YouTube Tips Adding timestamps to your videos is one step into growing your channel

[Rise Of Jay Cee]

I find adding timestamps quite useful especially longer videos as it allow viewer to search the interesting part of the video that you might mention and also can be useful for those who watch halfway, close your videos because they are busy with something else and wanted to resume watching that part of the videos just so they don't get lost.

The only way to add timestamps is by adding a short description along with the time. Like this for example:

Introduction - 0:00
Middle - 6:00
End - 12:00

You must add 0:00 into the description box otherwise it won't work.

 

[BraveStar]

Sounds like an interesting concept. I am not sure how timestamps affect a video's view time and such but I have to assume these timestamps are useful for a specific type of video. It might not work for every kind of video. Also one should be careful of using such a feature that could diminish one's view time. We would rather have you watch our video in its entirety rather than skip to the "good stuff" right away. Of course, this is just my opinion. At least it wouldn't be a good feature for someone with my content (gaming).

 

[Bears and Butters]

We have seen videos and other creators who have added timestamps.. and their retention graphs show a lot of upticks in the chapters... but lots of drops during the main body of the content. So as Brave Starr said... it really depends on your content and style of video.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

I have not seen any data that reflects any negative impact on a video as a result of chapters... it can help a viewer jump through the portion of the content that they are least interested in and it gets them to end screens better... which can have a far more positive impact on a video than simply forcing the viewer to watch through. Also worth noting that Chapters are individually searchable on Google... making them fairly valuable from a discovery perspective. If a viewer finds your video on Google as a result for a search that was covered in the Chapter of your video then that is a big win (They even have their own carousel feature in Google Search):

 

[CrisVillorejo]

How ?

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

How ?

To include chapters you simply need to do type '0:00' into your description, and then include a timestamp for each moment or 'Chapter' in the video that correlates to a specific topic and title each. Like this:

Video Chapters
0:00 Introduction to Frogs
1:37 Mating Seasons and Conditions
4:12 Frog Species of the Midwest
9:54 Natural Predators for Frogs
12:04 Evolution

There is nothing you can do to affect having it shown in Google search... that is something that Google does automatically as a result of either your video performance or the value of your topic in their search engine.

 

[SHOWBOY MEDIA]

Yes