Every social media platform can make you a star, but none of them are as capable of transforming regular individuals into celebrities as YouTube is. Apart from individuals, YouTube is also capable of launching businesses and helping organizations reach their targeted audience.

Knowing all of this, it almost goes without saying that anyone who plans to reap all of the benefits has to know how to work the platform for their own good. 

While there are a lot of different ways to get YouTube on your side and force them to help you go viral, one of the most unknown and underappreciated methods is the use of tags.

Below we go through in detail everything you need to know about YouTube tags, how they can help you increase your reach, and most importantly the best ways to make use of them.

YouTube tags are one of the key features of YouTube, yet they remain overlooked by many users of the platform. YouTube tags can be found attached to a video, and their job is simply to make your content easier to find by belonging to clear and concise categories.

These keywords and phrases, alongside the video title, description, and thumbnail are key information which the YouTube algorithm uses to efficiently place your videos in front of the appropriate audience.

Without them, you may be losing a lot of views without even knowing it.

1. They Boost Your Keyword Strength

Keywords are the backbone to any form of search engines on the internet. When it comes to YouTube, the same principle applies. Everybody wants their videos to rank higher on the YouTube search bar so that when people search for that particular topic, their videos is one of the very first set of results shown.

But how are you supposed to rank higher without inserting keywords? Tags on YouTube, as it happens, are one of the best ways to do this. 

2. They Make Your Videos Easier to Find

When it comes to YouTube success, one thing you need is a clear message to both the viewers and the algorithm about what your video is all about. This is why you'll hear people talking about specialization and niching down.

Target audience is key, because once YouTube knows your target audience, it becomes easier to recommend your videos to them. Furthermore, your target audience must also know that your video is made for them. That way you have a higher click through rate and better views overall.

Title and description are the first step towards achieving this, but the importance of tags for the same purpose should not be overlooked.

Luckily, inserting these tags on your YouTube video is a very simple and straightforward process. First of all, you have to make sure you have a functioning channel. Log in to your YouTube studio page and click on create video.

Choose the desired video you'd like to upload, and continue to navigate until you find the "add tags" option. Tag your video appropriately, fill in other information, and upload your video.

That's it. You have successfully tagged your video and given yourself a better chance to earn more views.

For those who have already uploaded their videos without tags, don't worry it's not too late for you. You can still insert your tags by logging into your YouTube studio page and scrolling until you find your video. 

Once you find it, select the video, and under the edit options you should find the tag section where you'll be able to input the appropriate tags.

Lastly, it is worth mentioning that when using tags on YouTube, you must be careful to use only appropriate tags. Trying to rank higher by using wrong tags will be classified as deceiving the platform and can lead to serious consequences for your channel.

Secondly, try to make sure your tags are consistent with the keyword. In case you're still unsure, don't hesitate to check out some high performing videos to see how tags were used and how you can emulate them for your own videos too.