Although content is king, user experience reigns supreme. Viewers must be able to easily find the content they are looking for in order to avoid disappointment.
After all, what’s the point of having content that’s not accessible?
The purpose of the search box in your streaming website/app is to provide a slate of relevant results and enable users to find the content that they are looking for.
How to enable users to find their desired content?
The answer is simple. Metadata. Filling in the right information while uploading a video can enable your users to find them easily.
The more accurate and detailed your metadata is, the easier it is for your audience.
Tags - what are they?
Tags are snippets of text that describe your video content. These tags don't appear anywhere in your video description yet they enable viewers to find your video content both within your website/app and search engines.
Tagging best practices
Though, you fill in metadata like title, cast & crew, genre, etc. You can always fill in the same data in tags.
While filling in the tags section, think of it from the audience's perspective.
Let's consider that a user wants to watch The Shawshank Redemption. Now let's list out the things they will search for
The Shawshank Redemption | obviously the title. This is what a person will type in unless they don't remember the name. | so the Title is the first tag you should fill |
Shawshank Redemption | a lot of people tend to skip the. | don't worry. the first tag covers this. |
classic movies to watch | Yes. There are some people who come with an open mind | Add appropriate words to describe the content 💡 Make sure you add 'classic' only for real classics. Otherwise, the tag would become useless |
Tim Robbins Morgan Freeman | There are people who search for morgan freeman movies.
There is also another bunch who remember watching a movie starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman but don't remember the movie's name | Cast and Crew information can help your audience find stuff they are looking for |
Drama crime-fiction | Haven't you ever asked Alexa to find some crime-fiction classics for you? | Genre. This is one of the most common ways of finding content today |
prison atonement friendship escape strategy hope | There are people who look for movies with a specific theme.
'Movies about prisoners' 'movies on hope' | Though these tags may not be high-performing. They still added value |
So my tags would be
The best way to add tags to your videos is to think about your audience's preferences.
💡 Pro tip: You can prepare a comma-separated list of keywords (tags) and simply paste it into the Video tags section so that when people search for them on the website and apps.