YouTube Tags and Titles That Help Discovery
6 min read
Where YouTube actually reads your words, how much tags matter, and how to write a title that earns the click.
Title, description, tags — in that order
YouTube reads the title most heavily, the description next, and tags least. Tags are a minor signal that mainly help with common misspellings and disambiguation. Spending an hour on tags while writing the title in thirty seconds is exactly backwards.
Write the title for a human first: it should be clear at a glance, promise a specific outcome, and contain the phrase someone would type. Front-load the important words, because titles truncate on mobile and in suggested feeds.
Descriptions do real work
The first two lines of the description appear in search results and above the fold. Use them to restate the topic in natural language, then use the rest for chapters, links and context. A description that repeats the same phrase twelve times reads as spam to viewers and adds nothing.
Building a tag list
Derive tags from the video's actual subject: the main topic, close synonyms, the specific technique or product name, and common alternate spellings. Keep the list short and honest. Tags for unrelated popular topics are a policy risk and do not help.
Frequently asked questions
- Do YouTube tags still matter?
- Slightly. YouTube has publicly described tags as a minor signal, useful mostly for misspellings. Title, thumbnail and description matter far more.
- How long should a YouTube title be?
- Short enough to survive truncation — roughly sixty characters keeps most of it visible across surfaces, with the key phrase near the start.