Discover how to add chapters to YouTube videos through our step-by-step expert guide. Learn the best practices of adding video chapters to improve user experience and search rankings. Find out the best alternative to YouTube!
Have you ever watched a long YouTube video and wished you could jump to the part that interests you?
That could be frustrating when you discover you can’t. However, that’s where YouTube chapters come in. Chapters in videos make it easier for your user to navigate your video, engage with your content and improve your search visibility.
Additionally, It increases business sales as consumers are over 2x more likely to buy from a brand that uses advanced video tech like adding chapters.
Hence, I will walk you through how to add chapters to your YouTube videos, why your videos need chapters, best practices to achieve this and top YouTube alternatives that will enhance your user experience.
Let’s begin.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Chapters are helpful features in videos, but not all YouTube videos require chapters.
- You can add chapters to your videos in two ways; manually and automatically.
- You need to keep your chapters and chapter title concise to improve both user experience and SEO visibility.
- Adilo is our top recommended Youtube alternative for video and podcast hosting for businesses, creators, marketers and educators.
- Adilo is an ad-free, premium video, podcast and audio hosting software offering you unlimited hosting and no restrictions on your videos.
- Adding chapters to your videos is a lot more fun and easier with Adilo.
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- Adilo vs YouTube: Why I dumped YouTube for Business Video Hosting
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- Comprehensive Adilo Review 2024: Why It’s the Best Video Hosting Platform and Why You Should Use It
What Are YouTube Chapters?
Chapters are different sections a video is broken down into, making it easier for viewers to skip to specific parts of the video without searching through the entire video.
Chapters in videos are similar to chapters in a book. Video chapters appear as clickable sections on the video progress bar with each having its own timestamp and title.
In other words, chapters are the table of contents for your video, as it enables your viewers to quickly jump to their section of interest. This in the long run, improves your user experience and makes your content well organized and accessible.
Also, you can add chapters to your videos in two ways; manually and automatically, which you will discover in this guide.
Which of Your YouTube Videos Need Chapters?
Do all YouTube videos need chapters? No!
As much as chapters are helpful features in videos, not all YouTube videos require chapters. For instance, creating a 30-second explainer video doesn’t require chapters as they are straight to the point and viewers are most likely to watch the entire video.
Also, including chapters in short YouTube videos could bring a hitch in a viewer’s understanding of your content as the chapters split the videos into different ideas.
However, learning how to add chapters to your YouTube videos comes in handy for lengthy videos like tutorials, how-to videos, product reviews, interviews and educational videos.
Chapters help divide the video into key topics and sections, making it easier for learners to revisit important sections without watching the entire video again. Similarly, podcasts can benefit from chapters, in addition to utilizing an effective podcast hosting platform.
Why Should You Add Chapters to YouTube Videos?
Perhaps you are wondering why you need to learn how to add chapters to your YouTube videos when your contents are interesting and informative.
I’ll tell you.
Improving your video user engagement in the 21st century is beyond putting out interesting and informative content, although they have a role to play, just as a good video hosting platform also influences your video efficiency.
Hence, you need to organize your informative content in a navigable way to get users to engage with it. Wondering how to go about it?
Here’s how:
Makes It Easier for Viewers to Navigate Your Videos
Learning how to add chapters to your YouTube videos helps you save your viewers the stress of browsing through your entire content to locate a key point they need.
These days, viewers don’t have the time to watch an entire lengthy video when they are probably interested in just a section. Adding chapters makes it easier for them to navigate your videos and jump directly to specific parts. It’s like helping viewers get to their destination by providing them with a shortcut!
Most importantly, chapters help your viewers to re-watch key points or find information they might have missed without having to go over the entire video again.
Increases Your Video Watch Time
Looking for ways to increase your viewer watch time on your videos?
If yes, learning how to add segments to your YouTube videos might be the answer you need. Viewers are likely to stay longer on a video where they can quickly access what they are interested in.
