Adding Chapters To Your MSP YouTube Videos
Key Points From The Article:
- YouTube is an untapped market for MSPs.
- The platform promises a huge potential return because many MSPs leveraging it are driving huge success in their business.
- One excellent YouTube marketing strategy is including chapters and timestamps in your videos.
- YouTube video chapters are handy navigation tools that help viewers to jump to exactly the part of the video they want to view. Chapters also help with your video ranking.
YouTube is an untapped market for MSPs. The platform promises huge potential returns because most IT companies leveraging video marketing are driving huge success in their business.
One excellent tool your MSP can leverage in YouTube videos is chapters. Chapters and timestamps feature allow you to optimize your video and allow viewers to jump to the part of your video they want to view.
Before jumping into how to add timestamps and chapters to YouTube videos, here's an important point you should understand.
YouTube is an Important Part of MSP Marketing Strategy
Nearly all IT services businesses on YouTube are getting success because much of content marketing shifted to video streaming.
YouTube videos present an opportunity for your company to inspire, evoke emotions, and appeal to your prospects. Videos do what text can't — creating an immediate, real, and authentic route of interaction and connectivity.
Adding Timestamps and Chapters to Your YouTube Video
Timestamp allows your MSP business to add specific times to sections of your video so that viewers can quickly find what they're looking for.
Chapters are similar to timestamps but allow you to divide your video into different sections with headings, each with an individual preview. Chapters are excellent for longer videos because they give more information and context to viewers by allowing them to rewatch different parts of the video.
YouTube will display your chapters both on desktop and on mobile.
On mobile, your viewers will see the chapters by hovering over the red progress bar. The viewers can also maximize the chapters by clicking on the chapter title in the video. On the desktop, when a YouTube viewer scrolls down to your video, they'll see timestamps of chapters above the comment section.
A viewer can click any part of the video and automatically skip to the specific chapter. You can add timestamps and short or longer videos like webinar recordings or longer videos. The timestamp is a great way to simplify your viewers' work in finding the information they want.
How to Set Up Timestamps or Chapters in Your YouTube Videos
YouTube will automatically generate your chapters based on the timestamps you enter in the video description and will show them in the video progress bar below your video.
Here's a step-by-step guide to adding chapters to your YouTube video:
- Head over to YouTube and Sign in to your account.
- Find the video you want to add chapters on, and hit the "Edit Video" button under the video.
- Navigate the "Add details" option and click on it.
- In the "Description" box, add the list of timestamps and titles.
- Hit the "Save" button to add the timestamps and the chapter titles.
When done, chapters will appear along the scrubber bar as segments. You can add chapters and timestamps when uploading your videos or later in the editing stage.
Structuring YouTube Timestamp
One timestamp technically has two parts that you key-in in the description and Google displays on its search pages:
- The time code
- Chapter content/label
To create YouTube chapters the right way, start by adding the list of timestamps in the following format:
- m:ss [Chapter Headers] i.e 0:00 [Chapter Header] for videos less than 10 minutes
- mm:ss [Chapter Header] i.e. 00:00 [chapter header] for video length between 10 - 59 minutes
- Hh:mm:ss [Chapter Header] i.e. 00:00:00 for videos longer than 1 hour.
To separate the timestamps in your list, you can use dashes or just add a single space — whichever separation method you choose, YouTube will just take the text afterward.
Whichever format you choose, ensure the first timestamp in your video description starts at 0:00 or 00:00 — depending on the length of your video. More importantly, your video must have at least three chapters or timestamps, each going for at least 10 seconds.
What Can Prevent YouTube Chapters from Working in Your Video
Several reasons can make your YouTube chapters not work on your video, which includes:
- Failure to include the 0:00 or 00:00 timestamp
- Adding less than three chapters to your video
- Having a chapter that runs for less than 10 seconds
- Failure to list your timestamps in a chronological order
- Entering time code with . instead of :
- Your channel has active copyright strikes
Using Keywords in Your Chapters and Timestamps
When your MSP has a good keyword research strategy, using keywords to name your YouTube video chapter could be a great way to optimize your videos for better ranking.
For instance, when publishing a video titled "Why Your Busines Should Buy Cyber Risk Insurance" instead of labeling chapters after random terms, you can include keywords. In such a case, a more optimized chapter would be:
- The Importance of First-Party Coverage
- How Third-Party Liability Coverage Protects Businesses
Adding such chapter headers in your video will greatly impact performance.
Do Videos with Chapters Show Up on Google Search Quickly?
YouTube chapters are handy navigation tools, and they are starting to appear in Google searches.
According to YouTube, the platform will start to display video chapters on Google's search page. Not only on the video page of the search engine but right in the search result. Your viewers will easily jump to the exact part of your video they want to see.
When you use keywords in the chapter description, you'll help Google index your YouTube video fairly quickly and help you rank faster. YouTube will quickly know what your video is about and rank you faster on their search engine page.
Over time, your video might appear on the Featured Snippet.
Ulistic Will Shoulder All Your MSP Marketing Needs
There is no question you can execute the timestamping and chapter creation for your YouTube videos for yourself. However, you might need help with proper formatting, optimizing your videos for search engines, or additional advice on what to optimize further with your video description, tags, or title.
Ulistic will help you navigate the video marketing world for MSPs. For over 12 years, we've helped over 500 companies in Canada and USA, and we can help you too. Contact us today to get customized marketing services that suit your unique wants.
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