The Best Youtube Tag Ideas To Use For Music And Musicians
Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) has been a focus for marketers for many years now. The goal of SEO is to optimize your content so that when searched for, it appears right away.
Companies are keen on optimizing their websites to be among the first options people see when they search for their services.
Just this morning, I searched for “eaves trough repair” in my hometown, and ended up going with one of the first eaves trough repair companies I saw – that’s why this is important.
If you want your videos to be found on YouTube (and I don’t see why you wouldn’t), then you need to make sure they are optimized for search.
Remember that your videos will also come up when people search with Google or any other search engine – optimizing your video correctly will lead to more exposure in all corners of the internet.
When people are searching for your video in particular, you want to make sure that they find it without difficulty.
Also, you want your music to come up when somebody searches for your genre.
To do this, you need to be tagging and naming your videos appropriately.
I know, this seems like a pain, especially when you’ve just painstakingly created and edited a video, but it’s the last step towards a successful digital release of your content.
But first, if it's your aim to do music professionally, you'll want to check out our free ebook while it's still available:
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Contents
How Does YouTube Rate Videos?
YouTube ranks videos in its search algorithm using 5 elements:
- Title.
- Description.
- Tags.
- Number of views.
- Rating.
You have control over the first three elements, so you need to make the most of them.
How To Title Your Video
You’ll get the most mileage on your video by developing a great title.
It doesn’t have to be complicated, but it must be done right.
Here are a few things you must include in a YouTube video title:
- Your artist name.
- The song name or an accurate description of what the video is. For example, if it’s a live video, or a full concert, add that information to the title.
- Adding the term “video” or “music video” can be helpful, as people often search for “Artist Name – Video” in Google. So, this strategy can help with visibility.
- If the video is a live video, it can be helpful to put the venue and date on the video as well.
- Depending on the type of video, you can include what kind of music you play – hip-hop, lo-fi, acoustic, etc. These are all good keywords that people routinely search for.
In addition to these basics, there are a few other things to consider.
You should try your best to maintain a consistent style.
For example, if you set up everything like this:
“Annie’s Song” // Liam Duncan // Live Acoustic Session
And keep it that way, your YouTube page will look organized and hip.
There are a million and one variations on this format:
“Annie’s Song” :: Liam Duncan :: Live Acoustic Session
“Annie’s Song” – Liam Duncan – Live Acoustic Session
And so on.
Just decide on a theme and keep to it!
How To Tag Your Video
Tagging is used by search engines to locate content and organize it for whoever is searching for it.
Unfortunately, it is often overlooked by content creators, because it seems sort of nebulous and confusing.
YouTube allows you to include up to 500 characters worth of tags, so you should include both general tags and specific ones.
Start with the big tags:
- Your band name.
- Your primary genre.
- Anything that has to do with the video (acoustic, live, music video, lyric video, etc.).
- Your location, from nationality down to where you specifically live and work.
Then move on to more specific stuff:
- Include any past artist names you’ve had and any common misspellings of your artist name. If your artist name is a moniker, include your actual name as well.
- Add some descriptive phrases like: “lo-fi hip hop”, “texas blues”, “guitar shredding”, “solo piano”, “relaxing music”, etc. These tags can help you get placed among similar music to yours and can result in increased views.
- Any sort of descriptor that you think somebody would search for when looking for your music.
It’s unlikely you’re going to get a lot of results out of big, popular tags like “rock” or “pop”. It won’t hurt to include them, but the more specific you get, the easier YouTube will be able to categorize your music.
You should also be using the tags to control what is in your related video box. You want all of your videos linking up with your other videos.
You can do this by picking three unique (or random) tags, and then tagging all of your videos with them.
Done correctly, this should have all of your videos relating to each other.
You can also tag other artists and similar songs in your video in an attempt to show up on their “Related Video” links.
How To Write A Description
Your description should explain exactly what is going on in the video.
Focus your attention on the first 30 characters, as that is what will be shown in the YouTube search results. Make it either direct and to the point, or something that will attract the viewer’s attention.
You can even try click-baity descriptions like “chillest hip-hop beats” or “the most relaxing music ever” or “unbelievable guitar playing” or something.
Just be careful not to overdo it – people will dismiss you as click bait.
If you are trying to drive traffic somewhere else (say to a purchase link or to a merch page or something) you should put that link in the first two sentences, otherwise it will get relegated to “Read More” territory, and it won’t get any clicks.
After your initial description, you can do whatever you want.
Video credits, additional artist info, info about the video or the song, any other links to social media, can all be included here.
The Best Youtube Tag Ideas To Use For Music And Musicians, One Last Thing
The best thing you can possibly do to increase the longevity and relevance of your video is get a bunch of views, ratings and comments.
If you manage to be one of the top 20 most viewed videos in your category on a specific day or week, that will increase your views more than any title or tag in the world.
You need to push important content to as many people as you can, as fast as you can, when you release it. The more people viewing in a 24-hour time period, the better.
Tags aren't the only important hings when it comes to doing well on Youtube though, check our strategy for succeeding on Youtube with your music.
P.S. Remember though, none of what you've learned will matter if you don't know how to get your music out there and earn from it. Want to learn how to do that? Then get our free ‘5 Steps To Profitable Youtube Music Career' ebook emailed directly to you!