Keyword Research For YouTube? Now, why would someone need that, that’s too easy to predict right? Nope!
Ever thought about how some YouTube channels get millions of views so fast and on every video they post?
The shortest answer is that they understand how the platform functions.
So, they craft their strategy accordingly to deliver their content to more users precisely.
If you dig deep, the primary thing they do is keyword research for YouTube and add them in their title and descriptions. And this makes it simple for users looking for specific content to find them on top.
What’s the good news?
You can perform the same techniques to deliver your content to more users and increase your views. And this YouTube keyword search guide is all about that.
Of course, you can put up your creativity, time and energy into creating a valuable video and release that randomly on YouTube. And pray for the best.
Or,
You can learn the basics of YouTube SEO Keyword Research and skyrocket your views and subscribers.
So, here we will learn how to do keyword research for YouTube videos to skyrocket the view on your videos.
But first, Let’s start from the basics!
What Is a Keyword on YouTube?
If you have a basic idea of SEO, you would have known the meaning of keywords.
They’re words or phrases that people search on a search engine (say YouTube in this case).
YouTube keywords are the words or phrases that users search for. Then YouTube searches for the videos that have the same words on their title or descriptions to give them the best results.
So, you can these keywords in your title, description, or anywhere else that indicates YouTube’s algorithm that you have the same keyword that the user is searching for.
Why Even Perform YouTube Keyword Research?
You might think that I can drive viewers to my videos from other sources. But just like any other search engine optimization, the aim is not to just attract people to your content but to attract the right type of people.
That said, the video is optimized by adding the keywords that relate to the content of your video and what the audience is searching for.
Performing YouTube keyword research can help you in various ways such as
- Driving more users to your videos and your channel
- Driving the right type of users to your videos i.e, the ones that gain value from your content and would come back for more.
- Helps you stand out from the competition
So, now that you know it’s quite useful. Let’s ask the big question,
How To Do Keyword Research For YouTube?
There are numerous ways out there to find keywords for your YouTube videos. We’ll be discussing the major ones of them right here.
The YouTube keyword research process is quite similar to any other search engine’s keyword research process. But if you have never done keyword research for any search engine, don’t worry, we’re here to back you up.
Keyword search for YouTube can be a bit lengthy and tiring but sure ain’t hard at all.
Following are the best ways to find keywords for YouTube videos based on pricing and effectiveness:
YouTube’s Autocomplete Feature
The simplest and entirely free technique to find keywords for YouTube videos.
Just start typing the words in the YouTube search bar and you would see a list of suggestions.
These suggestions are the keywords that real people search for and that YouTube think are potential keywords.
Get Keywords From Popular Videos
The next way to get keyword ideas is to see what keywords other popular creators are using. You can use chrome extensions to find out the competitor’s keywords.
Or you can do that by yourself too but that would be a little lengthy and complex process for a beginner. So, I suggest you use a chrome extension for this.
Keyword Research Tools
Well, just like there are tools to find keywords for other search engines like Google, there are YouTube keyword research and planner tools too.
There are many amazing free and paid tools like Keyword Magic Tool by Semrush, vidiq keyword research tool, tubebuddy keyword research and explorer tool.
While some tools are free, others work on a paid subscriptions basis. You can use any of them as per your budget. I suggest using the free ones if you’re a beginner.
Now that you know the process of doing the keyword research for YouTube, let’s see how you can use them to get more views on your videos?
How does YouTube Keyword Research Help You Get More YouTube Views?
Now the following section is dedicated to telling you how you can use the found keywords to gain more views on your YouTube videos.
Keyword Mapping
Use the found keywords to create a keyword map. Keyword mapping simple means matching the keywords with the YouTube videos on your channel.
The process starts with creating a spreadsheet or a list at least.
Write the top keywords of your niche and the specific videos that they align best with. The videos could be already posted or in production.
A YouTube keyword map counts elements like
- A primary list of important keywords related to your niche (UI/UX designing, Software development or anything else that your channel is about)
- Monthly keyword search volume on YouTube
- YouTube video’s URL that matches best with a specific keyword
- Every video’s current search rankings with its targeted keyword
- The competition each keyword has
The two basic reasons that you should create and maintain a keyword map include:
- Helps you in keeping track of what keywords you’re already targeting and what keywords you’re not.
