Tags help identify what kind of sound your track is (whether it is spoken voice, hip-hop, etc.). This makes it easier for your listeners to find it in search results on SoundCloud.  

With the genre field you can add the main genre of your track, this will act as the first tag on your track. You have the option to select a genre from the list already included, which are the same as the genres in our Charts feature, or enter your own custom genre. You can add a tag by typing it into the 'Tags' field. If you have multiple tags, the first one will be considered your main tag, or genre. This will appear on the Stream and Search pages on your track’s waveform. 

What tags to use

Browse Charts for a list of relevant genres and ensure you’re using them in your tagging. For example, “Drum & Bass” is a tag that Explore will locate and surface, while “DnB” is not.

When users search for a genre through our Search engine, tracks tagged with a relevant genre will be found more easily, as they rank higher in the results.

If multi-word tags are not used correctly, tags like “hip hop” get pulled apart and the above benefits are lost.

Adding several similar tags -- say, "Drum & Bass" "Electro" "Bass” and "Electronic” -- to one track won’t improve search results. If your track is “Drum & Bass”, just add one genre.

Audio creators: make sure your first tag corresponds to one of the main audio categories at the bottom of the Explore page. Then work your way from general terms like “podcast” to more specific ones like “NPR.” It helps to include proper nouns of guests or places discussed.