YouTube Question Are Tags mainly beneficial to smaller channels?

[Welcome to Gaming]

Hi guys

I've noticed a few of the bigger channels I watch don't really use their tags effectively. They tend to use very generic or even tags that are't relevant or flat out don't use tags, yet they post very high views and sub counts. One of these channels is someone who was on national TV and dates another big YouTuber so I guess that's how she gets away with it.

I guess this proves that YouTube is mainly concerned with watch time and retention. Two of the Three channels I've noticed this about were in my recommended and i've since gone on to watch them regularly.

 

[TubeBuddy]

Hi guys

I've noticed a few of the bigger channels I watch don't really use their tags effectively. They tend to use very generic or even tags that are't relevant or flat out don't use tags, yet they post very high views and sub counts. One of these channels is someone who was on national TV and dates another big YouTuber so I guess that's how she gets away with it.

I guess this proves that YouTube is mainly concerned with watch time and retention. Two of the Three channels I've noticed this about were in my recommended and i've since gone on to watch them regularly.

Tags still matter no matter channel size. Tags ALONE Do not matter. They serve your title of the video. What I mean is tags should be long tail descriptive keywords that accurately reflect your title. The reason people say/ said tags don't matter is small creators would hope that Good SEO practices like tags, would save their bad performing videos. However, I constantly say good SEO can't save a bad video. Tags matter, but the problem is people want them to do everything.

Tags serve the title, which should be done with keyword research. You should still add them no matter the size. Bigger channels should use them. A lot of bigger channels don't follow YT's advice, and then wonder why they're struggling years later.

SEO is search engine optimization. Tags are apart of them. Until YouTube removes them 100% they still matter.

Also recommend is based on YOUR viewing habits. Search is how a lot of new people can find you, which is what SEO is targeting SEARCH ENGINE optimization.

TLR Tags still matter. Good TAGS and SEO can't save bad videos. Just because larger channels don't always follow YouTube's recommendations, doesn't mean you shouldn't.

 

[Welcome to Gaming]

Yes of course, I guess what I'm getting at is that these guys are coasting on attention from elsewhere? I've since found out another is a former competitive COD player too.

 

[Damon]

Honestly who cares what they--the big guys--are or are not doing? The big guys are doing one thing: creating awesome content for a specific audience, and building a community over long expanses of time.

Forget what "big" channels are doing. Build your channel, build your community, and you develop better content for your audience over time. If you do that your will build an audience. Will it be big? No one knows, but you will build a dedicated audience.

 

[Welcome to Gaming]

Honestly who cares what they--the big guys--are or are not doing? The big guys are doing one thing: creating awesome content for a specific audience, and building a community over long expanses of time.

Forget what "big" channels are doing. Build your channel, build your community, and you develop better content for your audience over time. If you do that your will build an audience. Will it be big? No one knows, but you will build a dedicated audience.

Totally, just thought it was an interesting conversation on how the algorithm works.

 

[ASMRSadie]

Relevant tags help your video get found no matter if you are a small or big channel. IΓÇÖve had mine for years. In the beginning sometimes I would hardly bother with tags and found that those videos got way less views. Now I get many and even the max allowed when time permits and It seems to help with views!

 

[Tito Tim]

By big do you mean the multimillion sub channels? Yeah... they can just post. SEO hardly matters when Ellen posts something - she gets views. Channels like Ellen & Trevor Noah have so many people watching for new vids ha ha. Many times I see hardly any tags on some of the monstrously big channels.

The rest of us need all the SEO help we can get.

 

[IanDominicTV]

I agree with Andrew, no matter what size you have, whether you have 100, 1,000 or even a million subs, tags are critical in finding YouTube videos.

 

[Welcome to Gaming]

By big do you mean the multimillion sub channels? Yeah... they can just post. SEO hardly matters when Ellen posts something - she gets views. Channels like Ellen & Trevor Noah have so many people watching for new vids ha ha. Many times I see hardly any tags on some of the monstrously big channels.

The rest of us need all the SEO help we can get.

The channels i'm talking about have 750k subs and 200k, which is big to me but i suppose not huge. They get solid view counts though. I suppose it could be argued they could have more if they used SEO properly.