What are YouTube tags?
YouTube tags are keywords that you add to your YouTube videos. They help YouTube understand the content and context of your video, which allows YouTube to show your video in relevant search results.
For example, if you have a video about how to make a cake, you would want to use YouTube tags like “baking,” “cake recipe” and “how to make a cake.” This would help YouTube show your video to people who are searching for those terms.
Why are YouTube tags important?
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, and its 2 billion monthly active users use it to find videos on all sorts of topics. Tags for YouTube help people discover your videos in YouTube search results.
YouTube says that the most important SEO factors on the platform are the video title, description and thumbnail. Still, YouTube tags can be a great secondary method to boost discoverability on YouTube.
1. Make your first tag your target keyword and order the rest by importance
YouTube heavily accounts for your video’s first few tags when ranking content in their search results, especially the first tag. So make sure your first tag is the exact keyword you want to target.
2. Use some broad keywords that describe the overarching topic your video falls under
Using broad keywords as other tags helps YouTube understand your video’s context. For example, if you’re creating a video called “How to Hit a Baseball”, you’d want to add “Baseball” as a broad tag to indicate to YouTube that your video’s overarching topic is baseball.
3. Keep most of your tags between 2-3 words.
While you should certainly include long-tail keywords and a few broad match variations, YouTube seems to prefer 2-4 word phrases
4. Be specific
Some keywords are more likely to rank highly on search results pages than others, so it’s important to use the right ones when creating your tags. For example, “road trip” is less broad and has higher chances of ranking well in search engine results than “vacation.”
5. Include synonyms
Synonyms can be used as alternate tags for some topics and subjects. Think about the words your audience is likely to use when describing the topic of your video, and use those synonyms to broaden the reach of your tags.
6. Use both specific and broad tags
To help users find your videos, use both specific and broad tags. For example, if you’re a real estate agent in Los Angeles, some of your specific tags could be “Los Angeles real estate” or “LA homes for sale.” Some of your broader tags could be “real estate” or “apartments for sale.”
7. Get inspiration from videos that are currently ranking.
If you know what you want to rank for, take notes from those who are already ranking on the topic. Their keyword tags might give you a good starting point for research and inspiration. Use YouTube Tag Extractor.
8. Get inspiration from YouTube auto-suggest.
Auto-suggest is a feature to help users find what they need. YouTube isn’t surfacing these suggestions for no reason. These keywords are suggested likely because they are commonly searched terms for that topic, so don’t be afraid to draw inspiration from auto-suggest. Use YouTube Search Suggestion.
The three main benefits of using relevant, accurate tags on YouTube are:
- YouTube tags allow your video to be found by people using YouTube search to look for the type of content you’re offering.
- YouTube tags help the platform’s algorithm understand what your video is about so it can surface it in suggestions and on users’ home pages.
- YouTube tags help search engines find and index your videos more easily, which increases visibility in organic search results — even outside of YouTube (e.g. on Google).
