If you’re uploading videos to YouTube, you already know how important it is to help the right audience find your content. Tags might not carry the weight they used to, but they can still improve discoverability when you use them strategically. This is particularly true when spelling errors, synonyms, or common variations of your title or topic can muddle things.
For example, when you search for “how to write product descriptions” on YouTube, its algorithm will search and quickly return the videos it finds most relevant. The way it determines relevance is a complicated combination of descriptions, titles, tags, and the history of viewer interactions attached to each video.
Putting aside the importance of content quality and accurate titles, let’s dig into one of the factors that helps make your video searchable on YouTube: tags.
What are tags on YouTube?
YouTube tags are descriptive keywords that allow the site’s algorithm to better understand your video’s topic and who might benefit from seeing it. The primary function of tags is behind the scenes, helping YouTube categorize your content and suggest it to the right viewers, but tags can also play a role in searchability. In some cases, tags are visible and clickable, helping users discover related videos or explore similar content—especially when it comes to trending topics, niche communities, or specific terms and spellings.
Where do tags appear on YouTube?
Tags can appear in a few places on YouTube, depending on how you add them. When creating a new video, there will be a dedicated section for tags, which will then appear in blue either above the video’s title or between the video title and description.
YouTube gives you a 500-character maximum and asks you to type out full phrases separated by commas. Don’t worry about the hashtags—YouTube will add them for you after the fact. As you can see in the screenshot below, there are three tags, hyperlinked in blue, right beside the upload date.
YouTube will only display a maximum of three tags in this way. As you can see in the screenshot above, there are a dozen hashtags at the bottom of the description, in addition to the three tags between the description and title.
In both cases, tags help YouTube understand the content of your video and deliver it to the right viewers. For example, if you’re an ecommerce entrepreneur with a small cosmetics business, and you’re posting a video called “How to use light foundation to hide blemishes,” tags like #makeuptutorial might help the algorithm differentiate your educational content from makeup brand reviews.
Finally, in addition to specific video tags, you can include hashtags in the descriptions of playlists and on your channel page. Basically, tags help classify your videos and tell the YouTube algorithm where to display them.
How to add tags to YouTube videos
There are a couple of ways to add tags to YouTube videos whether it’s an existing video or a new one you need to upload.
Adding tags to new YouTube videos
Adding YouTube video tags during the video uploading process is easy:
1. To start, sign in to your YouTube account and click “Create” in the upper right corner.
2. If you already have a video file you want to post, click on “Upload video” and drag and drop the file.
3. YouTube will prompt you to add the video title, description, and thumbnail, and it will ask if the content is made for children. You can add hashtags to the title or the video description.
4. Below this first round of questions, there is a “Show more” option. Click this.
5. Under the “Show more” tab, you’ll find a section for tags, which allows you to add up to 500 characters, with each phrase separated by a comma. The tag section looks like this:
Adding tags to existing YouTube videos
If you’ve already uploaded videos, but are just exploring the importance of tags, don’t worry. It’s easy to add tags to existing YouTube videos on your desktop or on your mobile phone via the YouTube app. Here’s how:
1. On YouTube, navigate to the top right corner and open the creator studio or YouTube studio. There, under the content or videos tab, find the video you want to update.
2. Click the “Edit” button, which appears as the pencil icon.
3. Under the video details tab, scroll down until you see the “Show more” button, then click it.
4. Under the “Show more” section, you’ll find a tags box where you can add tags to your existing video.
Best practices for using tags on YouTube
- Keep tags relevant
- Prioritize a few tags
- Be specific
- Update tags
- Research competitors
- Use trending tags where appropriate
If you run an ecommerce business, here are a few tips to keep in mind when adding tags to your YouTube videos:
Keep tags relevant
When building your tags section, keep the tags simple and relevant to the video. For instance, suppose you run an ecommerce company specializing in wooden kitchen tools. If you’re going to post a video about how to best clean and maintain a wooden spatula, choose tags like #woodenspatula or #howtowashawoodenspatula.
That first tag is fairly simple, while the second is very specific to the video. Simple, relevant tags will work better than vague tags like #kitchenutensils or #washing. If tags are too irrelevant, broad, or niche, they may make your video appear lower in search results or related video suggestions.
Prioritize a few tags
It may be tempting to add multiple tags that seem generally relevant, but this approach can actually harm your video’s placement on search engine results. Using too many keywords can confuse the algorithm and possibly even flag your video as spam. Avoid the urge to use too many tags. Stick to just three in the tags field and three to seven more in the episode description. This approach will help the algorithm understand what your video is really about without coming across as spammy.
Be specific
Use tags specific to your video and not your wider brand or YouTube channel. For example, if you run an ecommerce business that sells well-made canvas bags, your YouTube marketing strategy may include posting videos about how to repair different types of canvas.
If you post a video on cross-stitching broken seams, it will benefit your channel to use specific tags like #canvasbagrepair or #howtofixrippedbackpacks. Though you may have other videos about dying canvas, fixing backpack straps, or even reviews of other brands, avoid using tags that are relevant to other parts of your media strategy and instead use tags specific to each video.
Update tags
Just as the world is always changing, so is YouTube’s auto-suggest feature and search algorithm. Luckily, you can always update tags later. Suppose you made a video about a new consumer VR technology. A couple of years later, the technology changes or becomes known by a new name. At that point, you can update your keyword tags to better reflect those changes.
Research competitors
When choosing tags for YouTube videos, look at what other people are doing and learn from their strategies. One way to do this is to conduct a quick YouTube search. Type in the first word or two from your video title into the YouTube search bar and see what else comes up. Then, click on a suggested video to find tags that other people are using. If the video covers a similar topic, you may consider using the same tags or updating your existing tags to better categorize your content.
Use trending tags where appropriate
One way to help viewers find your video is to conduct keyword research into trending tags. There are several ways to do this, but one is Google Trends, which you can use to find related searches, topics, and related tags. However, it’s important to note that it’s never a good idea to use misleading tags. So if a tag is trending but not relevant to your video, don’t add it.
How to add tags in YouTube FAQ
What are YouTube tag examples?
YouTube tags appear as blue text between the title and the video description and at the bottom of the video description. For a video about the efficacy of different water filters for hiking, you might see tags like #waterfilter and #bestwaterfilterforhiking.
How many tags should you use for YouTube videos?
YouTube will display three tags as blue text toward the top of your video description and allows up to 500 characters for those tags. You can also add hashtags to your titles and video descriptions. One study by the California Learning Resource Network found that 10 to 15 short tags (roughly 50 characters apiece) tend to be most effective—so long as they’re relevant. Other creators recommend using fewer than 10 relevant tags, so it’s worth experimenting to see what works best for your YouTube channel.
How do I search tags on YouTube?
YouTube’s algorithm mainly uses tags to serve relevant videos to the right viewers but not as end-all search terms. Though tags play a role in searching for relevant videos, several factors go into a video’s visibility, including the title, description, thumbnail, and how users have previously interacted with the video.
How can tags benefit your videos on YouTube?
You can think of YouTube tags as descriptive keywords that help the algorithm serve your content to your target audience. When you use the right tags, they quickly summarize your video’s content and help YouTube file it properly.
