Growing a YouTube channel is not a cakewalk anymore.
The YouTube space is becoming extremely competitive with each passing day.
And if you want to grow your YouTube channel in this competitive space, you have to target the specific topics and keywords that plenty of people are searching for.
But the question is: how you’ll find out those topics/keywords?
The simple and the only answer to this question would be “YouTube keyword research”.
In this post, we’ll show you how to do YouTube keyword research to find out golden keyword ideas for your YouTube videos.
And not only that, but we’ll also show you how you can use those keywords in your videos to rank higher on YouTube search results and get more views on your videos.
So ready to dive in? Let’s go.
What is YouTube Keyword Research?
YouTube keyword research is a process in which we find out words and phrases that people are using for searching any videos on YouTube.
It’s the first step you have to follow even before creating your content if you want to grow your YouTube channel without waiting for years.
With proper keyword research and optimization, you can easily outrank your competitors on YouTube search and get more views on your videos.
Why is Keyword Research Important For Growing Your YouTube Channel?
YouTube is the world’s second most visited website, and along with that, it’s also the world’s second-largest search engine after its parent company Google.
It processes billions of search queries every single day.
And just like any other search engine, keywords play a very crucial role here as well.
With proper keyword research, you’ll be able to know what kind of words and phrases your target audience is using for finding videos on YouTube.
If you just keep uploading videos on YouTube without a strategic keyword research plan, you won’t be able to reach your target audience who will be interested in your products or services.
And most importantly, it’s going to take you a long time if you just depend on YouTube suggested videos for growing your channel.
In short:
If you want to grow your YouTube channel quickly and attract a relevant audience, you would have to take keyword research and keyword optimization very seriously.
How to Find Golden Keyword Ideas For Your YouTube Videos (3 Powerful Ways)
Now that you know what exactly is YouTube keyword research and why it’s crucial for growing your YouTube channel effectively … it’s time to get into the nuts of bolts of this topic and see how you can easily find out keyword ideas for your videos using these three powerful methods.
#1 Competitor Analysis
Competitor analysis is one of the best and easiest ways to find out keyword ideas for your YouTube videos.
Instead of finding out keyword ideas from complete scratch, you can simply look at the keywords your competitors are using on their videos.
By doing that, you can not only find out plenty of potential keywords ideas, but it will also save a ton of your precious time.
And most importantly, instead of running after any keyword blindly, you’ll know what’s working for your competitors and might for you as well.
In other words:
It’s just like following a roadmap that your competitors have already created for you.
But the real question is: how can you find out the keywords that your competitors are using?
For that, head over to your competitor’s YouTube channel and sort the videos based on popularity.
Now you’ll have a list of videos that performed well for your competitor.
Click on any of their top-performing videos, and start analyzing the keywords they’re using on the title and description of those videos.
You can also install the VidIQ Chrome extension to see the actual tags your competitors are using on those top-performing videos.
But while using this strategy, you have to keep in mind that you’re choosing the right competitors that almost have a similar subscriber or audience base.
If you choose a competitor that has 10 or 20 times the subscribers you have, then this strategy isn’t going to work that efficiently.
#2 YouTube Search Autocomplete
YouTube search’s complete feature is yet another great way to find out a list of keyword ideas that people are actually searching on YouTube.
The best part is – It’s completely free, and you won’t need any other third-party tool for that.
To use this method, head over to YouTube, enter any topic related to your niche on the search bar, and hit space on the keyboard.
Then YouTube will autocomplete the keywords and start giving you some longtail keyword ideas around the keyword that you’ve entered.
For example, if you search the keyword “how to start a website for” and hit space, you’ll get a result like this.
You can see how easily YouTube came up with some valuable keyword ideas that people are searching for, and you can use them to create and optimize your YouTube videos.
Do this exercise repeatedly to come up with some more potential keywords that you might miss out normally.
However, the only problem that you might face with this method is you won’t be able to see the search volume of the keywords.
But that’s being said, if YouTube is showing any keywords or phrases on the YouTube search, that’s because quite enough people already searched for it.
So those keywords would have a decent search volume indeed.
#3 Use a Keyword Research Tool
Now, if you don’t have that much time to do keyword research manually, you can even use a YouTube keyword research tool.
