YouTube Keyword Research

How I Grew YouTube Channel From “Oh No!” to Heck Yeah

YouTube Keyword Research

1.      The YouTube SEO process begins with video keyword research.  Here’s exactly how to find the right keywords for your YouTube videos:

First, generate a list of keyword ideas. Your first step is to generate a big list of potential keywords.

v       v   (In the next step I’ll help you find the best keyword from your list.)

v  One of my favorite strategies is to use YouTube’s Search Suggest feature.

v  All you need to do is head over to YouTube and pop in a word or phrase…

… and YouTube will hand you a bunch of keywords related to what you typed in:

These suggested keywords are GREAT.

Why?

Because these are search terms that people actually type into YouTube.

So there’s no need to wonder whether a search query is popular or not, If YouTube suggests them to you, they definitely are.

As you probably know, keyword optimization is a KEY part of YouTube SEO. So if a video has lots and lots of views, chances are, that video is optimized around a popular keyword.

To execute this step, go to another channel in your niche.

Then, sort their videos by “Most Popular”

Next, choose a video from the list. Obviously, you want to pick a video that you can create an awesome video around (more on that in step #2).

But in general, if the video is in your niche, it’ll work.

Finally, see which keywords that video is optimized around. This is easy.

Just check out the keywords that video uses in its title, description, and video tags:

You can also find some excellent keywords in your YouTube “Traffic Source: YouTube search” report. This report shows you all the keywords that YouTube users have searched for to find your videos.

v  In many cases, these are keywords that you already know about (because you optimized your videos around them).

v  But sometimes you’ll find a handful of keywords that you never would have thought of.

v  For example, here’s an example of a keyword : 

This is a keyword I would have NEVER found using any other strategy. But I know that people are searching for it on YouTube, so it makes for a great keyword to add to the list.

Second, find the best keyword from your list

v  Now that you’ve generated a list of keywords, it’s time to choose the best one from your list.

v  Specifically, you want to target low-competition keywords.

v  This is ESPECIALLY important if your channel doesn’t have that many subscribers yet.

v  If you swing for the fences and go after competitive keywords, your video is gonna get buried in the search results.

v  Instead, you want to find keywords that don’t have a lot of competition.

v  How do you check?  All you need to do is: Search for your keyword in Google.

About results

This number represents the total number of videos on YouTube about that topic. The higher this number, the more competitive a keyword is. So you want to target keywords that have a low “About results” number

(How low should you go? Every industry is different. So I can’t give you a specific number to shoot for. Just focus on choosing keywords that have low competition relative to other videos in your niche.)

That’s a lot.

So if I was just starting out, I’d try a few other keywords, like “YouTube ranking factors”.

Bingoo~~ That keyword only has 20,900 results.

And that means that this keyword is MUCH less competitive.

Last Additional Tip: Search For Your Keyword In Google.

 

v  Most views on YouTube come from within YouTube’s platform.

v  But don’t stop there. Your video can get 2-5x more views if you can ALSO get it to rank in Google.

v  How?

v  The trick is to optimize your videos around keywords that already have video results in Google.

v  You see, Google only includes videos in the search results for certain keywords.

v  Unlike a “normal” first page with 10 webpage results, Google sometimes reserves a good chunk of the first page for video results:

In general, Google tends to use video results for these types of keywords:

v  How-to keywords (how to make cold brew coffee)

v  Reviews (beats by Dre review)

v  Tutorials (Setting up WordPress)

v  Anything fitness or sports related (Cardio kickboxing)

v  Funny videos (Cute animals)

Why is this important?

Well, let’s say you optimize your video around a keyword that doesn’t have any video results in Google. In that case, you’ll ONLY get traffic from people searching on YouTube.

But if you optimize for a video keyword, you’ll also get targeted traffic to your video directly from Google’s first page.

The question is:

How do you find these magical keywords?

All you need to do is search for one of the keywords you found in the last step.

Simple, right?

Once you’ve found a Video Keyword, it’s time to see if there’s any search volume for that keyword. Otherwise, you might rank in Google for a keyword that only gets 20 searches per month. That’s not worth it.  So make sure the target keyword gets at least 100-1k searches per month in Google (you can find this information using the Google Keyword Planner)

So that would be a great keyword to create a video around.

In fact, I already did.