Imagine watching a video on free platforms to upload your videos, you are most likely to spend more time on the section that talks about the platforms. You might even re-watch that section over and over to get a hang of all features to make the right choice.
I think that’s exactly what your viewers would do when your video has chapters which definitely increases your video watch time.
Improve Your Video Ranking in Search Results
You didn’t put your video out there on YouTube for the fun of it, you want viewers to locate your video and find it informative enough to engage with it.
To achieve this goal, you need to focus on search engine optimization practices for videos, of which learning how to add chapters to your YouTube video is a good start. YouTube chapters serve as additional metadata for your videos which improves your video ranking in search results.
Additionally, chapters offer you more opportunity to include your keywords into your videos.
Enhances Viewers Engagement With Your Video
Your viewers are able to interact with your video more as they navigate through different sections of your video, in contrast to just clicking on the play button once and watching till the end.
Chapters keep your viewers engaged longer as they pause and take note, re-watch sections, or share to their friends and family. This in turn encourages return visits from your viewers since they can quickly get a hold of valuable information through your video chapters.
How to Add Chapters to Your YouTube Video Manually?
Step 1: Sign in to Your YouTube Account
To add chapters to your YouTube videos begin by logging in to your account if you aren’t already logged in.
Step 2: Locate Your Content Section
Click on content on the menu icon to display your video library. This will display all your videos uploaded and published on your channel.
Step 3: Select the Video You Want to Add Chapters
Hover around to locate the video you want to add chapters to and click on the video title or the pencil edit icon beside the video. This will take you to the video details page for editing.
Step 4: Navigate to the Add Details and Scroll to Description Section Below
Scroll down to your video description box. This is where you will manually input your video timestamps and chapters titles.
Step 5: Add Timestamps and Chapter Titles
Here is where you create your chapter by creating timestamps beginning with 00:00 with a corresponding chapter title/name like “Introduction”. Ensure that your chapters are at least 10 seconds apart.
Steps 6: Click Save to Apply Changes
Ensure you have entered all the needed chapters and corresponding timestamps before clicking on save to apply your changes.
How to Add Chapters to Your YouTube Video Automatically?
Let’s begin.
Step 1: Go to Your Channel Dashboard
To add chapters to your YouTube videos automatically log in to your account and go to your channel dashboard.
Step 2: Locate Your Content and Select the Video You Want to Edit
Click on content on the menu icon to display your video library. This will display all your videos uploaded and published on your channel. Select the video you want to edit.
Step 3: Navigate to Video Details
Locate your video details option and scroll down to the description section.
Step 4: Click on Show More to Reflect Automatic Chapters
Click on the automatic chapter option beneath the description section or depending on your interface, you might need to click on the show more option under description section to find the “automatic chapters” option.
Step 5: Enable the “Allow Automatic Chapters and Key Moment”
Check the allow automatic chapter and key moment box to enable automatic chapter. This setting allows YouTube to automatically create chapters for your video by analyzing your video audio and content.
Step 6: Edit and Save to Apply Changes
You might need to edit the title and timestamp to suit your taste as YouTube automatic chapter titles might not suit your video content. Afterwards, click the save button to apply changes.
Follow These Best Practices to Add Chapters to Your YouTube Videos
Learning how to add chapters to your YouTube videos is one half in getting started, however, following these best practices to add chapters to your videos completes the equation:
1. Keep Chapters and Chapter Title Concise
You need to keep your chapters and chapter title concise to improve both user experience and SEO visibility. Ensure each chapter focuses on one main point or section of the topic and the title for the chapter should summarize it in a few words.
This makes it easier for viewers to scan through all your video chapters in a glance and know which is most important to them without feeling overwhelmed by long titles or too many sections.
For instance, a 15-minutes tutorial video on how to start a video production company could have the following concise chapters:
- 00:00 – Introduction
- 02:30 – Video Production Requirements
- 05:00 – Company Guidelines
- 08:00 – Steps to Start a Video Company
2. Use Descriptive Titles
You can avoid misleading your viewers by using descriptive titles in your video chapters.
