Video marketing is becoming more popular, and it’s on every marketer’s mind. What is the reason for this? In fact, video is now used by 87 percent of businesses as a marketing tool.
This is why most marketing professionals are constantly looking for the most comprehensive and persuasive way to promote their brands, products, and services.
It’s also why, after Google, YouTube is the second most popular search engine and website. Various strategies are used on YouTube to improve a video’s ranking and viewership, as well as to educate viewers on what it’s all about. You should optimize your YouTube SEO if you want to increase the visibility of your video.
Today we’ll talk about how to timestamp a YouTube video and why they’re important to use.
Why Add Timestamps to YouTube Videos?
A YouTube time stamp on a YouTube video directs viewers to the exact point where you want them to watch it. Your video may be half an hour long, and your viewer may not have time to watch it right now or may forget to watch it later. However, by adding timestamps you’ll give your viewers options and ways to get to the content faster.
You can timestamp a specific section of your video so that your viewer only sees a portion of it and does not have to watch the entire thing. YouTube is all about providing a great user experience, so tweaks like YouTube timestamps are great engagement tools.
YouTube ranks videos, in part, based on how long users watch videos and how long they stay on the site. When someone goes to that part of the video by clicking the YouTube time stamp link, it counts as two views. Instead of not having enough time to watch all of your videos, your viewers will spend those extra few minutes watching because they will be able to skip to the content they were looking for. And by doing so they will boost your video’s search placement.
Finally, if you’re converting your video to text for your blog, you’ll want to give your readers the option to read or watch that particular segment of the video.
The more information you give YouTube and Google search engine crawlers, the better they can index your video, website, articles, etc. and understand your content to help you rank and provide relevant information to the reader/viewer.
When it comes to how to timestamp a YouTube video they can be added manually or automatically. There are a couple of ways to do it too. Let’s take a look at them.
Add to a YouTube URL Manually
Simply add the timestamp code to the end of your video URL for a specific video time with this method. Use &t= to indicate the timestamp for YouTube URLs that already have a question mark. If the URL doesn’t include a question mark, you’ll need to add one and use?t= to indicate the timestamp.
You have the option of specifying time in seconds, minutes, or hours.
&t=30s or?t=30s would be used to indicate thirty seconds into a video.
&t=2m30s or?t=2m30s denotes two minutes and thirty seconds.
&t=1hr2m30s or?t=1hr2m30s denotes one hour, two minutes, and thirty seconds.
Use YouTube’s Share Feature
You can also use YouTube’s embedded share tool to add a YouTube timestamp. Simply open your video and navigate to the exact point where you want viewers to begin watching.
Stop the video and go to the toolbar’s share icon. Click the “start at” box in the share pop-up and adjust the time if necessary. Then simply copy the updated URL or use the tool to share the timestamped video with your chosen platform or contact.
Make Changes to the Video Description
You can simply write your timestamps into the video description using this method. Open your video and find the exact moment you want viewers to jump to, then include the time in the description, preferably with a description.
This is a great way to add chapters to your video and make it easier for viewers to find the parts they want to see. Remember to use a colon to separate seconds, minutes, and hours.
