How Do You Decide On Your Tags, Description & Title?

Hippo-Drones

Hippo-Drones

Pleb
I've heard that tags are a little less relevant than video title and description these days for the YouTube algorithm, although am not sure how true that is. But I do still think that using the right tags for each video must help, else YouTube would drop the feature?

How do you decide what tags you are going to use for each video you upload? Do you even use tags?

I use tags based on my title and description, to back it up and reinforce what the video is about and to also help suggest who may enjoy the video that watches other channels with similar content.

If for example I am making a video of me riding my Aprilia Tuareg 660, I will use a few set tags
eg: "Aprilia", "Tuareg", "660", "Aprilia Tuareg 660"
If I am taking it trail riding, I'll add tags to suit the activity
eg: "Trail Ride", Trail Riding", "Dual Sport", "Dualsport", "Green Lane", "Green Laning", "Singletrack", "Single Track", etc.
If I am riding with a friend, I'll also include tags to suit their bike too
eg: "Honda", "CT110", "Cub", "Honda CT110", "Honda Cub", "Honda C90", etc
My final tags are based on the title used, so that needs to be chosen well too. What I do is cut and paste my video title into the YouTube search bar and see what the top results are for views on the most recent videos. I'll then copy the title of each videos and paste it into the tag box as one single tag and repeat for several of the most popular videos until I have run out of tag space.

When writing my Title and Description, I want it to emphasise the topic, the bike, the type of riding and the people I am riding with (if they also have a channel). So for the above example of a trail riding video on my Aprilia out riding with a mate, my video title might be similar to this:
"Aprilia Tuareg 660 | Trail Riding Ancient Roman Roads | ft: Big_Pezza"
Then my description would aim to repeat this information, but in different words all within the first paragraph. So I may write something along these lines:
"The Aprilia Tuareg 660 is a hugely capable and fantastic motorcycle. It is just as happy on dirt, mud and sand as it is on tarmac and in this video my Aprilia Tuareg 660 proves that it is a far better motorbike, than I am a trail rider. @Big_Pezza joined me on this ride on his very cheeky Honda CT110 Cub, he has just fitted xyz tyres to his bike which are far better than the abc tires he had previously. Pez led the ride down along Stane Street which is an old Roman Road, that has Neolithic settlements and hill forts along the way. It was a beautiful trail ride, perfect for not just adventure motorcycle, but dual sport and endure bikes, and even as seen here a Postie bike like @Nathan The Postman has made famous travelling the world on!"

Note that I have tagged in the channel of the person I was riding with, and also another channel who makes relevant content. I'd only suggest doing the latter if it is actually relevant content, not just a random who you are trying to leach off. I've seen a few channels tagging all the channels they sub to, which is possibly meant well, but no one likes to be spammed and if the video really is nothing to do with them, they should not be added.

I'll then add in my social media links and description of the bikes I ride and kit I wear with any affiliate links as well.
The last thing I add to my video description is my hash tags. YouTube will use the first 3 tags to help gain traction and views from others looking for relevant videos. I generally use 6 tags, the first three being related to the bike I am on, the last three being to link all my videos to me:
"#Aprilia", "#Tuareg", "#ApriliaTuareg660"
then:
"#HippoDrones", "#Motorcycle", "#Vlogger"

I hide my tags at the bottom of the description, not at the top or in the title. I'll also not use any more than 6 hashtags. I've seen some channels hashtag a million different tags, YouTube ignores any more than 11 and audiences will be put off by them as well

Periodically on my most viewed videos (reviews mainly), I'll go back into my title, description and tags to update them to keep them relevant. A good example of this has been my how to video showing how to mount a 360 camera on a bike. I created that video when the Insta360 One was current, but I have updated the title, description and tags several times since, and even the thumbnail a couple of times too as new 360 cameras came out.

I'd be very interested to hear how you come up with titles, descriptions and tags?

Something I want to improve on is my thumbnails, I keep forgetting to take photos on my rides so either have to use a screen grab from the video, or use a picture I have taken on a different ride.
 
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I see you put a lot of effort in to this, compare to me. However I do follow some bits with the tags, you brought out.
There is a set of tags I repeat in almost every video - the country, the bike I have, some channel related tags. I've cheekily even thrown in one in cyrillic, because I know large percentage of the people in my area have slaving native languages, so maybe I'll eventually catch an eye of few of them.
I also use tags, that refer to the title and description, but I don't put even close to that effort in to the tiles and descriptions, as you do.
 
That is a great idea putting in multi language tags. I'd heard that adding subtitles through YouTube can be great for growth, in the same language and also in others. That is very time consuming though, but could be great for your channel where you have multiple languages watching!
 
I have done proper subtitles only to one of my videos, and that's not even motorcycle related. Usually I just do it in the video editor and hardcode them in the video, when subtitles are really needed.
I think it's possible to upload a srt file, which can make creating them a bit easier, with dedicated subtitle creator programs.
 
That looks really thorough already, and I thought I was doing well.

