from YouTube or you generated it some other way, publishing it in a blog post on your website along with the video, that is like the number one thing that is going to help ChatGPT notice your video and make it way more likely that ChatGPT will be suggesting your video to ChatGPT users.
[10:03] Okay, for right now, though, let's zoom along with these last two points on here. The next one was tag videos with AI-relevant phrases. Examples, easy website builder, AI website builder tutorial. Okay, so it's just saying like popular keyword phrases here. And what ChatGPT had to say about this was that it's mostly an outdated practice, minimal ranking impact. On YouTube, tags are extremely low-weight metadata, Absolutely agree. YouTube really hardly uses tags at all anymore. It's only as YouTube has publicly stated, and ChatGPT repeats here, they're helpful for clearing up common misspellings. So if something you're saying in the video might be misspelled, and that might therefore not match with what people are typing into YouTube, that can help out. But really the tags on YouTube are practically useless and you can totally skip them when you are uploading your YouTube video and it really won't affect anything.
[11:01] Okay, then when it comes to ChatGPT, it says tags are irrelevant. ChatGPT does not see or use YouTube tags. So this is really totally a myth. You don't need to use tags on your videos. Now, the last thing on this list is to distribute your videos on AI indexed platforms. Okay, it says post authentically on Reddit, Quora, and Twitter. So what does ChatGPT say about this one? The verdict here is that it is overstated, partially true, but it's misunderstood. The reality is that OpenAI does train on public Reddit, Quora, and Twitter data.
[11:37] However, posting your videos there does not guarantee incorporation into any ChatGPT model. And even if it is included, LLMs do not magically surface your video just because it has a link that appears in that training data. And LLM outputs are dominated by authoritative patterns, not one-off posts from users. So posting on social media platforms, it says, is good marketing, but it's not a hack for ChatGPT visibility. And that's really what I would expect as well, that if you are posting your videos, whether it's on your blog or on one of these social media platforms, and there are authority markers, okay, that could be your website's domain authority, or it could be a lot of engagement like comments or upvotes or whatnot on these different platforms, then ChatGPT will take notice. But just like publishing it on these platforms, it's not going to automatically
[12:32] get it suggested by ChatGPT. So overall, I was kind of disappointed by this list that was provided by this brand because it turned out that more than half the things on this list were myths or misconceptions. But fortunately, the video doesn't stop here because ChatGPT went on to tell us what actually helps videos be recommended by ChatGPT. Now, just like anything ChatGPT tells us, take this with a grain of salt.
[12:57] Even when ChatGPT is talking about itself, it doesn't know the truth necessarily. It is hallucinating always. But clearly, ChatGPT does have some insights into what might help videos get ranked by AI. So let's take a look at what ChatGPT had to say about this. First one is high real world authority signals. So videos from channels that are widely embedded across the web, are referenced frequently, have strong external backlinks, have substantial viewership and engagement.
[13:27] So this one is a little bit challenging, a little bit frustrating, because basically it's saying like if your channel is big and popular, then ChatGPT is going to be more likely to suggest your videos. And that seems really not surprising. It is good to know that, but there's not much you can do about that. So let's move on to the next thing. And that is number two, content that is well known or cited across multiple sources. So if your video topic appears in blog, help centers, Reddit discussions, tutorials, ChatGPT could recall it because it was represented in many public data sources. So this one you can impact a little bit. It's what I was talking about earlier. If you put your video onto your website in a blog post and you put the transcript of the video there.
[14:12] ChatGPT is going to be able to more easily access that information, that content, than if it was only on YouTube. And now it's seeing that video on two different platforms, essentially, your website and YouTube. And maybe you do also share it on some social media platforms. And now ChatGPT will be more likely to suggest it in its responses. Now, the next recommendation on this list, I find kind of funny, because I feel like ChatGPT said it in the most confusing way it could have said it. What it says is number three, clear alignment with common question patterns. If your content answers canonical questions, Example, how do you build a website? ChatGPT is more likely to reason its way to your content as a recommended resource. Really what it's saying here is if your content answers common questions, ChatGPT is more likely to suggest it to people. No duh. So yes, make your content about popular topics, popular questions people have, popular challenges people are facing, because it'll be more likely to be suggested. Okay, and then number four here is metadata accuracy on YouTube, not for chat GPT, but for overall discoverability that feeds into LLM awareness.
[15:25] Okay, so here what it's saying is that you want to make sure that you give your video a clear title and description on YouTube so that it ranks well on YouTube so that ChatGPT is more likely to discover it. And I think that this actually is a really good kind of place to be ending this video because it kind of wraps up all of this information, which is to say that the most important thing for getting ChatGPT to suggest your videos to people in its responses is actually just to get your videos to rank well on YouTube, because then just like a YouTube user is more likely to find your video, ChatGPT also is more likely to find your video. Now, the other part of this, of course, is distributing your video on other platforms, especially websites that have high domain authority,
[16:14] which hopefully your website does. But if it doesn't, that's another thing for you to work on that doesn't seem directly AI related, but will ultimately help your videos to get recommended by AI more. Now, if that'll make sense to you, and so you're ready to put your head down and focus on getting your videos to rank well on YouTube so that they can get suggested by these AI systems, then I would love to tell you about Creator Fast Track. This is perfect for you if you need a little bit of help with figuring out how to get your videos to rank well on YouTube.
[16:45] Creator Fast Track is a YouTube training program that I started about five years ago now. We've been updating it every single year to make sure that we are staying on top of all the algorithm changes. In fact, I just finished recording a new series all about what's new on YouTube in 2026.
[17:02] And then I go through all of the feature changes that have happened on YouTube in 2025 and that are coming up here in 2026. I also talk about viewer trends and how they have changed a lot over these past six months or so. And we also get into specific algorithm changes. What has YouTube done to the algorithm over the past year? And what is that looking like as we move into this next year? And that's just one example of how we always keep Creator Fast Track updated with the latest information of how to rank well on YouTube. The whole point of Creator Fast Track, though, is to get your first thousand subscribers in just three months or less. So if one of your goals this year is getting to 1,000 subscribers, you can get your channel monetized and be on your way to becoming a full-time creator, then Creator Fast Track would be perfect for you. And we are about to open up enrollment in just a couple of weeks here. Now, we only run Creator Fast Track a couple of times a year, but the next enrollment period is coming up here in just a week or two after this video will be published. So make sure you check it out now if you're interested you can go to this link down in the description to find out more about creator fast track and important put your name on the wait list type in your email so that i can shoot you a message when the doors open because otherwise you might miss that enrollment period because it's only going to be open for a few days.
[18:26] [outro bumper] Thank you so much for listening to this episode of work less earn more. Here's what I want you to do next. Take a screenshot of this episode you're listening to right now and share it out on your Instagram stories. And when you do, make sure you tag me at Gillian Z Perkins so I can see you're listening. Sharing on stories is going to help more people find this podcast so they too can learn how to build their business in a way that allows them to work less and earn more. And if you really love the show, head over to Apple Podcasts right now and leave Work Less, Earn More a review to give it a boost and help even more people find it. Okay, let's wrap this up. I'm Gillian Perkins, and until next week, stay focused and take action.
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