TubeBuddy Tips Tags and Description Best Practices (How To)

[Guitar Hack]

Tags and Descriptions for channel and videos

I would never try to use a tag like 'gaming' or 'COD'. This would be too hard to rank for and I would waste most of my time trying to get it to work. The best bet would be to Brand It and make it my own using it like "COD gaming with Lazy Joe' or 'Gaming with lazy Joe'. I'll still rank just the same for 'Gaming' but also rank near the top for 'Gaming with Lazy Joe'
If your description reads like
"COD gaming with Lazy Joe. Joe's messy bedroom setup. Friday Easter Eggs in COD"
Tags you could use would be

• Joe's Lazy friday games
• COD in Joe's Bedroom
• Gaming with Lazy Joe on Friday 6875F197-FAB4-4309-8CB5-A928EAF48A30
• Bedroom Games - (Might be a bit risky and rated non PG)
• Joe's gaming setup
• Friday COD games with lazy Joe
• Bedroom gaming setup for COD

Now YouTube (Google) know the video is about Joe, it's Friday, Joe's lazy and you are a COD gamer. YouTube gives you 600 characters for your tags so use as many as you can. The only suggestion is to not use the same tag more than once.

Getting the best tag combinations
This is a TubeBuddy Specialty.
Using the TubeBuddy Tag Explorer is easier than it looks.
Take your tags and explore each one individually. The rewards are worth it. I recommend using only tags that are above 70 in scoring. Anything less is useless as there is too much competition for that tag and if your a smaller YouTuber it will not help. Once your channel starts to get views and subs, that's when more challenging tags can be used. You could even upload the same video twice with different descriptions and tags. One with short 2 word tags and one with longer 4 and 5 word tags, and look at the performance difference.

Here is one of my Tag Lists. You can see I'm ranking well in the top 10 for most of the longer tags. Most people don't type in COD if they want to see videos for COD Tips and Tricks. They'll type in COD Hacks and Easter Eggs. They never usually type in 1 word.

Your Channel Tags
Optimizing your channel tags is the same as your video tags. Don't be general by using 'COD Gaming'. Use 'Lazy COD Gaming' or 'Joe's COD Gaming'. Again it's the same principle. If YouTube notices a new channel with a description like. 'This is my new gaming channel for COD'. It won't give you a second thought. And getting tags from that would be pretty hard. But if you use - 'Unplanned COD Gaming with Joe and the Lazy Gamer Crew'. I can see a more direct explanation and at least 50 good tags that could come from that.

This is where getting noticed is the hardest. If you want to rank well for a specific topic, you'll need to work pretty hard to get the right combination of Channel Tags so YouTube looks to you when someone searches for your type of content. Go and look at your competition. I'm sure they don't have all the tags related to that topic. Combinations of their tags will get you ranking for the same topic.

How to edit your Channel Tags
Go to creator studio - It's on the right of your YouTube channel and appears when you click your picture Icon - Click the Creator Studio Button, then click your channel settings, then advanced, then you should see your channel keywords box. Make sure when you put in your new keywords that you triple click, to highlight them all and copy them to a text file for later. You can play with them and come up with other new ideas. Also clicking the save button doesn't always save them correctly and it's a pain in the *** to type them in again.

Just follow 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Channel and Video Descriptions
The same rules apply to your descriptions. The main problem with Video content, is that there is no way a computer can work out what the video is about and relies mostly on your description. The good thing is YouTube (Google) gives you 5,000 characters to describe your video. The more information you give in the description, the better YouTube knows what your presenting. Getting tags from a long description that you can benefit from, is far easier as well. Also write the description with the usual blah, blah and then fill in the rest as if your telling the reader the details of the video from start to finish. Not all of the description is visible to viewers unless the click on view more. But YouTube reads the lot. If it's gaming in Joe's Filthy Bedroom on a Friday night, expand on the story and include highlights of the conflict, the controllers you used, how long the game went, who won, what the sore was, ect, ect.

I hope this helps a few people who are struggling to get going like I was. We've all had to start somewhere and I know people can be secretive about how to succeed in such a competitive playing field.

