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Youtube Tags and Their Best Practices

Youtube tags are keywords or phrases you can include in your Youtube video description. Youtube tags help viewers find your content easily and considered part of ranking factor in Youtube algorithm.

YouTube also has its search engine that helps users look for videos.

The website’s user-friendliness and the soaring popularity and demand for video content have made it the second largest search engine, right behind Google.

This means that Youtube has a lot of competition in specific niches.

It makes your work more difficult if you were looking to create some content in such a niche.

However, it also means that you have an opportunity to display your content to the world’s second-largest audience.

The primary question is how do you go about accomplishing this, and do Youtube tags help?

What are Youtube Tags?

Are you aware that the amount of video content uploaded on Youtube in a month is more than the content produced by television networks in three decades?

This doesn’t come as a massive surprise since, though. According to Oberlo.com, over 500 hours of video content is uploaded on Youtube every 5 minutes.

Tags for your Youtube video are keywords or phrases that you can include in your video description.

Tags help viewers find your content, much like keywords in blog posts.

Youtube tags are considered to be significant and are a ranking factor in Youtube’s search engine algorithm.

Most of the content uploaded on Youtube takes minimal production time and resources.

However, in those niches that are all about uploading professional content, the stakes are even higher because it’s possible that you may not be the first or most experienced content developer there.

That being said, if there are lots of competition in this field, what would you do if you wanted your channel to become more visible?

The simplest way to go around this would be to make your content stand out.

Just like any other search engine, Youtube’s search engine algorithm is meant to provide its users with relevant information to the user’s search queries.

Optimizing your video content using the right keywords helps make your content readily available to your target audience, just like blog posts.

Here’s an example of Youtube tags in one of BiQ’s videos.

youtube tags

Importance of Youtube Tags

It helps Youtube understand your content.

Adding tags in your Youtube video helps it understand what your videos are all about.

They help Youtube place your content in the correct topic and category.

Doing this ultimately allows its search engine to associate your videos with similar content.

It helps viewers decide which content to watch.

Comparison of attractive thumbnail images as part of Youtube SEO efforts
Image source : Keyword Tool

According to Youtube, your video’s title, description, and thumbnail are necessary metadata that helps viewers decide which videos to watch.

The thumbnails can be used to show visitors what they can expect from the video.

What could you do with these thumbnails to attract and retain viewers for the whole length of your video?

You’ll need to use engaging, descriptive thumbnails that evoke the user’s curiosity.

You’ll also need to deliver on your promise and ensure that the viewer is satisfied with your content.

Targeting commonly misspelled keywords

Commonly misspelled keywords can reduce the number of views you get on Youtube.

You could add misspelled tags without including them in your tag description to make it easier for viewers who may have difficulty finding your content.

Youtube Tags Best Practices

If you want to leverage your Youtube tags and achieve their full potential, you’ll need to use the best tags for your youtube video.

Check out these tips and tricks listed below and learn how you can do this.

Let’s dive in!

1. Set your primary keyword as your first tag

Youtube prioritizes the first tag when ranking its content.

Therefore, it would be good to ensure that your first tag is the exact tag you want to associate with your content.

Doing this helps Youtube associate and rank your content among similar content.

For instance, if your content is about keyword research, the first tag needs to be your primary keyword.

In this case, the first keyword would be “keyword research,” as illustrated since that is what you want your content to rank for.

But how do you find the most relevant keyword?

If you are unsure which keyword you should use to tag your content, or even if you do, you need not worry.

BiQ’s SEO suite can help you find the most relevant high-value keyword that you could use to boost your rankings with low competition.

BiQ’s Keyword Intelligence lets you research your keywords and gives you tons of analytical data such as keyword trend, volume, competition, related keywords, etc.

This information could help you find the best keyword to use as your primary keyword.

Keyword Intelligence youtube tags

BiQ’s keyword analyzer feature helps you determine why users would search using a particular keyword.

This information could help you plan your content so that it meets your user’s needs.

In the end, you’ll have more satisfied viewers who love your content and want more.

You could also use Keyword Intelligence tool to sort the keywords based on value.

High-value keywords are more likely to drive in more viewers to your content with reduced competition.

Using the right keyword in your niche could not only help you survive but also thrive!

youtube tags sorted by value Keyword Intelligence

2. Add similar keywords from popular ranked videos

Now that you’ve set a low-competition high-traffic keyword as your primary keyword, the second step is adding as many high-ranking keywords from your competition as necessary.

The best place to get these videos is from popular ranked videos.

You could use common keyword tags that other people may have used in their videos to drive as much competitive traffic as you can to your channel.

This strategy works in two ways. you get to rank organically through your primary keyword and simultaneously steal your competition’s audience.

You could also use BiQ’s Keyword Intelligence to get more related keywords that could help you reel in more viewers and boost your channel’s traffic.

Related keywords are phrases closely ties to the main keywords.

How could you use these keywords to your advantage?

When researching for your primary keyword, BiQ’s Keyword Intelligence feature provides you with related keywords that searchers are interested in, which you could still use to tag your content and get more viewers.

3. Use specific keywords that can describe your content better

Adding descriptive tags for your youtube video could help its search engine algorithm understand your content better.