Well I only launched my channel yesterday so I'm still on the steep learning curve but looking into tags, I've noticed that initially one of my videos was showing up in search results much easier than the other. This particular video had a phrase 'Yamaha YZF R125' in the Title and in the description and I'd added it as a tag.

I couldn't even find my other video in search results until I repeated the above and then boom, there it was. May have been a fluke and search results seem to return different results each time but I'll keep trying with the above and see if it helps.

I also add a tag for any which way a person may mistype including lower case as most people cant be bothered with capital letters when searching, not sure yet if it makes any difference though.
 
I'm not sure if capitalisation makes much difference, but good that you have managed to prove that the tags do work by comparing the 2 videos in the YT search! :-)
 
For me -
Titles can be fun to create. Sometimes I go towards being cheeky.

Then I have a template for the description that lists me equipment. I modify the top of the description to have a few lines about the video as that all that shows when the description is collapsed in mobile view.

I normally just use three hashtags in my social media posts including videos.

The tags for the video that YouTube uses for searching are again a set group with mods for the particular video and what VidIQ suggests.
 
Think I need to add my equipment to my description too. Never thought of that somehow.

Can I ask, do you find the Vidiq tag suggestions any good? I've just started using it and am going back adding in tags from it.
 
Roky said:
Think I need to add my equipment to my description too. Never thought of that somehow.

Can I ask, do you find the Vidiq tag suggestions any good? I've just started using it and am going back adding in tags from it.
Click to expand...
I cannot say for certain there is a gain from it other than it helps me with coming up with some and gives a ranking of some used on the video.

I use the free version for now.
 
HippoDrone said:
How does Vidiq come up with it's tag suggestions? How does it know what are relevant to your video? :)
Click to expand...
It seems to use your Title and/or description and then makes tag suggestions. As it’s AI driven, some of the tags aren’t relevant but I have added some to each of my three videos so far.

No idea if its going to help my videos. Probably more psychological at this point :)
 
I hate to say it but I don't put much effort into my tags. I did at the start, but over time I fell into the pattern of simply using keywords and phrases from my description, or things which are relevant to the video topic. I'll fill my tags out in a minute for two for each of my vids! :p

I have tried using "high keyword search" tags gathered from research and effort, but in my experience it didn't help at all. In fact my best performing videos are the ones where I simply through my tags together in a rush and didn't bother much with them.

I do think the title and description matter more on YouTube today than tags do, but that's just my amateur gut feeling....
 
Lots of great insight here... so I'll share what I do:

I have a standard description in my settings on YT. It has my affiliate links, PO Box, stuff like that. To this, I add music attributions, chapters [where necessary], and a quick synopsis of the video's content [where the keywords sort of go].

Then, I add a title - I try to go for something relevant but also either humorous or asking a question.

The TN is a goofy face screengrab from the video, edited in my style to suit the title and video content.

The tags I use are just combos or other ways of saying the keywords in the title and description.

-John
 
I put minimal effort as well into this, maybe I should focus more. Anyway my titles are very simple and standard, no click-bait, I do use the 3 hash-tags like you mention. Description is also very basic, I don't put links to my soc-meds but I will put links to the items (in case of a review).
 
SighBored said:
I put minimal effort as well into this, maybe I should focus more. Anyway my titles are very simple and standard, no click-bait, I do use the 3 hash-tags like you mention. Description is also very basic, I don't put links to my soc-meds but I will put links to the items (in case of a review).
Click to expand...
It certainly hasn't hampered the growth of your channel mate! 8-)
 
Moto Mengy said:
I have tried using "high keyword search" tags gathered from research and effort, but in my experience it didn't help at all. In fact my best performing videos are the ones where I simply through my tags together in a rush and didn't bother much with them.
Click to expand...
Interesting, as I tend to go down that route. I have my blog to accompany my channel and often post on it with my videos too. As I use the Squirrely SEO plugin on my blog, I tend to use that to research keywords around the subject and then pick out those with the highest search volumes. These I will then carry over YT as tags and sprinkle into titles/descriptions. That said, I don't have any empirical evidence that this works better than not...
 
I use TubeBuddy (very similar to VidIQ). Basically, you give it your "Keyword" and it uses that to tally up an SEO Score based on suggested tags and the usage of your keyword.

I don't know how much it helps on small channels, but I like to think it is worth the effort. I use it for most videos where I have a specific piece of info or story I want to present.

It also gives me info on videos I view so that I can see how they are performing.
Below is a snippet from your Camping Gear Video.

Hippo Drones - TB Score.png
 
WaltInPA said:
I use TubeBuddy (very similar to VidIQ). Basically, you give it your "Keyword" and it uses that to tally up an SEO Score based on suggested tags and the usage of your keyword.

I don't know how much it helps on small channels, but I like to think it is worth the effort. I use it for most videos where I have a specific piece of info or story I want to present.

It also gives me info on videos I view so that I can see how they are performing.
Below is a snippet from your Camping Gear Video.

View attachment 6456
Click to expand...
is 100 good for a SEO score? :-)
 
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