Cheers
Here is the link to the google search for Best Practices for Description Writing

 

[DragoNate]

Thanks for sharing this! I'm always trying to improve my titles, descriptions and tags. Currently, I try to put as much info in the title as possible, and I'm toning down the clickbaity, ALL CAPS, nonsense. I'm trying to describe something specific about the game for the title.
For my descriptions, I've been putting some of the subtitles/script in for vlogs and the game info for games. I usually put these way at the bottom of the description as I feel links to my social media and such are more important, thus I put them higher. At the beginning of the description though, I feel I could improve on that. I just try and describe what happens in the video, or if it's a live stream, what my goal is with the video, and that kind of thing. Still feel there's room for improvement.
Tags, I constantly change up how I do it and what specific strategy I use, depending on the content. Sometimes I feel there's not much I can do with, so I use a bunch of variations of already used tags, or I shove something else into the description so that it makes sense to use it as a tag, lol.

Either way, these areas are something that I want to constantly improve on and I don't think there will ever really be a one-size-fits-all solution that will work no matter what. It's something you always have to be on top of.

 

[Guitar Hack]

Hi DragoNate. Your doing well!
One observation is your 'Front Door' (Channel Trailer) needs attention. I know channel descriptions are easy to overlook This is how everyone, including YouTube, gets to know who your are.
No Description

No Ranking Tags !!! You need tags that rank!
Your 'About' page mentions gamer once and gameplay once. No gaming reference, no console type and no game titles.
I would mention what your videos are about and less about yourself and your goals. It sounds harsh, (sorry) but until your famous I'd leave most of it out. They mostly want to be entertained and educated for free.

Another suggestion is the amount of links in your descriptions on videos might be looked at as spamming. I would seriously look into the best practices for links in descriptions.
You also need to OWN the tag 'Gaming'. Perhaps blending your channel name, the console you use, and your Faith.

• 'Drogonate's God Like Gaming on PS4'
• 'Game like a GOD with Dragonate'
• 'The Godly Skills of DragoNate'
• 'DragoNate, the Godly Gamer'
• 'DragoNate, Gaming like a God on PS4'

I know that cheats, codes and walk-throughs can sometimes be console specific. so adding your console may help attract more views.
Have you tried making a funny mashup? 'DragoNate 7 Second PS4 Mashups "OMG Funny" I would release 2 versions with different titles, descriptions and tags. That way you can test your audience preferences. Funny V's Aggressive.

Title1 - DragoNate 7 Second PS4 Gaming Mashups "OMG Funny!"
Description - PS4 Gaming Mashup with DragoNate. Follow DragoNate's funny adventures through the PS4 Console in 7 Seconds or less. Funny Console Glitches. Good and Evil Game Play Vines...................etc
Tags - Long descriptive Tags (Your already doing)
Title2 - DragoNate Crazy PS4 Vines, Glitches and Massive Destruction - MASHUP!!"
Same type of detailed description but using terms like destruction, slaying, Crazy, Crusade, God-fearing, etc,etc.
Tags - (Again, be aggressive and use forceful, destructive terminology )

Just a few ideas to set you apart from everyone else and 'Brand' yourself.
If you want me to edit out any of this conversation, just let me know. I have put the details of your channel here so that maybe someone else like you that has a great channel needs the same type of advice.

Just paying it forward

Cheers

 

[DragoNate]

Hi DragoNate. Your doing well!
One observation is your 'Front Door' (Channel Trailer) needs attention. I know channel descriptions are easy to overlook This is how everyone, including YouTube, gets to know who your are.
No Description View attachment 366

No Ranking Tags !!! View attachment 365 You need tags that rank!
Your 'About' page mentions gamer once and gameplay once. No gaming reference, no console type and no game titles.
I would mention what your videos are about and less about yourself and your goals. It sounds harsh, (sorry) but until your famous I'd leave most of it out. They mostly want to be entertained and educated for free.

Another suggestion is the amount of links in your descriptions on videos might be looked at as spamming. I would seriously look into the best practices for links in descriptions.
You also need to OWN the tag 'Gaming'. Perhaps blending your channel name, the console you use, and your Faith.

