I’m going to show you exactly how to find keywords for YouTube videos step by step. In fact the keyword research tips that I’m about to share with you is one of the main reasons that my channel gets 250000 views per month. So if you want actionable strategies that you can use to find untapped keywords you’ll love this article.
When i started my YouTube channel a couple years ago i put zero thought into keyword research. whenever i wanted to create a new video i pretty much pick a keyword out of thin air. And optimize it around that keyword and it’s one of the main reasons that my videos struggle to get views.
Now i spend a lot of time finding keywords for my YouTube videos and it’s paid off. Because i optimize my YouTube videos around terms that people actually search for on YouTube. My channel gets hundreds of thousands of views every month. Even when i don’t publish anything new
With that it’s time for me to show you the exact strategies.
1. Copy your competitors best keywords – to find keywords for YouTube
When it comes to video keyword research you don’t need to start from scratch. In fact you can find amazing keywords from other channels in your niche. Here’s how to do it first head over to one of your competitors channels you want.
To avoid channels that have way more subscribers than you do. Instead focus on channels that are about your size or a little bit bigger. Then click on that channel’s videos tab and sort by most popular this will show you their videos that got the most views.
Finally head over to one of their popular videos and look at the keywords that they use in their title and description. And just like that you have a handful of proven keywords that you can optimize your videos around.
2. Find trending keywords using exploding topics – to find keywords for YouTube
If your channel is brand new or if you just want to find keywords that are easy to rank for. You want to target trending keywords why is this important unlike older established keywords. Trending keywords are brand new.
Which means they’re not super competitive yet and because these keywords are blowing up. You can get in early and ride the wave as that topic becomes mainstream. The question is how do you find trending topics that other people don’t know about.
Yet a free tool called exploding topics this free tool scrapes the web for topics that more and more people are searching for. And it bubbles up terms that are blowing up the best part. You can sort the topics by different categories and time frames that way you could find a keyword. That’s perfect for your channel for example let’s say that your channel is in the health and fitness. Well you can choose categories like fitness health and food. And see topics that are blowing up.
3. Video result keywords
Yes ranking your video number one in YouTube search is great. But ranking your video in YouTube and google that’s even better. In fact my channel gets about 6000 views per month directly from google. You see google doesn’t have videos in the search results for every single keyword that people search for.
Instead google only shows video results for certain keywords. these keywords are called video result keywords. So before deciding on a keyword for your YouTube video. Search for that keyword in google. If you don’t see a video in the results it means that google has decided that it’s not a video result keyword.
But when you see one or more YouTube videos in the search results you’ve uncovered a video result keyword. Which is great and when you optimize your video around that video result keyword. You have a chance to rank your video in google which can lead to lots of extra views.
4. Use YouTube SEO chrome extensions – to find keywords for YouTube
Use YouTube seo chrome extensions coming up with a list of potential keywords is a great first step. But how do you know which keywords to actually go after. Well that’s where youtube seo chrome extensions like tubebuddy and vidiq come in handy.
I’ve personally tested vidiq and tubebuddy and i can say that they both have their pros and cons. But in general i don’t think that one is that much better than the other. So i go with whatever tool works best for you. I personally use vidiq so i’ll show you how to find keywords for your youtube videos using that extension.
All you need to do is search for one of your potential keywords in YouTube. And you’ll see that keyword search volume and competition. You even get an overall score that takes the number of searches and competition into account. And the higher that score is the better.
I also recommend checking out the top related keywords section of this report. It’s a great way to find related keywords that would be tough to find any other way.
5. Your own YouTube analytics
YouTube analytics is a keyword research goldmine. That’s because YouTube analytics shows you the exact keywords that people use to find your videos. To find this report in your YouTube studio go to analytics reach viewers in most cases you’ll find keywords that you’re already optimizing for.
If so that’s a good sign that your video seo efforts are paying off. But every once in a while you’ll run across a keyword that you’re not optimizing for. So why is this important well YouTube is already ranking you in the search results for that keyword. And you didn’t even optimize for it according to YouTube.
If you add that missing keyword to your title tags and description you can rank even higher in YouTube for that keyword.
6. Find long tail keywords in your competitor’s tags
As you probably know long tail keywords are keywords that are super specific. For example a normal keyword is something like keto diet and a long tail version of that term will be something like best keto diet dessert recipes. Even though long tail keywords don’t get a ton of searches they’re also not that competitive.
Which makes them easy to rank for and as it turns out a lot of these long tail keywords are hiding in plain sight. In fact other videos in your niche are probably already using awesome long tail keywords in their tags. Unfortunately YouTube doesn’t show you the tags that other videos use on the watch page.
So you’ll need to dig into the page’s html to see them. To do that right click on the page and click “view page source” which will show you that page’s html code.
Now don’t be intimidated by all this code you don’t need to be a developer to use this technique. All you need to do is search the page ctrl f on windows and command f on mac.
Then type in keywords all the terms that show up after keywords are that videos tags. And you want to pay special close attention to any long tail keywords that show up like this one. Now if you don’t want to keep looking at long lines of html. You can just see a video’s keywords right on the page with tubebuddy or vidIQ Extensions.
7. KPARSER
kparser now you might have noticed that when you search for something on YouTube. YouTube suggests certain keywords for you and as you probably know this is a great way to find long tail keywords for your YouTube videos.
The only problem is YouTube only shows you about 8 to 10 suggestions per keyword. What if there was a way to find even more of these suggested keywords automatically. Well there is a free keyword tool called kparser to use it just enter a topic idea into the tool.
And they’ll get to work scraping YouTube’s suggested results.
For example for this search i just did i got thousands of keyword ideas.
Last. Optimize your playlist titles
Last strategy for you which is to optimize your playlist titles. This is a great way to use all the keywords that you just found. Now i probably don’t need to tell you that playlists are great for increasing your channel’s watch time. That’s because playlists automatically play one video right after another unfortunately most people don’t optimize their playlists for seo.
In fact this is a mistake that i made back in the day. When i first started making playlists O give them whatever name popped into my head. Which ended up being a huge mistake that’s because playlists can actually rank in the search results. Which is why today i give my playlists seo friendly titles like how to get higher google rankings. I also write descriptions for each playlist that includes my target keyword which has helped my playlist rank for keywords that people search for on YouTube.
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