📖 What Are YouTube Chapters?
Think of YouTube chapters as the table of contents for your videos. They break down longer content into specific, clickable sections, making it easier for viewers to jump directly to the parts that interest them.
This not only enhances the user experience but also boosts your video's visibility in search results, thanks to improved SEO. Whether you're sharing tutorials, webinars, or other in-depth content, adding chapters can keep your audience engaged and help them find exactly what they're looking for.
📌 Why bother adding YouTube Chapters
Since its launch in 2017, the YouTube chapter feature has been a valuable tool for content creators. It adds organization and improves the overall viewing experience.
Chapters make videos easier to watch
For example, if a viewer wants to watch the part of the video where the creator talks about a specific tip, they can use the chapter feature to quickly find that section. It saves them time and improves their experience, allowing viewers to find specific parts of the entire video quickly. Studies have shown that videos with chapters get higher likes/view and comment/view ratios, which can significantly improve your watch time. Adding this capability to your videos has two benefits:
- Improves engagement and audience retention by allowing viewers to find and jump to their preferred sections easily with chapters and timestamps.
- Viewers have a better understanding of the video and are more likely to watch other sections
Chapters improve SEO for videos
The other benefit that chapters can provide (and arguably most important) is when it comes to video SEO. Chaptering allows Google Search to list the video by segment and display it based on related search queries. This can be hugely helpful to garner more YouTube video views when you're ranking for key search terms on Google.
Also, chaptering gives creators the opportunity to add target keywords into their chapter names. This is another opportunity to tell Google and YouTube who your content is for, further helping you find your audience and drive more video views.
📝 Step-by-Step Guide
Manually adding chapters to your YouTube videos is pretty straightforward. Just follow these steps:
Option 1: How to manually add chapters to a YouTube Video
- Sign in to YouTube Studio to manage your chapters on YouTube effectively. You need to have a YouTube channel to access it.
- On the left side menu, choose "content" to manage your videos in your YouTube Studio account.
- Select the video you want to add chapters to and open the video details page in your YouTube Studio account.
- In the description, add a list of timestamps, and a title for each section.
- After indicating the timestamp, always add a space or dash before writing the title of the section.
- Save and verify your changes to ensure your chapters on YouTube are properly set in your description box.
You can also add chapters to YouTube videos by clicking the "edit" tab in YouTube video manager and selecting "chapters." Here, you can add, delete, or reorder them.
For more on setting up YouTube Chapters, check out videos in 6 steps. Watch this video to learn how to add chapters to your YouTube videos. from the YouTube Creators channel.
Manually adding chapters helps with viewer experience and SEO but takes time, especially for long videos.
Option 2: How to add Chapters Automatically (Not Recommended)
So YouTube has a feature called automatic chapters, but it never works out great or shows up. I've seen this countless times, and I don't recommend adding chapters this way. If you want to use this feature just case, all you need to do is check off the box.
- Go to your YouTube Studio.
- On the left side menu, choose "content."
- Click the video that you'd like to edit.
- Click Show More, and under Automatic Chapters, select "Allow automatic chapters".
- Click Save.
Once you have saved your changes, YouTube will automatically generate chapters for your video based on the audio and timestamps in your video. It may take up to 24 hours for the chapters to appear in the video, but you don't have to manually check.
Option 3: How to Add Chapters with AI (Recommended)
TimeSkip is a chrome extension that creates AI generated chapters for your videos in no time. Here are the steps to learn how to add chapters to your YouTube videos:
- Download the TimeSkip chrome extension.
- Sign up after installation.
- Open your video in YouTube.
- Click on the TimeSkip logo.
- Copy and paste chapters to description.
Here's a quick video on how it works with chapters in YouTube videos:
📹 Why Add Chapters to YouTube Videos?
YouTube chapters help break videos into smaller parts, making them easier to watch, especially for longer videos, thus improving watch time. But do all videos need chapters? Adding chapters can help your video reach a wider audience. Not necessarily.
While all videos can benefit from the extra metadata, some are better suited for chapters than others. Here are some factors to consider when deciding if your video needs chapters.
Not needed
- Music videos can greatly benefit from the use of YouTube timestamps to highlight key moments, as it helps the YouTube algorithm.
- Short videos under 3 minutes can also effectively use timestamps for chapters in YouTube videos.
- Videos with no audio or subtitles
Needed
Categories that benefit from chapters include:
- News and politics
- Science and technology
- Business and finance, investing and trading
- Educational lectures and courses
- Tutorials and how-to videos
- Podcasts and interviews
- Health, wellness, and longevity are important topics that can be effectively covered using YouTube video chapters.
Simply put, chapters are great for long videos with lots of info or sections, especially when you learn how to add chapters effectively. There are exceptions, but this is our usual method for YouTube marketing.
📝 How to write the best chapter titles
To get the most out of your YouTube chapters, here are some best practices to follow:
- Use keywords to make your videos easier to find.
- Think about search terms people use on YouTube and Google.
- Treat chapters like a table of contents. Keep it simple and clear.
- Keep titles relevant when you add chapters to YouTube videos to improve viewer engagement. short and clear. Long titles don't help in search.
- Use the main keyword in key chapters, but avoid keyword stuffing.
❓ Why your YouTube Chapters aren't working
YouTube chapters may take up to 24 hours to appear. If they don't work, it could be due to the video format, encoding, or regional availability. Use this checklist to troubleshoot:
- You added a 00:00 timestamp.
- You used more than three chapters.
- The timestamps are in the video description (adding them as pinned comments doesn't work).
- The timestamps are listed in chronological order.
- You used correct formatting in your description box. A timestamp requires a colon (:) to separate minutes and seconds. You should also use a space to separate the timestamp and the title.
- Your chapters are more than ten seconds.
- You have less than 50 chapters which is the maximum allowed.
The number of subscribers you have doesn't affect this feature, so you can still add chapters to a YouTube video regardless of your subscriber count. As long as you have a YouTube account, you can add chapters to your uploads.
🚀 Boost your video's rank by adding chapters
Adding chapters to your videos helps viewers find and understand your content better.
Chapters can improve your search engine ranking and increase views. Start by adding chapters to your YouTube videos.
TimeSkip is the best tool for creating YouTube chapters. It makes the process easy and optimizes for SEO. Save time and focus on your content while TimeSkip handles the chapters on YouTube.
❓ FAQs
Can I add chapters to short videos under 2 minutes?
Yes, but they are best for longer videos with many sections, especially when using YouTube timestamps. For short videos, chapters might not be needed unless there are clear parts to jump to, but adding timestamps can still help your viewers to find specific sections.
What happens if I don't start with the 00:00 timestamp?
The 00:00 timestamp is key for setting up chapters in YouTube videos. Without it, chapters on YouTube might not show up or work right.
Can I use chapters in YouTube Shorts or live streams?
No, chapters are for regular videos. You can add them to live stream replays after uploading.
Are there any limits to the number of chapters I can add?
You can add up to 50 chapters, but make sure each chapter is useful. Too many chapters can confuse viewers, so it's important to balance the number of chapters you include with clear timestamps and titles.