How to Find Keywords for YouTube Videos

Do you want to make sure that your YouTube videos are seen by as many people as possible? Learning how to find keywords for your YouTube videos is essential for getting more views and ranking higher in search results. In this video, I'll show you different methods for finding keywords that will help you optimize your videos for SEO.

0:00 Intro
0:55 Step #1
1:53 Step #2
2:57 Step #3
6.29 Step #4
17:23 Step #5

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Hey friends today I have a tutorial for You showing you how to choose keywords For your YouTube videos so finding Keywords is partly about choosing topics For your videos and deciding what videos You should make on your channel but it's Also about figuring out exactly what Words or phrases other people are using To describe those topics that you're Going to make videos about so that you Can use those words and phrases in your Video title description Etc and get your Videos to rank for those terms so that When someone types in one of those Keywords into YouTube they find your Video and watch your video you get a View and maybe even a new subscriber so I'm going to share my screen with you And walk you through the process of how To find awesome keywords for your videos And we're also going to talk about what Makes a keyword better or worse and how To decide which ones to use So the first thing you have to do is Just choose the topics for your videos You need to have some sort of guidance Some sort of plan about what your Channel is about so I like to do this by Pulling up a Google doc and you can Start with just kind of those big Buckets so for our example Channel let's Say you want to have a Channel about Watercolor painting that's your main Topic and then within that kind of what

Are your sub topics what are the big Buckets your content will fall into I've Done this already come up with two Different ones maybe it will have Watercolor tutorials where you'll Actually do painting tutorials and then Maybe also some watercolor or art Product reviews now you quite possibly Will want to have more than two main Categories maybe three or even four Although two could be fine it just as You might struggle to come up with Enough content ideas in that case but It's fine to start with just a couple Because through this process you are Going to be finding a lot more ideas and Then your second step is brainstorming Ideas So within in each of these Different kind of big picture topics we Want to come up with more specific ideas So maybe you have ideas for specific Things you want to paint so like Deer painting tutorial Okay so I'm not claiming my G my ideas Are genius here but I'm just giving you An example of the sort of things maybe You would come up with and then moving On to this second topic maybe we could Be reviewing different brands of paint Now since this is not my area of Expertise I can only come up with a Limited number of ideas hopefully Whatever you are planning your Channel About you have a lot more ideas and a

Lot more specific ideas than I'm having About watercolor painting right now and I'd recommend that you write down just As many ideas as you can aim for at Least 30 or so ideas but like I said It's fine if you don't have quite enough Ideas yet because that's what we're Going to do next is find some more ideas So how we're going to do that first of All is by researching competitors so You're going to head over to YouTube and Maybe you already know some of your Competitors or some of the top channels That talk about these topics you can Start there but if not you can just Start by searching the topics that you Have already put on your list of video Ideas so I'm going to start with just Watercolor painting tutorial so you're Just going to scroll down here and You're going to look at these different Channels and I would recommend just Opening up the ones that look Interesting to you and you'll probably Want to look at at least about 10 or so Channels but I'm just going to look at a Few right now and so you're doing two Things here one is you're looking for Video ideas that have been popular for Them you're also looking for video ideas That are just interesting to you and the The perfect scenario is where there's Overlap between those two things an idea That's interesting to you you want to

Talk about on your channel and also was Popular on this other channel that is Similar to the channel you want to Create now as you look at each of these Channels you might find that some of Them are really different from what you Are planning to create and in that case I'd recommend mostly disregarding that Channel and not really taking into Account what worked for them since they Built a different Channel than you want To build anyway but so you're just going To look at the most recent videos and See what has done the best for them most Recently so for example in the last few Months here I see most of their videos Didn't get very many views but this one Right here it got more than the other so How to draw a Galaxy so maybe we could Research that idea more but what we can Do right now is we can at least put it On a list of kind of potential ideas Down here the other thing you're going To want to do on these channels is sort By most popular and see what all time Their most popular videos have been this Can give you some great ideas but don't Just take these ideas at face value Because we're going to need to do a Little bit more keyword research to Fully suss them out and make sure that They are good but when you're looking at These most popular ideas you want to be Giving the most weight to the ones that