In other words, your chapter title should clearly describe the content that chapter covers. This way, your viewers get to understand what each section entails even before clicking to watch.
Using our initial examples on starting a video production company, a chapter having a title; “Video production requirements” simply tells the viewer that this section covers everything needed before starting a video production company.
3. Optimize for SEO
Adding chapters to your YouTube video without optimizing for SEO might not get you the right audience your video was created for!
Hence, chapters are beyond helping viewers navigate your video, they also help you increase your video search ranking when utilized well. So, the next time you’re creating your video chapters ensure you include specific keywords related to your video’s topic and are commonly searched.
Back to our initial topic on how to start a video production company, chapter 2 of our video having the title “video production requirement” is an excellent keyword. Hence, your video stands a chance to appear on search results when someone searches the keyword, “video production requirement”.
4. Maintain Consistent Formatting
Consistency is a vital element in learning how to add chapters to your YouTube videos to improve user experience as this entails a smooth flow and connection between all chapters and titles in your video.
For instance if you’re going to use the “hh:mm” followed by the title, then maintain that format throughout the entire video. This way, a viewer can easily navigate your chapters without being confused.
5. Review and Adjust Chapters
Sorry to break this to you; but your job doesn’t end when chapters are successfully added to your video.
In contrast, it requires a continuous process of reviewing and adjusting to identify possible hitches and having them fixed. It’s important to monitor how your users engage with your video to know if you need to top up your game.
You can access such data by checking your YouTube analytics to see which chapters are being skipped and which are revisited by your users. This data enables you to review and tweak skipped chapters for better user experience.
Looking for a Better YouTube Alternative?
The video hosting platform YouTube is sure popular, sounds familiar and has been a game changer over the years, but it is definitely not the best video hosting platform!
And here’s why.
The platform’s restriction policies, unwanted ads inclusions, privacy and security rules amongst other hitches make it unsuitable for business video hosting. As a result, several YouTube users are actively searching for better video hosting platform alternatives.
Perhaps you’re one of them.
The best part is, several YouTube alternatives are out there for your consideration, but from experience, Adilo beats them all. Don’t take my word for it.
CLICK HERE TO GET A FREE ADILO ACCOUNT
Adilo is an ad-free, premium video, podcast and audio hosting software offering you unlimited hosting and no restrictions on your videos. It comes with a user-friendly interface, which enables you to upload, create, edit, organize, host, market, analyze and import videos from other platforms in one dashboard.
What’s more; with Adilo you don’t have to worry about security, as its privacy tools protect your videos with passwords, domain whitelisting and private link-only access.
Additionally, with Adilo you have full customization access to your videos, unlimited bandwidth, multiple users and collaboration features, M3U8 and linear TV streaming source, and standard analytics to monitor your project performance.
Hence, it is our top recommended Youtube alternative for video and podcast hosting for businesses, creators, marketers and educators.
Perhaps you’re still unsure about signing up to Adilo hosting, consider reading our honest Adilo review, I guarantee that you would sign up even before reading the entire review.
How to Add Chapters to Adilo Videos
You can enhance your viewers experience by adding chapters to your video with Adil.
With this, your viewers can easily skip to parts of your video they’re most interested in with a single click without scrubbing through the entire video.
Adilo video chapters revolutionize educational content such as guides, training or webinars, workshops or how-to’s videos by allowing viewers to visit key points without spending hours watching the entire video.
Also, Adilo video chapter feature helps you keep your audience captivated with well-organized, long-form content. From documentaries to serialized storytelling, your users can navigate to points of interest and catch up on missed segments effortlessly.
Adilo Video Chapter Features
- No third-party costs
- Unlimited transcription
- All-inclusive with your Adilo account
- Simplifies content revision
- Facilitate targeted learning
- Ideal for online courses and tutorials
- Support episodic viewing experience
- Enhance viewer reunion
- Ideal for serialized content and documentaries
- Support chapters on video, audio and podcast
- Player control option to hide chapters without deleting and restore them on your video anytime.
