How to Add Chapters to YouTube Video

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How to Add Chapters to YouTube Video

Last Updated: 2021. 05. 12

Summary

How to add chapters to a YouTube video so that audiences can get more information about your visual contents? Check this post and get the easiest ways to create chapters for YouTube video.

What Are YouTube Chapters?

YouTube chapter is new to all. It breaks your YouTube video into several parts, each of them has textual information or image above when your mouse is in the progress bar.

This is an example video with YouTube chapter.

Why Add Chapter to YouTube Video?

YouTube chapters help audiences find the contents they like much easier, which means viewers can skip chapters they don’t really need. As for YouTube video creators, adding chapters may help with the video ranking.

Google tends to display a YouTube video that has chapters as the suggested clip. Unlike other normal videos, the suggested clip jumps to a point that answers the search query. And a suggested clip will win over 70% of the traffic of the query.

How to Add Chapters to YouTube Videos?

Creating chapters for a YouTube video is easy! You just need to enter the timestamps in the video description. The detailed steps are as follows.

Step 1

Sign into YouTube.

Step 2

Upload a new video, or find an existing video you want to add chapter to and hit Edit Video icon.

Step 3

Go to Description > Add Details. Add a list of timestamps and titles.

The timestamps should start with the starting time of the video clip and the title. For example:

0:00 Intro

0:30 Part 1. What Is Video Clip Chapter

1:20 Part 2. Why You Need to Add Chapter to YouTube Video

2:30 Part 3. How to Add Chapter to YouTube Video

3:50 Part 4. Like & Subscribe

This format works for videos that are less than 10 minutes. If your video is between 10 minutes to 60 minutes, please start the first chapter with 00:00 instead of 0:00. For videos that are longer than 1 hour, the right format is 00:00:00.

You can use spacing to separate the time and the chapter content. Dashes also work.

Step 4

Click Save. Your YouTube video will be added with a chapter.

Note:

1. If you’d like to add a chapter to YouTube, please add at least 3 chapters.

2. You have to add a 0:00 timestamp.

3. Each chapter has to be more than 10 seconds.

4. 1K subscribers is a requirement for using YouTube chapter.

5. Please list the timestamps in chronological order.

Why My YouTube Chapter Won’t Display?

Three reasons. First, your timestamps are in wrong format. Secondly, your channel might run into copyright issues. Thirdly, your video content could be potentially inappropriate for some viewers.

Should All Videos Have Chapters?

Definitely no. For some types of video like film, music, comedy, it would make no sense to add chapters. Chapters in these videos only reduce the watch time and let your video rank worse on search engines.

Are YouTube Video Chapter Available in All Countries?

Yes. YouTube video chapter is available on all countries. Which means audiences all around the world can see your chapters. But the chapter content will not be translated.

The Bottom Line

That’s all for how to add chapters to YouTube video. If you find this post helpful, please do share it with others. If you have other thoughts on creating chapters for YouTube, do remember to contact us via Facebook.