How do I write a hook for YouTube Shorts?

In the Shorts feed, the first second decides almost everything. The viewer has not chosen your video; it simply started playing, and swiping away costs nothing. A hook has to tell them immediately what they will get. That might be a result shown first ("this is what a fifteen-year-old sofa looks like after cleaning"), a question they have asked themselves ("why does your AC drip water inside the room?"), or a surprising claim the Short then proves.

Show and say at the same time. Start the clip on the most visual moment, not on you walking into frame. Put a short line of text on screen in the first frame, because many people scroll with the sound off, especially at work or on public transport. Keep that text to a few words, in the language your viewers read fastest, and place it away from the bottom of the screen, where YouTube's own buttons and captions sit.

Write several hooks for each Short and pick the strongest. For a property video, "Plot in Gulberg Greens: what you actually get" might beat "Today we are visiting Gulberg Greens". For a restaurant, showing the cheese pull first beats showing the shopfront. Then watch your retention in Studio: Shorts analytics shows how many viewers chose to keep watching rather than swiping away. If that number is low across many Shorts, the hooks are the problem, not the content behind them. Avoid hooks that promise something the Short does not deliver; viewers learn quickly.