Hey guys, my name is Tim Schmoyer and every Wednesday
I give you guys some YouTube tips.
Today let's talk about writing tags for your videos.
Now if you guys have read the YouTube Creator Playbook--
especially the one that came out a couple years ago,
the first version that came out-- they
said something very interesting.
They said in there that the order of your YouTube tags
does matter.
And we're going to talk about whether they still do or not.
But basically they said that you want
to put your most important tags at the beginning
because the algorithm weighs more
heavily on the first couple tags that are added to a video
then the last couple tags.
So for many years, a lot of us creators
have been following that advice here on YouTube.
But over the past year, year and a half or so,
I've started to suspect that maybe that's not true anymore
and that YouTube actually doesn't really
care what order you put your tags in.
And so last week when I saw buried away
in one of YouTube's official help pages
that that is no longer the case, that the order of your tags
does not matter, I was like, I told you so.
I knew it.
And so, no, the order your tags no longer matters.
Now along with that though is-- it
used to be that people would fill up
that space with as many tags as you could give it
and that was also a recommended practice in one
of the earlier versions of the YouTube Creator PlayBook.
They said, litter it with as many tags that are appropriate,
both specific and generic tags.
And the specific and generic tags things is also true.
But apparently Google is getting smarter and smarter
at actually figuring out what your video is about where they
don't need you to litter tons and tons of tags in the tag
field of your video when you upload it.
Now I don't think it hurts to still do that.
But what YouTube recommends now is
that you think about how would you
describe this video to your friends.
What words would you use to describe it to that person?
And then, just include those words as tags for your video.
They say, just be succinct.
Now another common question along with this was well, Tim,
how much do tags actually influence
how well a video ranks in search results?
And the answer, according to Google,
is now that it helps Google know initially
how to rank your video and gives them
some initial signals about what your content is about.
And then after they start getting better signals
from Watch Time and what people are clicking
on-- like if this is related to that video, then
they know there's a correlation between those two--
or if people who are searching for a certain query
then actually spend a lot of time watching your video then
they know that that video is related to that query.
So the metadata is important when the video first
gets published but maybe after a week
or so, depending on how much views and traffic you're
getting on your content, that metadata becomes less
important, which makes sense in the bigger
picture of the direction YouTube and Google have been going.
People often depend on keyword tools and fine
tuning their description tags, just altering little words
here and there and wordsmithing everything
to be as perfectly optimized as possible.
And it's been my experience here on YouTube
that it doesn't have to be perfectly optimized in order
for it to do well.
Because Google is really good at figuring now
what content is valuable based on what people are watching
and clicking on, what they're searching for,
how much time they're spending on different videos and so on.
For example, I have a video here on this channel
called How to Grow with Zero Views and Zero Subscribers.
That is a very non-perfectly optimized title.
Yet it's doing very well because Google knows that this video is
valuable for people who are looking for how to get viewers,
how to get subscribers.
Or for another example, maybe you'll
find that when you search say YouTube for music videos
what you get is Billboard Top 100.
Those key words don't match at all,
yet Google is smart in knowing what the user's intent is.
And they have found that a lot of people
who were searching for music videos
are also-- a good result for that is Billboard Top 100.
So for those of you guys are diving deep
into your keyword analytic tools and all that type of stuff,
this is going to drive you crazy.
For the rest of us who are like me, just be like, meh.
I make good content the best that I can.
I put some titles, description tags, thumbnail,
that accurately represent the video
and are also enticing for people to click on,
and I just call it good.
Those more creative type people and less analytical type people
then we will definitely welcome this change.
I'll put links in the description text of this video
here on YouTube that go to the official YouTube help
pages that talk about this in case
you don't want to take my word for it.
And I would love to hear from you guys
in the comments below about what you think about this change.
How is that going to influence what
you do with your channels and your content
as you write that data for YouTube?
And all the stuff I wrote out there
for you guys in the comments below.
And if this topic is of interest to you,
definitely go down there and read the comments
that people are leaving.
Always really good helpful stuff from you
guys here in the video creators community.
And if this is your first time here,
I'd love to have you subscribe every week.
Give you guys some YouTube tips and ideas, suggestions
and advice.
Kind of like this one, tomorrow on Thursday,
I'll do some YouTube Q and A with you guys
where I'll take a question that one of you guys
has about your channel and audience development
and then I'll answer it for you.
And then on Tuesdays, take a look
at some of the updates that are happening here on YouTube
all the time.
Because we do our best to stay up to date with all the changes
that are happening here and how it affects what we're doing.
I do all this because I really believe that a lot of you
guys have messages that need to spread
and I want to help you guys reach the people who
need to hear what you have to say here on YouTube.
So thank you for letting me be a part of that.
Subscribe and I'll see you guys again tomorrow.
Bye.