Say that they were published one year Ago or less because if they say one year Ago that means it could be up to two Years and if they say two years that Means two to three years and anything Older than about two years it's not Going to be the most relevant data so as I look through these video ideas I see Here this one is the most popular one That they did that was published within The last two years so I could add that To my list here calm Sunset painting for Beginners and as you notice this is an Acrylic painting tutorial my channel is Going to be about watercolor maybe my Audience or my future audience will be Interested in this topic or maybe not Again we're going to need to research The idea a little bit more the other Thing that I do notice about this video Idea is that it was actually posted as a YouTube short which definitely could Skew the data I'm still interested in it Just because it sounds like an Interesting idea that I might want to do On my channel and there's a little bit Of evidence that it might be a popular Idea but this is just one more reason Why we can't take this idea at face Value and we need to do that more Research and now that I've come up with Some ideas I'm going to move on to the Next step but when you're really doing This I would highly recommend coming up

With way more ideas than this because The more ideas you come up with the Greater your chances are of coming up With winner ideas so it just gives you More to pull from Once you have plenty Of ideas then you're going to move on to Doing some real keyword research so You're going to pull up Google AdWords Keyword Planner tool this is my favorite Tool for doing keyword research there Are a couple other good ones but the Reason this one is my favorite is Because it gets its data Straight From The Source so as you probably know Google owns YouTube and Google has the Actual data for the searches people are Doing on Google and on YouTube whereas Everyone else if you're using like Tubebuddy or something like that you Know it's a great tool but it is Deriving its data from Google AdWords Data and so a lot of the time it can get A little bit corrupted in Translation so I like to go straight to the source so We're going to start with just Watercolor painting tutorial and then We're going to hit that get results Button and so this is going to tell us Two main things one is it's going to Tell us data on the topic we searched For itself and then it's also going to Give us other keyword ideas so looking Just at that first watercolor painting Tutorial it looks like it's about

Moderately popular one to ten thousand Searches per month a lot of people of Course are searching for something a Little bit more specific than that and It's moderately competitive we'll talk More in a little bit about what to do With that information but right now just Looking down here we've also got lots More new ideas watercolor tutorial Watercolor pencil tutorial YouTube Watercolor tutorials step-by-step Watercolor painting easy painting with Watercolor now as you'll notice a lot of These ideas are they're only moderately Popular and they're quite Broad and with Your video ideas when it actually comes To the title and the specific topic of Your video you want it to be a lot more Specific than this because if you have a Video that is as general as just easy Painting with watercolor or watercolor Tutorials even though there's a decent Number of searches for that term every Month people won't want to click on that Video because it doesn't tell them Specifically enough what the video is About so you just want to make sure that You are choosing one of these as kind of One of the core keywords for your video To try to rank your video for that but That you are getting a lot more specific With the actual topic of the video now The other tool that you can and should Use when you are doing YouTube keyword

Research is YouTube itself okay YouTube Again we're going to the source we're Looking at the actual data here and There's two different things you can do On YouTube one is to just search for the Term and then look at the results and You can get a lot more specific with This so for example galaxy painting Tutorial let's try searching for that so There are two main things I'm looking For here the first one is are the top Search results or at least most of them Aligned with my idea for the this video So for example are they actually Painting tutorials are they painting Tutorials of galaxies and in my case Since I'm planning to do watercolors are Any of them watercolors on the other Hand I could find things that are not Related to what I wanted to talk about Like maybe there's a brand of paints Called Galaxy paints that I didn't know About and I discovered that all of these Galaxy painting tutorials are actually Tutorials using Galaxy paints or Something like that and so that would Tell me that people are looking for Something different when they search for This term and that the algorithm has Figured that out and if I make a galaxy Painting tutorial I probably won't be Able to rank for this term but in fact As we can see here these different Search results are tutorials of how to

Paint galaxies and it seems like there Are a lot of them they just kind of keep Going on and on a lot of them look to me Like they're probably not watercolors However I see this one right here is Actually watercolors but some of them Are using acrylics some stuff like that But the other thing that I want to pay Attention to besides are these aligned With what I want to create is how many Views did these top results get we've Got half a million here 4 million two Hundred thousand this one is a million Half a million so as you can see this is A pretty popular topic people seem to Really like watching this type of Painting tutorial it's not something Obscure that only a few people are Interested in painting and that means That this is a potentially a really good Keyword if it's something that I am Interested in talking about on my Channel the other thing that you can do On YouTube itself is you can have Tubebuddy installed which is just a free Chrome extension you sign up for it and Then it's going to populate some data Here for you whenever you're searching On YouTube or looking at a video and so This tells me that the search volume for This term is fair is what they're Calling it but we can clearly see that These videos are getting views so either A sufficient number of people are

