How to add video chapters (and why)

Chapters are titled timestamps starting at 0:00. On YouTube you add them as timestamped lines in the description; on your own site you add them in your player and emit them as Clip entries in the page’s VideoObject structured data so search engines can show jump-to key moments. Three to eight outcome-shaped titles beat twenty numbered sections.

Updated 2026-08-18 · Markdown version

The rules that apply everywhere

• Start the first chapter at 0:00.
• Keep them in ascending order.
• Give each one enough runtime to be worth jumping to (ten seconds is not a chapter).
• Title them by outcome: "Lock the embed to your domain", not "Section 3".
• Three to eight is the useful range.

On YouTube

Put timestamped lines in the video description, starting with 0:00:

0:00 What this does
0:38 Uploading the file
1:24 Branding the player
2:05 Reading the retention curve

YouTube generates the chapter bar from that when it accepts the format — at least three chapters, first at zero.

On your own site

Two things have to happen. The player needs to show chapter markers and a menu, and the page needs to say so in machine-readable form:

{
  "@type": "VideoObject",
  "hasPart": [
    { "@type": "Clip", "name": "Uploading the file", "startOffset": 38, "endOffset": 84,
      "url": "https://videokr.com/v/tour?t=38" }
  ],
  "potentialAction": {
    "@type": "SeekToAction",
    "target": "https://videokr.com/v/tour?t={seek_to_second_number}",
    "startOffset-input": "required name=seek_to_second_number"
  }
}

In Videokr you add chapters in the video's Chapters tab and both halves are produced for you: markers and a menu in the player, a clickable list on the public page, and Clip plus SeekToAction in the page's structured data. See chapters and captions.

What chapters actually buy you

• Viewers stay. Someone who came for one thing can reach it instead of leaving.
• Retention curves become readable. A drop at a chapter boundary tells you which section to cut.
• Eligibility for key moments in search results — not a promise, but impossible without the data.

When to skip them

Under ninety seconds, chapters are noise. Use them on demos, walkthroughs, webinar replays and course lessons.