• 'Drogonate's God Like Gaming on PS4'
• 'Game like a GOD with Dragonate'
• 'The Godly Skills of DragoNate'
• 'DragoNate, the Godly Gamer'
• 'DragoNate, Gaming like a God on PS4'

I know that cheats, codes and walk-throughs can sometimes be console specific. so adding your console may help attract more views.
Have you tried making a funny mashup? 'DragoNate 7 Second PS4 Mashups "OMG Funny" I would release 2 versions with different titles, descriptions and tags. That way you can test your audience preferences. Funny V's Aggressive.

Title1 - DragoNate 7 Second PS4 Gaming Mashups "OMG Funny!"
Description - PS4 Gaming Mashup with DragoNate. Follow DragoNate's funny adventures through the PS4 Console in 7 Seconds or less. Funny Console Glitches. Good and Evil Game Play Vines...................etc
Tags - Long descriptive Tags (Your already doing)
Title2 - DragoNate Crazy PS4 Vines, Glitches and Massive Destruction - MASHUP!!"
Same type of detailed description but using terms like destruction, slaying, Crazy, Crusade, God-fearing, etc,etc.
Tags - (Again, be aggressive and use forceful, destructive terminology )

Just a few ideas to set you apart from everyone else and 'Brand' yourself.
If you want me to edit out any of this conversation, just let me know. I have put the details of your channel here so that maybe someone else like you that has a great channel needs the same type of advice.

Just paying it forward

Cheers

Just going to bed right now, so I'll respond to this in the morning. In the mean time, I sincerely appreciate that you took the time to check on these things and give me some advice! Will update this with a proper reply in the morning!
--- Post updated ---
You're right, I haven't touched my channel trailer in so long. I honestly don't know why I haven't. I've been thinking of making a new one as well. The one that's currently there I made over a year ago, when I had only been on YouTube a couple months. I got some positive reactions and comments (not just on YouTube) about it, so I decided to leave it, but the description and everything else slipped my mind to go back and optimize.
I wills take another look at my about page and see how I can change it up.
I could probably cut down on some links, maybe just put one to my website and have my website homepage immediately show all my social medias, etc...
Your suggestions for owning the tags are good, and I should start doing that and I will also start putting the console in there, which is currently only PC. Thanks for the ideas!
I have done a couple of compilations, but I've focused it more on the noises I make, because often when I'm recording, I end up making weird noises when I'm surprised or laughing or something

Don't worry about editing anything out, everything you've put in your post is great information and anything about my own channel can already be seen the same as you did
Thank you again for all of that! Over the next weeks I will be taking another look at these things and changing & updating them.

 

[Andoni Halk]

Thank you!!! Very helpful!

 

[bobi]

Thanks a lot i just start my channel few days ago and really have only few views on my videos
I did all changes in the topic above and hope so will be much better now
i hope so will see some result of this changes soon


I have question what about
Video location
is it matter do i need to select anything or just leave empty?

 

[Guitar Hack]

I don't think location matters at all, unless your a location vlogger or a travel channel. Location might assist videos that are specifically tagged for an area.
Lets say you had a video about New York. I would definitely use the Location option. If it was a product review, forget it. It may harm your efforts and not be shown in other areas.
Same goes for language. If you select a language, you are restricting yourself to that language.
Hope this helps

 

[Shawn Gossman]

Great article

When it comes to descriptions and tags, I keep my strategy fairly simple. I start searching for keywords in the YouTube search box and then pay attention to what "recommended search strings" are popping up, then I research those. High search rates, low competition = winner. I then make sure that is in the title, description and tags. For now, it seems to be working fine but I love seeing articles like this to learn more about what I can do - keep it up!

 

[Guitar Hack]

Great article

When it comes to descriptions and tags, I keep my strategy fairly simple. I start searching for keywords in the YouTube search box and then pay attention to what "recommended search strings" are popping up, then I research those. High search rates, low competition = winner. I then make sure that is in the title, description and tags. For now, it seems to be working fine but I love seeing articles like this to learn more about what I can do - keep it up!