The best keywords you could use for these types of tags are long-tail keywords.

Are you wondering how you could go about it?

You guessed it, BiQ’s Keyword Intelligence.

When you enter your target keyword, which in this case would be your primary keyword, you’ll see a mix of both long tail and short tail keywords under related keywords.

If you specifically want long-tailed keywords, you’ll need to click on the advanced filter.

The filter will enable you to filter the keywords to your desired length.

You may choose the level of long-tailed keywords you want based on their relatedness to your main keywords: the closer the relation, the better.

If you are unsure of which long-tail keyword to use, you can sort them out based on their value.

As note earlier high-valued keywords have a higher potential of bringing in more traffic to your channel at a lower competition compared to low-value keywords.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/8EhWZqCq3fxK_zdVgnv8petAgtI-RfRkuKWXvM_mJ-qgladpWoYxh_fO846ciBhXvUSLf_ZkOQu7C0-5rQ39ltmtzZc9Gr8rOpuqWTaYDeuljeNH0vJjJ66_rgL-iz6xKy8obgGS

4. Don’t spam tags

After adding the most relevant keywords to your YouTube tags, adding related keywords and long-tail keywords, it’s probably better to note that adding too many tags to your video content won’t help with google’s algorithm.

Google has no limit to the number of tags you can add to your content.

However, there is a maximum character limit, and that’s 500 characters.

Still, keep in mind that even though the character limit is 500, it would not be in your best interest to fill your tag space with all these characters.

The recommended number of tags for your youtube video could be around ten, or 200 to 300 characters.

youtube tags average rank by keyword tag length 1024x506
Source: Ahrefs

The more tags you use on your content, the more likely you are to confuse youtube’s algorithm, affecting your ranking.

5. Don’t mislead people with your tags

Clickbait

Misleading tags, tags that trick viewers into thinking that your content is something that it’s not, are considered by Youtube as spam, and using such tags goes against their spam policy.

These actions could result in your video being taken down.

Youtube doesn’t give explicit examples of what tags are considered misleading; however, some of these examples have a high chance of fitting the bill.

They include:

  • Competitor names.
  • Celebrity names.
  • Irrelevant tags. For instance, the “android app” for video content about iPhone apps.

On the other hand, if you use misleading tags, the chances are that people will exit your channel as soon as they find out that your content does not match the title.

This pattern shows Youtube that your content isn’t helpful, making the search engine rank you lower in your niche.

Sensational thumbnails

Sensational thumbnails refer to offensive, outrageous, or gross thumbnails and titles.

Using these thumbnails and titles could make you lose your audience.

It can also affect the chances of being recommended to new content viewers.

You’ll need to avoid thumbnails that are deceiving, disgusting, shocking, indecent, gratuitous, violent, and loud, i.e., using all caps.

If you want to grow your audience, you’ll need to use thumbnails and titles that encompass a wider audience.

You’ll want to stand out by creating them to sound unique and exciting to the reader to make them curious to know more.

Youtube Tags Generator Tools

Keywordtool.io

youtube tags generator - keywoordtool.io

After typing in your target keyword into this Keywordtool.io’s search bar, this Youtube keyword tool provides you with a list of keyword suggestions, their trends over the past 12 months, and their search volume.

You also get prepositions, harsh tags, and questions, which include your target keyword.

TagsYoutube

youtube tags generator tool

TagsYoutube is a platform designed to provide Youtube tags to its users at the click of a button.

After keying in your target keyword on its search bar, you get a list of keyword suggestions that you can select for the second stage.

In the second stage, you can narrow down the tags to your desired final number of tags and click copy tags.

Here, TagsYoutube will present you with finalized tags formatted for YouTube.

All that remains is copying the tags and pasting them on the intended page on YouTube.

Rapidtags

youtube tags generator tool

Rapidstags works in a very similar format as TagsYoutube, only more straightforward.

You only need to enter the keyword, and you’ll get a list of potential tags.

Then you’ll need to edit your list and remove any keywords that you don’t need, click the copy button and transfer them to your Youtube’s tags page.

Ytubetool

youtube tags generator tool

The Ytubetool lets you extract tags from a Youtube video.

Enter their URL, run the tool, and you’ll get the video’s tags.

You could then use these tags to improve your ranking and visibility on youtube to get more viewers for your content.

Conclusion

Even though tags play a role in boosting your visibility on Youtube, it would be great if you understood that tags are only a minor part of optimization for Youtube.

It would be best to focus on improving other areas of your video content to increase your views.

For instance, you could create engaging, original content to capture your audience’s attention.

Use the best tags for Youtube videos and focus on creating captivating titles that make your viewers more curious to know what your content is all about.

However, keep in mind that you need to ensure that you deliver on your promise, whatever it is.

Otherwise, be sure to end up with an unsatisfied audience, which will hurt your rankings in the long run.

Have fun creating your content.

Be sure to tell us how you used your Youtube tags and what your experience was.

Cheers!

About Ken
A coffee aficionado who's fascinated with the world of digital marketing and SEO. When he's free, he'll be chasing plastic discs out on a field.