Using SEO tools for YouTube is as important (if not more so) than thinking about your SEO for a traditional blog or website. It’s just as much about optimizing your content to better rank on search engines, but there are a few key differences.
There are some great free tools for YouTube that can get you started in the right direction. Using them will help you optimize your content, find keywords, and reach more people with your videos.
We’ve put together some of the best free SEO tools for YouTube that you can use to improve your video rankings and start getting traffic from Google and YouTube.
Best Free Seo Tools For Youtube Youtube
A successful YouTube channel requires a bit more than just posting videos. You also need to track the performance of your videos to make sure that you’re not wasting time and money on content that’s missing the mark. In this section, you’ll find YouTube optimization tools that will help you understand how your channel is performing so you can take steps to correct its course or share the content that’s performing well to your other social networks.
1 . TubeBuddy
TubeBuddy is a browser extension that offers tons of different ways to effectively manage your YouTube channel. It includes productivity, video SEO, data and research, promotion, and bulk processing tools. Using TubeBuddy, you can create and schedule your YouTube videos, use saved responses for easy content moderation, and build end-screen templates, among other cool things.
2. YouTube Analytics
Source: convertkit.com
YouTube’s own analytics tool is one of the best tools you can use to find out where your channel is succeeding and where it isn’t. You can use it to learn more about your audience and the content that grabs them, improving your YouTube video views, and keeps them engaged. You’ll also be able to check out the watch time on your videos (a signal in YouTube’s search algorithm) and how your following is growing.
3. vidIQ
VidIQ is a browser extension that shows you the stats you need to track your YouTube performance. You can also add competitor channels to see how they compare to your own as well as set up email alerts to find trending topics. There’s even a Facebook Syndication feature that lets you share your video instantly across social media platforms.
Identify Your Best Keywords
Descriptions and titles are important information for YouTube users. When you include the right keywords in your YouTube video descriptions and titles, users are better equipped to decide if your video is right for them. In this section, you’ll find YouTube optimization tools that can help you find the keywords that will get your videos ranked and viewed.
4. YouTube Autosuggest
If you’ve ever searched for a video on YouTube, you know that the moment you start typing, YouTube starts offering suggestions for keywords and phrases to help you along:
This is a great tool for users but it’s also an extremely useful tool for creators. Similar to Google Trends, you can enter your keyword or topic into the search field on YouTube and use the autosuggest results to find keywords that you should include in your video description, tags, and title.
5. Google Keyword Planner
Google offers tons of free tools that creators can use to find just the right keywords to include in their content. Google Keyword Planner is a great tool. You can access Google Keyword Planner from your Google Ads dashboard (you don’t have to run ads to use it). It will help you find the keywords that are worth the most for Google searches so you can plug those keywords into your YouTube descriptions and titles.
6. Keyword Tool (Keywordtool.io)
Keyword Tool is a freemium tool you can use to find topics that your viewers might be interested in based on what they’re likely to search for. Just enter a high-level keyword or topic and Keyword Tool will give you suggestions in the form of questions, prepositions, and even hashtags. The paid version starts at $69/month and gives you access to search volumes, cost-per-click, competition data, and trends.
7. Rank Tracker
Rank Tracker is another freemium keyword research tool. You can use it to pull keywords from YouTube’s suggestions and view search volume, competition, expected visits, and more. Rank Tracker is great for finding keywords that will put your videos in the running for that coveted featured snippet position that puts you at the top of the search results. The paid version starts at $72/year.
8. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
Ahrefs Keywords Explorer has one of the largest databases of YouTube keywords. You can search for your keyword and find local and global search volume, clicks, click percentage, and clickstream data so you can find out how many people search a certain term on YouTube each month. There are also keyword ideas reports that can give you some great keyword or topic ideas.
9. Kparser
Kparser is another easy-to-use paid keyword research tool that focuses on long-tail keywords. You can add keywords before and after your target keyword (similar to Keyword.io) but Kparser lets you choose the parsing depth.
10. YTRank
YTRank is a super simple free tool you can use to track YouTube rankings for a target keyword. Just choose the location you want, add your YouTube video URL, and add your keywords.
youtube seo checklist
YouTube algorithm weighs more heavily towards user behavior than search traffic. Almost 70% of all traffic comes from YouTube’s recommendations rather than search. So it’s important to improve watch time, click-through rate, and percentage watched to extend your video reach.
There are also a few other elements you can use to rank your video as high as possible. Here are some tips you can use to optimize your YouTube channel.
1. Optimize Your Video Title
Include your keyword in the video title, but keep it entirely relevant as well. YouTube has gotten (a lot!) better at capturing the essence of a video’s content and they will push yours towards the last results in the search pages if your video title is not relevant.
2. Optimize Your Video Description
Same as with the title, keep your description compelling and attractive – but use your keyword as well. Your video description should be at least 250-words long. You can go through our YouTube Description Template to learn how to write and optimize your description for video rankings.
3. Optimize Your YouTube Video Tags
Video tags are nothing but keywords – so use a few of them to let YouTube know what your video is about. Same as optimizing the video title and the video description, adding these tags will also help YouTube determine what your video is about.
You can add your YouTube video tags when you upload a video, on the same page that prompts you to add a title and a description. You don’t need more than 2-3 keywords for this, but make sure they are relevant.
4. Include An Attractive Custom Thumbnail
The same page that allows you to add a title and a description will also allow you to add a thumbnail from the screenshots captured automatically by YouTube.
You can choose one of these, but it is more useful for you to upload a custom thumbnail because it will make your entire video more attractive when people stumble upon it in the search results or recommended videos section.
Here’s a funny meme on YouTube Thumbnails (you sure don’t want to go this extreme):
Here are some thumbnail examples to get ideas from:
The thumbnails are catchy – but not too clickbaity. The thumbnail copy also makes the video more clickable and optimized for SEO.
5. Include One Or More Cards To Increase Watch Time
A YouTube card is an on-screen clickable piece of information that allows you to create a more interactive and comprehensive experience for your viewers.
There are five types of cards you can add to a video: Video or Playlist, Channel, Donation, Poll, and Link.
6. Upload Video Subtitles
This step is entirely optional. However, there are two main reasons you would want to use this:
It makes your videos more accessible (including for people with hearing impairments, for example).
It allows both YouTube and Google to know the text that is spoken in your video and crawl and categorize your video accordingly.
7. Add Video To A Playlist
Adding your video to a playlist is also an optional step, but you should do it because playlists automatically play the next video—thus helping you to increase your viewers’ watch time.
Conclusion
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