Steps to Add Chapters to Adilo Videos
Compared with how to add chapters to your YouTube videos, adding chapter to Adilo video is much easier as follow:
- Login into your Adilo account or Sign up here if you don’t have one
- Navigate to your video library in your project
- Choose the video you want to add chapter to
- Click on the edit/menu icon beneath the video progress bar to reveal the add chapters option
- Add your chapters titles and timestamp
- Click save to apply changes
Handpicked For You:
- Adilo vs YouTube: Why I dumped YouTube for Business Video Hosting
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- Comprehensive Adilo Review 2024: Why It’s the Best Video Hosting Platform and Why You Should Use It
FAQs
1. Is there a minimum number of chapters I need to add?
Yes, you need at least 3 chapters for your YouTube video to reflect the chapters in your video.
2. Can I edit or remove chapters after my video is published?
Yes, you can update your video description, add, modify or remove chapters at any time and YouTube will automatically adjust the video progress accordingly.
3. What are the requirements for length of chapters?
For chapter length, each chapter must be at least 10 seconds long.
4. Do I need any software or tools to add chapters to videos?
No, you don’t need any third-party software or tool to add chapters to your YouTube video. In contrast, you can add chapters manually or automatically from your YouTube dashboard.
5. What format should I use for timestamps?
Your YouTube video timestamps should be in the format of 00:00 if your video is in minutes or 0:00 if your video is less than an hour long and for longer videos like educational tutorials you can use the format “00:00:00”.
Final Thoughts on Adding Chapters to Your YouTube Videos
This guide has simplified the steps on adding chapters to your YouTube videos. However, to enjoy a streamlined, unlimited hosting with ad-free streaming, I recommended Adilo.
Adding chapters to your videos is a lot more fun and easier with Adilo.
Also, to improve your user experience with chapters, ensure to keep your title concise and descriptive, optimize for search engines, and maintain a consistent formatting style.
Don’t forget that seeing results with video chapters is a continuous process, hence, keep track of your viewers analytics and keep making adjustments where necessary.
You can sign up on Adilo for free and start enjoying seamless video hosting services. Besides, feel free to share with us your experience with adding chapters to your videos in the comment section.
Experience: Happiness Hassan is an SEO content writer and strategist with over 7 years of experience helping brands boost visibility, engagement, and sales.
Expertise: Whether it's keyword research, crafting content, or fine-tuning on-page and off-page strategies, I’ve got you covered. My goal is beyond driving traffic but making your users experience a win-win for everyone!
On the coaching side, I’ve trained countless writers to turn their passion into profitable SEO careers. I help them navigate the SEO path, standing out in even the toughest niches and cashing in on their skills.
When I’m not geeking out over SEO, you’ll find me deep in the world of self-development. As a dedicated student of continuous growth, I write about my growth journey, sharing insights to help others unlock their potential.
Education: Complementing my BSc. Geography and Environmental Management from the prestigious Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, I have honed my skills as an SEO content writer and strategist through comprehensive training at Northpad, where I gained expertise in crafting optimized content to boost search engine visibility. As a certified student of Jobberman Soft Skills Training, I developed strong communication and problem-solving skills, which complement my SEO proficiency.
My dedication to continuous personal learning and online training keeps me updated with the latest industry trends, enabling me to create content that aligns with the ever-evolving demands of search engines and user experiences. I stay connected with top experts to ensure my strategies remain current and effective.
Felix is the Senior Content Editor and Strategist at Adilo, where he harnesses his expertise in social video marketing, online video platforms, video editing, e-commerce, e-learning, and marketing to to help businesses drive results. With a keen eye for storytelling and a pulse on industry trends, Felix crafts actionable content that empowers brands to elevate their video marketing strategies and thrive in the digital landscape.
