This post is a guide to the best SEO tools available for YouTube. You’ll learn about the different features, how to use them, and how they can help improve your videos’ position in search engine results pages (SERPs).
YouTube is one of the world’s most popular websites, with more than 1 billion users every month. It’s also one of the most important sources of traffic for many brands, so it’s crucial that you understand how to optimize your videos for search engines.
There are many different ways to do this, but in this post we’ll focus on using SEO tools to optimize your YouTube channel.
Seo Tools For Youtube Free
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.
Research Profitable Tags
YouTube tags are words and phrases that let YouTube know what your video is about. Like keywords, tags are an important ranking factor in YouTube’s search algorithm. Here you’ll find YouTube optimization tools that will help you find the most profitable tags for your YouTube videos.
youtube seo audit
. Make Your Business Linkable
The beautiful thing about YouTube is that it’s a linkable asset within itself. Like how Google itself is linkable because it’s such an awesome search engine.
YouTube is the same. It’s by far the best video search engine right now.
And when a brand has such clear dominance, they’re going to attract many backlinks. The one that I found fascinating was how many powerful homepage links that YouTube has.
YouTube hompage links
This is because brands place a link to their YouTube channel on their website. These links are often site-wide and end up on the homepage.
Gotch SEO footer link for youTube
YouTube Site-Wide Footer Link on GotchSEO.com
Your homepage is often the most powerful page on your website. So that means YouTube is getting thousands of powerful homepage links.
That is also why building PBNs is such an effective method.
- User-Generated Content (UGC) is Powerful
User-generated content is the basis of YouTube’s entire business model. YouTube itself creates very little content and it isn’t the reason why it’s popular. The reason why YouTube succeeds is because of its creators.
Top YouTube creators
They build audiences and that brings more traffic (and ad revenue) to YouTube. YouTube rewards creators who create great content with views. Views lead to subscribers and more AdSense revenue.
FREE YouTube Video Promotion Checklist: Get more views and subscribers on YouTube while publishing LESS.
But at the end of the day, the big winner is YouTube.
They don’t create any content, but they get all the benefits of people creating great content on their platform. A pretty awesome business model, right?
- Focus on YouTube, Then Google
One commonality among YouTube videos that rank well on Google is that they also perform well on YouTube search. So that means you should aim to rank on YouTube and then work hard to rank on Google as well.
The best situation is to rank on YouTube, rank your YouTube video on Google search, and rank a page on your website for the same phrase.
SERP real estate
Example from “buy backlinks“
That will give you the most first page real estate.
As a result, you’ll increase your organic CTR and grow your brand.
- Leverage Brand Names
YouTube leverages brand keywords in two ways. First, when an established brand creates a channel, YouTube will get more traffic.
espn search volume
Why? Because YouTube is so powerful that the brand’s channel will rank. Plus, the brand will also link to its YouTube channel.
The second way YouTube wins is when an up and comer gets bigger.
pewdiepie search volume
So as a creator’s popularity grows, so does YouTube.
- Incentivize Others to Do The Heavy Lifting
At this point, you see how YouTube’s business model is 100% dependent on the success of its creators. And the reason, why 99% of people create content on YouTube, is because A) there’s a massive audience that uses it and B) they’ll likely benefit from doing so.
That benefit may be income from AdSense or to promote your products and services.
So the question is:
How can you get people with audiences to do the heavy lifting for your company?
Well, one way is to invite contributors (who have audiences) to your blog. These should be experts in the field and you should compensate them for their time.
You can also interview these individuals and that will drive more visibility. For example, here’s an interview I did with Chris Dreyer:
Ep. 15: Nathan Gotch, GotchSEO – How to Become an SEO Expert
We’re both tapping into each other’s audiences.
Always think about ways that you can incentivize others to do your heavy lifting (like YouTube does).
- Find Lucrative (Uncompetitive) Niche Site Ideas
Whenever I see YouTube videos ranking in Google’s SERPs, I get excited. That’s because most pages hosting YouTube videos are weak.
I actually call this the “Weak Point Method” when doing SEO competitor analysis.
In short, the Weak Point Method is when you look for keyword opportunities where YouTube, Pinterest, Quora, etc. are ranking.
weak point method
You should get excited whenever you see these pages ranking because it’s a sign that it’s a low competition keyword.
That said, you can find all kinds of niche sites and keyword opportunities using YouTube. Here’s how:
Method #1: Find Niche Site Ideas
Open up Ahrefs, click on the Site Explorer and enter YouTube.com. Go to Organic Keywords and set the following filters:
Position: To: 10
Volume: From: 500
KD: To: 10
CPC: From: 5
Now you’ll have access to unique ideas that have high CPC values.
iridocyclitis
The CPC values are important because it’s an indication that advertisers are willing to pay for customers in that vertical. That means that organic search performance will be more lucrative in those verticals.
Read next: How to Build a Niche Website (Definitive Guide)
Method #2: Find Uncompetitive Keywords
Let’s say you had a plumbing business and you needed some content ideas. Just go to Ahrefs, click on the Site Explorer, enter YouTube.com, click on “Organic Keywords” and set the following filters:
Position: To: 10
Volume: From: 500
KD: To: 10
And then search a relevant keyword in the search bar. In this case, I’ll use “plumbing”.
Then sort the list in ascending order so that the lowest KD is at the top. In only a few seconds, I’ve found several keyword ideas worth investigating further such as:
keywords
You can repeat this process with any huge website like Pinterest or Quora.
- Consider Using Parasite SEO (in Some Scenarios)
Parasite SEO is one of the most neglected methods. In short, “Parasite SEO” is the process of ranking pages on websites that you don’t own. In particular, ranking pages on websites with a ton of authority like YouTube.
youtube domain rating ahrefs
Now the question is why?
Parasite SEO is powerful when you have a brand new website, you’re trying to enter a competitive niche or both.
In essence, you’re piggybacking off YouTube’s existing authority to get more visibility for your brand. This method works with Amazon, Wikipedia, or any authority website.
The real beauty of Parasite SEO is that you won’t need as many backlinks to rank. These authority websites have already done the heavy lifting.
So in short, work to rank YouTube video pages in addition to ranking in YouTube’s search.
- Keep Them Hooked
Almost every SEO expert believes that dwell time is a ranking factor in Google. Well, there is probably no website that has better dwell time than YouTube. YouTube’s entire mission is to keep users on their website as long as possible.
dwell time youtube
The intention is obvious because more time spent on YouTube equates to more ad revenue. I could dedicate an entire post to YouTube’s user experience, but there’s one big takeaway:
Try to serve relevant content to your users.
I know this is obvious, but it isn’t practiced on most websites. You’ll notice on my blog that I always try to serve relevant content. It will either be through internal links.
internal link example
Or, I hand-select a relevant link at the end of every post.
read next
You don’t need to build a complex algorithm to achieve better dwell time. Focus on relevance and you’ll improve user engagement on your site.
- Be Content-Centric
The big “secret” behind YouTube’s SEO success is that content is the focal point.
Youtube homepage
Youtube’s Content-Centric Homepage
The Youtube algorithm tries to serve you with the best and most relevant content available. I do believe that every business can benefit from being more content-centric.
Think about it:
The two most popular websites online, Google and YouTube, are 100% content-centric above all else.
That’s It for YouTube
YouTube deserves its SEO performance because of the genius platform they’ve built. If you enjoyed this SEO analysis, please subscribe to get notified when I publish a new one.
Conclusion
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