Cheers...Your tactics on 'recommended search strings' are spot on.
Another really good channel booster is to look at your videos that are doing well. Those with the highest 'watch time %'.
If you copy the title or main tags into google and look at the suggested/related searches, you could have your next hit video ?
Working with what gets the views will keep consistency and boost your channel for that topic.

 

[Murthag91]

Can the date of release influence the rating of a video even with the correct tags? Becouse with my last video i still have not received any views afther a whole day (this never happened to me ever) is not even listed if i use filters or searching it tiping the whole title in the search bar. It is a video where i summerize all the news regarding a new patch that has been released on tuesday in US and Wensday in EU and i fear that having made it and realized on Wensday afternoon when all the most popular creators managed to publish it on tuesday this can make my video not even appear in the rankings.

 

[Guitar Hack]

Can the date of release influence the rating of a video even with the correct tags? Becouse with my last video i still have not received any views afther a whole day (this never happened to me ever) is not even listed if i use filters or searching it tiping the whole title in the search bar. It is a video where i summerize all the news regarding a new patch that has been released on tuesday in US and Wensday in EU and i fear that having made it and realized on Wensday afternoon when all the most popular creators managed to publish it on tuesday this can make my video not even appear in the rankings.

Should not matter. As long as the topic is still trending you have a chance at views.
I use Google Trends to find out what is happening with a particular topic.
You can look at any tag and see what it's doing from 2004 to the last 4 hours.
If you want to build your channel you'll need to tell YouTube who you are. This is possible through your channels tags and about page.
Your about page needs more info for YouTube...
"Description - Hello, my name is Murthag i play World of Warcraft since 2005 and also dota 2." Just isn't enough.

• You need to mention what you're uploading -- I hope you enjoy my weekly video uploads to the gaming community
• The games you have and what you play it on. -- Games played are "Doom 4 on XBox", "WOW on PC" and "Dota2 on PC".
• You also need to mention the type of content. -- Doom Walkthroughs, Dota2 Secrets and WOW hacks and tips.

Your channel tags should also have more of the same info. You only have 1 tag "Murthag91".
If you focus you efforts on making your WHOLE channel about what you do, the views will come.

Hope this helps.
Cheers.

 

[Murthag91]

Should not matter. As long as the topic is still trending you have a chance at views.
I use Google Trends to find out what is happening with a particular topic.
You can look at any tag and see what it's doing from 2004 to the last 4 hours.
If you want to build your channel you'll need to tell YouTube who you are. This is possible through your channels tags and about page.
Your about page needs more info for YouTube...
"Description - Hello, my name is Murthag i play World of Warcraft since 2005 and also dota 2." Just isn't enough.

• You need to mention what you're uploading -- I hope you enjoy my weekly video uploads to the gaming community
• The games you have and what you play it on. -- Games played are "Doom 4 on XBox", "WOW on PC" and "Dota2 on PC".
• You also need to mention the type of content. -- Doom Walkthroughs, Dota2 Secrets and WOW hacks and tips.

Your channel tags should also have more of the same info. You only have 1 tag "Murthag91". View attachment 1264
If you focus you efforts on making your WHOLE channel about what you do, the views will come.

Hope this helps.
Cheers.

Thbx for the tips, i have edited my channel description but how do i add tags to my channel? I see the option to add certain tags for every video i publish but not for the channell

 

[Guitar Hack]

Thbx for the tips, i have edited my channel description but how do i add tags to my channel? I see the option to add certain tags for every video i publish but not for the channell

Go into 'Creator Studio'
On the left menu select 'Channel'
Then click on 'Advanced'
It is the second option now called 'Channel Keywords'.
When you enter a keyword (tag), use quotes before and after and then a space.
Like this
"Murthag91" "WOW Classic Gameplay" "etc" "etc"

 

[GoodGolly]

Hello,
I am new to understanding how to use keywords in your description and tags. Some videos are performing well they are getting many more views than others by 100 atleast. My last video Gemini Sexual Tarot I researched and researched and low views.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You