YouTube Hashtags function is to categorize a video based on its theme, type, or topic. When you click on the hashtag symbol ‘#’, you will also be taken to a page containing video content using that same hashtag.

You can find a video’s hashtags in three places on YouTube: above the video’s title, within the title itself, and within the video’s description box.

 

How to Add YouTube Hashtags to a Video

To add your hashtags to your video’s description, simply type them into the description box when editing it. List your three most relevant and preferred hashtags first, as these will also show up above your video’s title.

You can also insert hashtags into your video’s title, in addition to those that are published above it. To do this, simply type your chosen 1-2 hashtags into the title section when editing it.

All hashtags you add will be clickable, no matter where they are located.

 

How to Find Hashtags to Use YouTube Videos

There are 3 main ways you can discover the perfect hashtags for your YouTube content that will increase your engagement and make it discoverable by your target audience.

 

1. Trending Videos

Just as with Twitter, YouTube also has a Trending category so you can see which videos are trending. However, it includes videos across many categories, so it can be a little too broad to use in your research.

We recommend searching for the topics you cover on YouTube to determine which videos in your specific niche are trending. If you cover SEO, for example, search #SEO.

This will bring up a mixture of both old and new videos relating to your topic. To narrow these down to just the currently trending videos, set the “upload date” filter to “this week.” Then, browse the results to find videos with the largest number of views. This will determine their popularity, and therefore, these videos can be considered ‘trending’ within this specific category.

Finally, examine these videos to see which hashtags they use. Are there any recurring ones among these trending videos? Or perhaps any related to your own niche that you might not have thought to use before? Note these down to incorporate into your own YouTube hashtag strategy.

 

2. Popular Competitor Videos

This method is very similar to the trending videos method we just discussed, but it entails you looking at a channel’s all-time best performing videos, rather than just the videos trending within the current week.

You should look at any of the channels that were trending in the previous step and other channels that you already consider to be your direct competitors on the platform. In other words, they publish video content relating to the same topics as you.

Again, examine which hashtags these videos use and determine if any may be effective with your own content.

 

3. YouTube Suggest

Remember how we mentioned Instagram has an auto-complete feature when you begin typing a term into its search bar? YouTube also has this feature and will show you hashtags that are most popular on YouTube right now.

All you have to do is type the hashtag symbol into the search bar to see what it suggests. Additionally, you can narrow your research down by searching for individual letters (#a, #b, etc.) or the beginning of relevant phrases.