YouTube SEO Checklist: Titles, Tags and Hashtags

Much SEO advice for YouTube is folklore. This checklist keeps to what YouTube publishes, says which part of each item is YouTube's statement and which is our judgement, and points to the tools that check the mechanical parts.

Title

YouTube Help sets the limit at 100 characters. It also says the title, along with the thumbnail and description, is more important for discovery than tags.

• Put the main idea early. Where a title is cut off depends on the layout, and our checker shows the cut in each place.
• Match the thumbnail. The two are read together, and the thumbnail size guide covers how the image looks at small sizes.

Description

The limit is 5,000 characters. YouTube Help suggests using the first few lines to describe the video, since viewers see them first, and picking one or two main words to feature in both the title and the description.

• Write the first two lines for someone who never expands the description.
• Add chapters if the video is long. The rules are in our timestamps guide: start at 00:00, at least three timestamps, at least 10 seconds each.

Tags

YouTube Help says tags play a minimal role in discovery and can be useful if your topic is commonly misspelled. It warns against adding excessive tags. Keep a short, accurate list. Our tags guide explains the detail.

Hashtags

Up to three hashtags that YouTube considers most engaging appear above the video title. If a video or playlist has more than 60 hashtags, YouTube ignores each hashtag on it. Hashtags cannot contain spaces. YouTube's page also says that the more tags you add, the less relevant they become for viewers searching.

Our Hashtag and Chapter Extractor shows which hashtags a video uses, highlights the ones likely to appear above the title, and checks its chapters.

What SEO cannot do

YouTube's recommendation system page says the system uses signals such as watch history, likes, shares, comments, "not interested" feedback, survey responses and how long and how much of a video people watch. Metadata helps YouTube understand a video. It does not make people watch it.

1. 01

   Write the title and check its length

   Aim to say the main thing in the first part. Run it through the Title and Description Length Checker.

2. 02

   Check the thumbnail at small size

   Preview it in the search, home and sidebar layouts before you upload.

3. 03

   Write a description that starts with what the video is

   Use one or two main words that also appear in the title, and add chapters if they suit the video.

4. 04

   Add a few accurate tags and no more than a few hashtags

   Skip anything you would not want a competitor to read, since tags are public.

FAQ

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