- It gives you ideas for creating content. As you can list out the top keywords with great monthly search volume and low or average competition that you haven’t created content on yet. And start creating content on them one by one.
Also to make sure, do not optimize two videos for the same keyword. You can optimize one video for many keywords though.
Targeting two videos for the same content would make them compete with each other. And would end up stealing views from each other.
YouTube Keyword Research Tools
I know, we’ve already talked about it earlier. We learned that you can use YouTube keyword research tools to generate a list of potential keywords.
But there’s more to them. They also offer you data about the keywords that help you choose the best ones that fit your goals.
Data like YouTube keyword search volume and competition can help you pick the keywords that are not too overcrowded and also have a decent amount of monthly searches.
You can read the features offered by each tool here: YouTube Keyword Research Tools (link to be added soon)
Search Intent
YouTube is among the top three search engines around the world. So, it makes sure that the right content is delivered to the user.
Search intent plays a major role in this. If the search and the content’s intent do not match, it will go for nothing.
For a video to attract users and gain popularity, it has to get the search intent right.
Search intent can be easy to identify in some cases like in the search “How to do keyword research for YouTube”.
Whereas in some other cases it can be a tough task to determine search intent like in the search “Keyword research”. You cannot tell what the user wants, if he/she is searching for its meaning, tutorials or even for which search engine.
The easiest way to identify the search intent for this kind of keyword is by simply searching them on the search engine. See the top ranking videos and what they’re talking about to identify the search intent of the keyword.
Search intent also helps you identify, where the user falls in the sales funnel.
Generally, there are four types of queries in the sales funnel stages. And you should create content for each type of query to generate more audience and conversions.
The four types of queries are
Awareness: When the user wants to learn about something. (What are YouTube keyword research tools?)
Interest: When the user has a precise goal. (VidIQ keyword research tool)
Decision: When the user wants knowledge before making a purchase. (Top keyword research tools)
Action: When the user is ready to make a purchase (TubeBuddy keyword research tool pricing)
Ranking on Google Search
Driving traffic from YouTube is great, but what if you can rank your videos on Google as well.
Well, you cannot make every video rank on Google but some searches do make videos from YouTube rank on SERPs.
To check if you can rank your video on Google or not is to simply search the keyword on Google and see the results.
If the results show videos on SERPs, then there are good chances that you can make your videos rank on Google. And if there are featured videos on SERP, then you have luck on your side too.
YouTube hashtags too can help you a lot in gaining more views. Hashtags are simply popular keywords that can be added to videos to gain more views from a specific audience.
As YouTube lets a user search for keywords or hashtags, adding hashtags can help you show up on more searches.
But as hashtags generally do not help you in ranking higher on YouTube searches. So, do not add inappropriate hashtags.
The Bottom Line
When you see behind the curtains to figure out how the platform works, you will realize it’s too simple and straight.
All you have to do is to take control and use some specific words and phrases in your title, descriptions, thumbnails and tags. And they will help you increase incoming traffic and will grow your channel.
The real beauty of learning search engine optimization is that you can transfer the learnings from one platform to another. You can modify techniques a little and you will be ready to thrive on another platform too.
And to make it simpler for you, we’ve created a article explaining what is search engine optimization. You can read it here: What is SEO: A Beginner’s Guide.
I hope you would have found all the answers you were looking for. If not, then the comment box is wide open for you. You can also mail us your query at [email protected]. We will be more than happy to help you.
Also, Thanks A Lot For Reading Along. It Means A Lot To Us.
Frequently Asked Question
How do I research keywords on YouTube?
You can simply make use of YouTube autocomplete. All you have to do is to start typing a keyword related to your niche and then see the list of suggestions given by YouTube. The list is the searches that users often do and that you can create content on.
What keywords should I use for YouTube?
First of all, keywords must be relevant. Then ensure that the monthly searches of the keywords are quiet enough and do not have much competition.
What are good keywords?
Good keywords can be considered the ones that are relevant to the topic, have a nice number of monthly searches and are not too competitive.
