Like its parent company Google, YouTube relies on keywords to help its algorithm determine which videos are most relevant to a users search.

One form of keywords you might find within YouTube tags.

What are YouTube tags?

YouTube video tags are keywords that creators add to their videos in order to help YouTube understand the context of their videos.

• Video tags
• Channel tags

Video tags

When uploading your YouTube videos, you may notice a space for you to add tags, up to 500 characters.

Keywords in your tags are a bit different from the keywords you use in your video title and description. They are specifically meant for the tag section, and they also dont have as much of an impact on your YouTube SEO.

In fact, stuffing your tags into your video title or description can potentially result in YouTube removing your video, so you all want to make sure you use video tags properly.

Channel tags

Channel tags help YouTube understand the overall type of content you create for your channel.

You can add these tags to your YouTube channel settings.

So, for example, if you make videos about baking, you should use channel tags related to the overall topics of your videos, like cake baking, or baking tutorials.

For each individual baking video, you would add more specific keywords in your tags that explain what the video is about, like snickerdoodle tutorial or frosting review. Just make sure any tags you add are relevant.

For the purposes of this blog post, well be focusing mainly on YouTube video tags. However, adding channel tags can still help a bit with your YouTube SEO.

Do YouTube video tags matter for your YouTube SEO?

The consensus is not really.

Even Google says tags play just a tiny part in helping people find your videos.

One study does indicate that using keyword-focused tags can impact your SEO, but on a really small scale.

So, now you’ll be wondering why you ought to bother putting tons of your time and energy into your YouTube tags.

And honestly, you shouldnt.

While its important to make YouTube videos with keywords in mind, you ought to focus more of your efforts on writing keyword-infused titles and descriptions.

But if you’re doing keyword research for your YouTube videos anyway, you would possibly also take a couple of minutes to feature some tags to your videos. It cant hurt (as long as its done the proper way).

How to find the best tags for YouTube videos

When performing keyword research, youll want to make sure the keywords you choose are relevant to your video.

If you have a video about baking a cake, you shouldnt use phrases like monster trucks or dancing lobsters anywhere in your title, description, or tags.

Well that is unless you are baking a cake that features dancing lobsters or monster trucks.

In the example below, you see the video is about baking sugar cookies, and most of the tags center around that topic.

Finding the best tags for YouTube videos doesnt necessarily require you to spend any money unless you pay for a keyword research tool to find your key terms.

Tools for YouTube tag research

First, you can take advantage of YouTubes search predictions.

When you type in a keyword, such as baking cookies, you may notice that YouTube suggests searches related to what you ve just typed.

These suggestions appear for a few reasons, one of which is based on trending searches. Search predictions are a great jumping-off point for your YouTube keywords since they come, in part, from what other people are searching. Another great way to discover YouTube keywords is through a dedicated YouTube keyword tool. Two popular keyword tools are VidIQ and Tube Buddy. These tools are especially great for competitor research, specifically how to see YouTube tags.

Both VidIQ and Tube Buddy have features that allow you to view different keywords and how easy or difficult it would be to rank for them. But the real magic is in their Chrome extensions. After installing VidIQ or Tube Buddy in your Chrome web browser, you have easy access to the tags on any video. Plus, you can see where each video is ranking for the specific keywords its targeting.

If you âre not comfortable with installing a Chrome extension, you can take advantage of a few websites that offer their own keyword research tools.

The aptly named Keyword Tool has its own YouTube setting so you can quickly find the words you need to get your video ranking.

For a more robust (and paid) tool, you can test out Ahrefs YouTube keyword research functionality.

The best part about these tools is that you dont just have to use them for your video tags.Any keywords you discover can be used to spice up your video title and description.

It also doesnt hurt to include keywords in your script if youre using one.

1. Make a list of tags

During your research, youll likely stumble across many keywords that are relevant to your videos. Start an inventory of those keywords so you’ll manage your findings. Having an inventory of YouTube tags can assist you to determine which tags are best, and which you’ll go without. Plus, if you separate each keyword you discover with a comma, you’ll quickly copy and paste your list of keywords into your tags.

The trick to using keywords in your video tags is not to use too many which well cover in the next tip so having a list can help you figure out whats best for your video.

2. Don’t use too many tags

While YouTube allows up to 500 characters in its video tags, you don’t have to hit that limit for your video to be successful. Generally, five to eight relevant tags are usually enough to help YouTube understand your video. Again, your video title and description carry more weight, so you shouldnt worry too much about your tags. The worst thing you can do with your tags is to add a bunch of loosely relevant terms. So if your video is about baking snickerdoodles, tags about other types of cookies wouldnt be considered relevant. Stick to tags that align with your main video topic.

3. Use competitors to your advantage

With a tool like VidIQ or Tube Buddy, you’ve got access to your competitors tags. Dont just check out these tags and advance. Use them! Add them to your list of YouTube tags. If you see all of the top-ranking videos employing a specific set of tags, its an honest idea for you to include these tags into your video metadata. If youre uploading a video about bitter chocolate chip cookies, and you notice the highest channels use keywords like making chocolate chip cookies or chocolate chip cookies recipe, its an honest idea to incorporate those phrases in your tags

If you want to dive deeper into YouTube SEO but dont have the time, our team can help. Our YouTube SEO experts will happily help you grow your business YouTube channel. Dont hesitate to reach out to us to learn more about expanding your video marketing with Digitizal.