If you’re a YouTube Creator, you have most likely come across YouTube Tags when searching for YouTube SEO and How to rank higher on YouTube.
Since you’re interested in YouTube, you should know whether YouTube Tags still work or even matter anymore. I mean… YouTube Keeps evolving by the day, the algorithm keeps getting smarter.
There’s a common misconception often written about YT Video Tags, this article will unravel all and will also share the details of my little experiment with a few videos.
What are YouTube Tags?
YouTube tags are pieces of text added to better define and contextualize your Video, they can be added to every single video you upload on YouTube and altogether, cannot exceed 500 Characters.
When I was starting on YouTube a few years ago, most SEOs described YouTube Tags as “Vital for SEO”, and after my experiment, it’s just 0.5% True.
Are YouTube Tags still important in 2022?
According to Google Support, Tags can be useful if the content of your video is frequently misspelled and they play a minimum to no role in your Video’s discovery.
This is where the 0.5% importance rolls through, so for my first experiment, the keyword that I used was ‘PropellerAds’, I just gave you the correct brand name spelling, but on YouTube Search (Which is where I do my keyword research), it’s commonly misspelled as ‘Propeller Ads’.
Starting, I created a YouTube Video with the correct Keyword ‘PropellerAds’ and uploaded it, after 7 days, I noticed that the video was already ranking for the correct spelling but it wasn’t ranking on the misspelled version.
Now, this is where YouTube Tags kick in, I can’t re-upload the video again and just change the keyword to the misspelled alternate, that’ll just be duplicate content and may result in the 2 videos not ranking or even showing up in search results.
In Essence, YouTube Tags are still important in 2022, but only if your Video’s keywords are commonly misspelled, they do not impact your Video’s Rankings.
Some time ago, YouTube Tags used to be the real deal, you could just create similar content to your competitors and then use tools like Tubebuddy and VidIQ to copy the tags of the video ranking number 1, and then add them to your videos.
But the YouTube Algorithm is not dumb and it never will be, everybody started adopting the Copy Tag technique and I’m forced to believe that it was the reason why YouTube removed most of the value associated with YouTube Tags.
I want you to continue using YouTube Tags but relevantly, do not spam or add irrelevant text maybe because they have high search volume.
What I do is ‘I list out the common terms associated with my video’, for the case of ‘PropellerAds’ my tags may be “propellerads, propeller ads, ad networks, multi-tag, pop-under ad network” etc because they are all relevant and are mentioned in my video.
Are YouTube Tags Similar to Hashtags?
No! YouTube Tags are very different from Hashtags, but they can be the same keywords, let’s say you added ‘Audio rec’ to your Video tag, you can also add #audiorec to your Video description.
And Yes, your Video description is the only suitable place for your to add Hashtags (the case may be different for #shorts). YouTube Tags are suitable for spelling issues, while hashtags group your videos and help you grow.
This is where I ran my Second test and I aimed to find out whether YouTube Tags or Hashtags will help me rank higher.
From the results of this test, it was concluded that, unlike normal YouTube Search terms, Hashtags rank videos on freshness, if you search for sth like #wp, you’ll see the newest uploaded WordPress Videos.
So, What should you do? Once you’ve picked out a Keyword that you want to create a YouTube Video on, input the Keyword on YouTube and go through the videos that are ranking in the top 10.
Click on each tag and you’ll see how many videos have been created on the topic as well as how my Creators did so, if the videos are getting a decent amount of views, add the tag to your YouTube video description.
Hashtags can give your video, the early boost it needs to do well in the long term since it groups your video with other relevant videos that are doing well.
Importance of YouTube Tags
From what you’ve read in this article so far, you might have concluded that YouTube Tags are not important, remember I said you should still use YouTube Tags.
A lot of Big YouTubers who have been in business for a few years now, still use Tags on their Videos, and use tools like Tubebuddy to get a list of the tags that a video ranking number for your target keyword is using and then add them to your script.
You may not have noticed but, the YouTube Algorithm can transcribe your Video’s Audio to text and use your spoken words to rank your videos in Google Search Results.
This is why you should smartly incorporate those tags into your Script and mentioned them strategically, don’t just start reading them aloud line by line.
Another Importance of YouTube Tags is that they can generate Content Ideas for you, most especially if your channel is relatively new and has less than 10,000 Subscribers.
Channel Relevance to the search term is a relevant ranking metric and you can tick its box by creating ‘Topic Clusters’, let’s say you have a YouTube Channel in the Video Marketing Niche, one of your main categories should be YouTube and you can create videos on:
- How to Get More YouTube Subscribers.
- YouTube SEO.
- Beginner Equipment which is useful for running a YouTube Channel.
- YouTube Ads.
- Background Ideas for your YouTube Videos.
- How to Start a YouTube Channel.
- Uploading 4K Videos on YouTube.
- How long should a YouTube Video Be?
- How often should you upload YouTube Videos.
There are a lot of topics that I can list under YouTube and those topics, there may also be a cluster, let’s take the beginner YouTube Equipment for Example:
ETC, the list continues and tags help you get them faster, but you need the help of the third party YouTube Tools like I’ve mentioned earlier, Tubebuddy and VidIQ.
FAQs
What YouTube Tags Should you use?
As I mentioned earlier in the article, you should use YouTube Tags relevant to the video you wish to upload, because YouTube Tags help contextualize your video.
How many YouTube Tags should I use?
I’d say 5 is enough but remember that Tags don’t help in your Video discovery, just add relevant tags and misspelled versions of your Target Keyword.
Which YouTube Tags help you get more views?
As I said, YouTube Tags play a very minimal role in your Video’s ranking, so it doesn’t help you get more views, it’s vital you pay no attention to it anymore and focus on the more importan things like engaging your audience and creating better videos.
How many YouTube Tags can you have?
Altogether, there’s a 500 Character Limit for the tags you can add per video, remember that adding a lot o Tags (Spamming) can get your Channel penalized.
What do YouTube tags do?
YouTube Tags can help you rank for misspelled versions of your Target Keyword and that’s it, they can’t help you rank higher on YouTube.
In Conclusion
I hope that this article helped you better understand YouTube Tags and all the myths associated with it, I’d really appreciate it if you share this article on Social Media to your friends and followers.
If you have any questions on this topic, feel free to ask me in the comments and I’ll be thrilled to get back to you, remember to Subscribe to My Newsletter and also check out more YouTube articles.
