YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, so keyword-optimizing your videos on the platform is just equally important as keyword-optimizing your blog posts for Google.

Even if you've merely created the next "Charlie bit my finger" video, you must remember that an algorithm dictates which videos YouTube volition serve to its audience -- and which ones it won't.

I of the best ways to keyword-optimize your videos for YouTube is leveraging tags. Beneath, nosotros've put together a guide that will explain exactly what YouTube tags are, why they're important, and some all-time practices to follow.

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Why are YouTube tags of import?

YouTube tags office to help YouTube grasp your video's content and context. This way, YouTube tin can understand your video'south topic and category, and associate it with similar content, which can amplify your video'due south reach. The rise of semantic search has made YouTube tags less important over time, only they're nonetheless a strategic element y'all can use to your advantage.

Even though YouTube sites the title, thumbnail, and description equally being more than important for video SEO on their platform, studies practice signal that there'due south a slight positive relationship between keyword-optimized tags and ranking (Backlinko). Neglecting to utilise them isn't a dealbreaker, but they can definitely assist.

They're even more than important in cases where your target keyword is commonly misspelled because you tin tag the misspellings without including them in your championship and description.

As a secondary benefit, tags even help yous organize and detect your own content if you do self-reference tagging (due east.yard. "Ireland trip 2019").

YouTube Tags Best Practices

To leverage YouTube tags to their fullest potential, check out these tips and tricks.

i. Make your showtime tag your target keyword and lodge the rest by importance.

YouTube heavily accounts for your video's first few tags when ranking content in their search results, especially the starting time tag. And then brand sure your first tag is the exact keyword you want to target.

two. Apply some wide keywords that describe the overarching topic your video falls under as other tags.

Using broad keywords as other tags helps YouTube understand your video's context. For case, if you're creating a video chosen "How to Hit a Baseball game", you lot'd want to add "Baseball" as a broad tag to indicate to YouTube that your video's overarching topic is most baseball.

3. Use some specific keywords that describe the topics you covered in your video as other tags.

Using specific keywords that describe the topics you cover in your video equally other tags helps YouTube understand your video'due south content. For example, in the aforementioned "How to Hit a Baseball" video, adding "striking off a tee" or "hitting batting practice" equally specific tags would indicate to YouTube the exact topics your video covers.

4. Keep well-nigh of your tags between two-3 words.

While y'all should certainly include long-tail keywords and a few broad match variations, YouTube seems to prefer two-4 give-and-take phrases (Briggsby).

5. Do not go overboard with tags.

The bespeak of tags is to help the algorithm empathise what your video is about so information technology can surface it to users that are looking for a video like yours. Using too many keywords can cause confusion for what your video is really well-nigh. Research suggests that the optimal number of tags is between 31 and twoscore (when used correctly, of class). More that dilutes their power.

graph showing the optimal number of tags as being between 31 to 40

Image Source

6. Become 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.

7. Get inspiration from YouTube auto-suggest.

Machine-suggest is a feature to help users notice what they need. YouTube isn't surfacing these suggestions willy-nilly. Chances are, there'due south a reason these keywords are suggested, and then don't exist afraid to go directly to the horse'southward oral cavity, so to speak, to draw inspiration.

youtube auto-suggest results for "sewing a button"

All-time YouTube Tag Generators

To detect the keywords you tin tag in your videos and help them rank higher in YouTube'south search results, hither are three of the all-time YouTube Tag Generators to try.

1. Keywordtool.io

keywordtool.io youtube generator tag results for "baseball"

After plugging your target keyword into its YouTube search bar, Keywordtool.io will provide you with suggested keywords, their search volume, how they've trended over the past 12 months, and questions, prepositions, and hashtags that likewise include your target keyword.

2. Rapidtags

rapidtags youtube tag generator results for "sewing a button"

Entering a seed keyword into Rapidtags and then hit the button will generate a number of related tags for your YouTube video. Best of all, there's a copy button for you to easily pull the text without inbound it manually.

3. YTube Tool

ytube tool youtube tag generator homepage

This tool helps you lot extract the tags from a competitor's YouTube video. All you have to practice is enter the URL, and the tool volition and so return your results.

4. Keyword Keg

keyword keg youtube tag generator homepage

Using Keyword Keg, y'all can enter your target keyword into the tool and it'll serve up its search volume, cost-per-click, competition, on-page difficulty, off-page difficulty, SEO difficulty, CTR telescopic, keyword power, trends, and suggested keywords. You can also filter your results by land and linguistic communication.

5. VidIQ

vidiq youtube tag generator homepage

VidIQ will display your target keyword's related keywords, related score, search volume, search score, competition score, and overall score, which is a combination of a keyword'southward related score, search score, and competition score.

With these tools and types for generating optimized YouTube tags for SEO, you're well on your fashion to getting your content found on YouTube. Go along optimizing other elements of the video as well and monitoring your aqueduct's growth.

Editor's annotation: This post was originally published in July 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Originally published Nov v, 2020 7:00:00 AM, updated Apr 12 2021