There are plenty of keyword research tools available on the market that lets you perform keyword research for YouTube and helps to find out really cool keyword ideas.
Some of the tools are free, while some of them are paid.
But today, we’re not going to talk about any tool that we’ve never used ourselves.
Instead, we’re going to walk you through our very own Zutrix keyword planner tool that has the power to find out thousands of keyword ideas within a few seconds.
To use the tool, head over to Zutrix and click on “keyword planner” from the sidebar menu.
Then select “YouTube”, type in your head keyword or topic related to your niche, and click on “search”.
And there, you’ll have a list of keywords that you can use to create YouTube videos.
The best part of using this tool is that you’ll be able to see the search volume, competition, and CPC of those keywords.
How to Use Keywords in Your YouTube Videos?
Finding keyword ideas is not that difficult.
The most challenging part is to optimize your YouTube videos with those keywords so that you rank better on YouTube search results.
You might have heard about optimizing a web page for SEO. But most people don’t have any idea that they can even optimize their YouTube videos.
Finding keywords is the first step of YouTube SEO.
The real works begin when you start optimizing your videos.
But the main question that might be inside your head right now is: how can I optimize my videos with keywords?
To be honest, YouTube video optimization is pretty easy (at least way easier than optimizing a web page).
There are few highlighted spots where you can include your targeted keywords.
You can include your keywords in your video title, description, and video tags while uploading your video.
However, you have to make sure that you’re adding your primary keyword in the video title and other secondary keywords throughout the video description and tags.
And most importantly, don’t try to stuff the same keywords over and over again on the description.
3 Best YouTube Keyword Research Tools
By this time, you already know how you can find out golden keyword ideas and use them to optimize your videos for better YouTube search ranking.
Now let’s quickly look at some of the best YouTube keyword research tools that you can use to save up a lot of your valuable time and also find out great keyword opportunities at the same time.
All of the tools that we’re going to show you today are basically available for free. However, some of the tools have a premium version as well.
1. Zutrix Keyword Planner
As we’ve mentioned earlier in this post, the Zutrix keyword planner is one of the best YouTube keyword research tools you’ll ever get.
We’re not including this tool on this list just because we’ve invented it.
We’re including it because it can really change how you do YouTube keyword research and save up hours of your time.
The Zutrix keyword planner not only helps you find out keyword ideas but along with it also shows you the search volume, CPC, and competition of that keyword.
You can initially use it for completely free, but the free version has certain limitations.
So if you’re running a business or doing YouTube professionally, you can go ahead and explore the premium plans of Zutrix as well.
2. Google Trends
Sometimes keyword data can be a bit misleading.
The search volume data is basically depended upon the past performance of that keyword.
But the problem with that is you won’t be able to know how that keyword is performing right now.
Especially on YouTube, topics fade away within few months except how-to guides and evergreen topics.
That’s why before you choose any keywords, you have to know the current trend and demand of that keyword.
And using Google trends, you can quickly look at the trend graph of any keywords, and you can even sort out the report based on location and time frame.
Besides that, it also lets you compare keywords side by side so that you can easily prioritize your keywords.
3. VidIQ
VidIQ is an outstanding tool for YouTube that does not only help in keyword research but also comes with truckloads of other features that will help you grow your YouTube channel.
Using VidIQ, you can see the tags your competitors are using along with their ranking position.
It also shows you various important data for keywords such as high view count, average view count, average subscribers, etc.
One of the cool features of this tool is – while you upload any video, the tool automatically gives you tag ideas based on the title that you can use in your videos to rank on YouTube search easily.
You can initially start using this tool for free of cost, but if you want more advanced features and fewer limitations, then you would have to move ahead with their premium plan.
Conclusion
Keyword research is the most crucial part of YouTube SEO. Yet, the majority of the people don’t pay any attention to it.
Most people choose a keyword or topic randomly and hope that their video will shoot up to the moon.
But sadly, that’s not how YouTube algorithm.
If you want to grow your YouTube channel and, most importantly, want to attract a relevant audience base, you have to conduct YouTube keyword research and find out golden keyword ideas that you can target.
I hope now you know how to do YouTube keyword research and how you can implement it to grow your YouTube channel like a pro.
