How to Create a Video Section on YouTube

YouTube is one of the most popular video hosting services on the internet, and most likely the most famous of all the video sharing sites. But, what does it offer for the marketers out there? YouTube has many functions for creators and marketers alike to play around with and optimize. The algorithm can be easily maneuvered if you have the right skills! 

One useful tool is creating video sections, or timestamps, on YouTube. The process is easy and can help search engines comb through your content and video footage and bring it to the top of search results. It can provide additional video information, such as audio descriptions,  and also help your audience skip to the relevant parts of your videos, making it easier for them to find the information that they’re looking for. Therefore, it can become a good digital marketing channel for businesses for more engagement and better customer interaction.

Creating video sections on YouTube is easier than you think! Not only can you do it yourself on YouTube, there are useful apps out there like Inspod to get you quick and easy timestamps. 

Why You Should Use Video Sections

Sectioning your video and using video timestamps increases viewer engagement. From a content creator’s perspective, when video sections are added with timestamps, it helps with search engine optimization (SEO); you’re providing search engines with helpful information on what your video is about, beyond just a video thumbnail and title. Thereby, you can generate video ranking backlinks and improve the ranking. The importance cannot be overstated in your B2B content marketing strategy. Adding video sections will make your videos stand out on the vast expanse of the internet because viewers are able to have an overview of what your video is about before they have to commit their time to watch it.  

Videos of different subjects also have different benefits and applications to video timestamps. For example, if you’re creating educational videos, video sections can help learners resume their lesson from where they left off, or easily take notes on the content with headers. YouTube analytics can also help you determine which videos your audience enjoys most. Alternatively, if you’re part of a video game community and creating gameplay videos for educational purposes, adding video sections with timestamp notes will make your community video more helpful to those who are learning from your video clip. With the help of video editing softwares, you can generate video with ease.

If you’ve created a compilation of video footage snippets, for instance, for your video portfolio or channel trailer, you can use video sections to create a mini navigation menu for your viewers. It’s also beneficial to add video sections to briefing video footage or training films to make it easier for the viewer to go back and find their next steps or a specific video clip. In particular, it’s harder to track important moments in silent films since there’s no dialogue or closed captions. Creating timestamps for silent films makes highlighting key periods of time easier in classic films and gives the viewers additional descriptions. 

Outside of the different genres of videos that can benefit from timestamps, adding video sections can also enhance accessibility to people with a hearing or visual impairment or a physical disability so that they can know what the various sections in your video are about before watching them. It can also be easier for audio descriptions and closed captions to be made from your video clip. Additionally, if your viewer has a poor internet connection, they can choose which sections they’d like to stream instead of streaming the entire video file from start to finish. Timestamps and closed captions can open up accessible video channels to people who may have a harder time than others viewing YouTube videos.

How To Create YouTube Chapters

So, how are YouTube chapters created?

1. Sign into your YouTube account, and go to your Studio. 
2. Click “Content” from the left-hand menu.
3. Click on the video you’d like to edit and add chapters to.
4. Add a list of timestamps and accompanying titles, or click “Show More” and “Allow automatic chapters” to have YouTube automatically create chapters for your video clip. 
5. Click Save.
6. To edit automatically created video chapters, click “Chapters Available” and “Add Chapters.”

Typically, if you don’t add your own YouTube chapters, Google will automatically create them for you. However, the algorithm can sometimes scan your video incorrectly, causing you to have unwanted sections. You can change this automatic setup by setting your own timestamps manually!

How To Add A YouTube Video Section Using Inspod

YouTube chapters work well to guide your viewers, as well as search engines, through a video clip and the different topics tackled within it. Although YouTube Chapters works to help you automatically define those sections in your video footage, a better option is Inspod.

One major difference between the two is that YouTube Chapters are created using text typed into your YouTube video description, which makes it more challenging to track down and list the significant parts of your video clip. If you’re manually inputting your chapters, you will have to type out all the time codes by yourself. However, using Inspod, you can capture the timestamp by simply clicking an icon when you feel like a new section is beginning.

Moreover, on the YouTube platform, you won’t have much space to write down any notes or corresponding content with your timestamps. In Inspod, you can generate note cards and write down as many insights as you need, which is well-organized and simple to read. 

To stream YouTube videos on the Inspod web or app and make chapters, use the following steps!

1. Open the Inspod homepage, and click the “+” icon in the corner.

2. Choose the “YouTube” icon and search for a video clip of your interest. You can also view the trending YouTube videos below.

4. In the note-taking page, click the sparkle icon to capture the key moments. You can rename the timestamp and take notes along with the video clip.

5. You can click on the timestamp to jump to the corresponding moment in the original video clip instantly.
6. You can open the timestamped OUTLINE to check all the timestamps in this episode and click to replay the key moments.

After you take notes via Inspod, you can simply share the URL  of your Inspod episode notes with your audience community or keep them for yourself. You can also copy-paste your Inspod timecodes into your own YouTube video descriptions to easily create manual YouTube Chapters! Otherwise, you can simply paste the Inspod note link in the info box for your video.

Wrap Up

For content creators, video sections are crucial to getting your audience engaged and enhancing search engine optimization. YouTube Chapters and Inspod are among some of the apps that deal with creating video sections and helping you streamline the process of creating video sections, and also closed captions.

Inspod can help you easily and quickly create content that interacts with viewers while adding your own insights and ideas. Also, content creators can collect inspiration and video ideas from other YouTube videos by taking notes with Inspod. Try Inspod for free today and easily organize key moments from your YouTube videos!