More Tags or Less?

How many Tags do you use?

  • Total voters
    15
Strobelite Gaming

Strobelite Gaming

Member
Hey guys, simple question. I've been uploading videos for a month with an upload schedule of 3 vids a week. I use TubeBuddy to help me with writing tags. My process for writing tag is to fill it up with about 26 tags.

However, when I look and similar channels to mine I see that they use a about 5 - 8 tags per video. Was wondering why people use fewer tags and whether its better than using more
 
Use the max 500 characters (or as close you can get) and mix it up a bit with short tail & long tail tags to cover different ways people might be searching for the type of content you're doing.
 
I used to think it was all about the sheer number of tags too, but in my experience, it's really not about filling it up with tags so much. In fact, if you use tags that are all over the place (like if you have an album review, for example, so you use everything from "new Lil Wayne album" to "best rap tracks 2018") the YouTube algorithm sort of spreads your content to a bunch of different search results, but you become lower on those search results, so no one will see your video. Pick a few good tags within a very concentrated range and do as many word variations of that range as possible. ("new Lil Wayne album," "Lil Wayne," "new album," "Lil Wayne album review," "Lil Wayne new album review," etc.). If it's like 20-something that you come up with, fine, if it's like 15, still fine, as long as they're very focused. More concentrated = higher up on the search results = more views. I'd say throw in one that's a longshot too, just to see.
Most of this knowledge came from this guy named Brian G. Johnson on YouTube. I would link the video, buuuuuut YTTalk doesn't let me. So just look him up, he's got great advice.

Hope that helps!
 
Strobelite Gaming said:
Hey guys, simple question. I've been uploading videos for a month with an upload schedule of 3 vids a week. I use TubeBuddy to help me with writing tags. My process for writing tag is to fill it up with about 26 tags.

However, when I look and similar channels to mine I see that they use a about 5 - 8 tags per video. Was wondering why people use fewer tags and whether its better than using more
Click to expand...
Take a look at the age of the videos with few tags. They may be older when the tags were less relevant. Other than a freak viral video, more and better tags will help you get placed in suggested videos.
 
Adding the max tags or a lot of them may work for some, but for me not. I use to post with 10+ tags that were specific to the video. And the videos never showed up on searches with 3 to 4 tag words. Thus, I started using less tag words. And now I use tag words that are in the video's title, plus one or 2 extra, and even then, some videos never show up when searched. And some get more views even with 5 tags. So, the sweet spot for me is tag the title words, and add in one or 2 more that relate to the video.

I don't know if the YT algorythms see too manny tags with the same words in them as spamming. Or if using words with trademark brands as tag words is considered spamming. I'm not a highly experienced YTber. And, I don't have a lot of subscribers, so my input could be totally wrong, which it probably is. Thus, going with what is successful for your channel is the way to go. And if you do some experimenting or trial and error, you can see if adding more tag words helps or not. For me more is less, and for some more may be better.
 
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