Tagging videos properly in Youtube is a tactic that will gain your video a ton more hits and help Youtube work better for everyone. By tagging videos properly, you allow Youtube to properly auto-suggest related videos and add to a richer user experience.
In this example you can see how I improperly tagged this video about Michael Jordan. Instead of “Michael Jordan” being a search term you now have “Michael” as a search term and “Jordan” as a search term.
In this case, since there are so many videos about Michael Jordan, the term “Jordan” will still lead people to videos about Michael Jordan. But when you add search terms like Richard Jefferson, improperly tagged, terms easily get mixed. Someone searching “Michael Jordan Richard Jefferson” will get mixed results like “Michael Jefferson” leading them to this popular South Park bit about Michael Jackson. In a few quick shifts of a search phrase, the user has landed in a place very far away from anything having to do with basketball.
The way to properly tag is simple. Instead of using spaces to separate phrases use quotes for terms that are larger than one word.
So for this string of terms:
Michael Jordan NBA Washington Wizards New Jersey Nets Sports Legends Jason Kidd Richard Jefferson Kenyon Martin
you would put:
“Michael Jordan” NBA “Washington Wizards” “New Jersey Nets” “Sports Legends” “Jason Kidd” “Richard Jefferson” “Kenyon Martin”
Tagging in this manner makes the terms clearer for the search engine and the user. Your video gets more visibility and resides with similar content.
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