Searching for it or else it's just Getting really popular in suggested so YouTube is suggesting these tutorials to The right sort of people and people are Clicking on them either way they're Getting views and that's why it's so Important to actually go to again go to The source and see what's actually Working on YouTube itself don't just use Tubebuddy tubebuddy's a great tool and You can learn some things from it but it Really shouldn't be your bread and Butter so the other thing that we see on Tubebuddy here is that it's saying the Competition is poor and so what Tubebuddy means by that is that there is A lot of competition there are a lot of Videos on this topic and so your chances Of ranking for this topic are more slim Now there's a couple things to keep in Mind here one is that the most important Thing really is the popularity we want To make sure that we're making videos About topics that a lot of people are Really interested in because that is Going to be a more sure ticket to YouTube success my own results have Proven this as well as we've now tested This on literally thousands of channels And this is what we found to be the best Way to grow channels and also I have Direct contacts with YouTube with my YouTube Partner manager Etc and they have confirmed this

Whenever I've asked them that that is Their recommended strategy as well is to Focus more on the popular topics and Sure it's great if you can find what's Called a Content Gap where there is a Popular or a moderately popular topic or Keyword that also has very little Competition that is a you know the Perfect situation but most of the time You have to choose one or the other it's Either a more popular topic that's also More competitive or a much less popular Topic that's also less competitive and If those are your two options it's Definitely better to go with the more Popular terms even though they might Also be more competitive and so for that Reason I don't give much weight to two Buddies keyword score or this number Down here how good they're telling you The keyword is because they ascribe to a Different school of thought and what They're telling you here is basically That this is going to be a more Difficult keyword to rank for and that's True it is easier to rank for Less Competitive terms but you're going to Get more views for just ranking Somewhere or getting suggested for more Popular terms so again it's true that This isn't going to be the best keyword To rank for but it's not true that that Means that this isn't a good keyword to Use for videos on your channel now

Something else you might be wondering is Like what makes a keyword good you know I said it needs to be more popular well How popular how many searches does it Need to have per month either here what Tubebuddy's telling us or hear what Google AdWords is telling us and the Answer is it's relative it really really Is because in different niches different Numbers will be considered good or Considered bad and what really matters Is of all the keywords you can Considering using in your videos some of Them will be better and some of them Will be worse and you want to make sure That you are choosing the better more Popular keywords that are also the most Closely aligned with what you actually Want to create on your channel so that's The most important thing if you're Looking for some minimum thresholds I Would say that over here on Google Keyword Planner you want to see at least A hundred searches per month which might Seem really low but you have to remember That most of yous on YouTube are Actually coming from YouTube suggesting Content and there are tons of topics That people are not going out and Searching for intentionally themselves But the videos can still get millions of Views for those topics but seeing at Least 100 searches per month here gives Us an indicator that it is something

That is relevant that people are looking For and then over on tubebuddy sometimes There's a number right here that tells You that monthly search volume and Sometimes there's not and the main thing I want you to steer clear of is terms Where it doesn't tell you a number Because that means tubebuddy doesn't Have the data now that being said like I Say that with a caveat tubebuddy doesn't Have all the answers if you're seeing a Lot of indicators in other places that It would be a good keyword for you to go After then go for it but if you are Strictly looking at tubebuddy we want to Just see a number here because it proves That tubebuddy sees some sort of demand Also something to be super careful of if You open up to Buddy's keyword Explorer And you start searching for different Keywords let's say we go for this one Right here this calm Sunset painting Tutorial for beginners and you type this In let's just see what happens I have a Guess this is exactly what I thought Would happen it tells us this is Excellent it gives it a 100 out of 100 Score now this keyword it might actually Be a great one but as you can see right Here it's telling us that the search Volume is it like the highest it could Be so theoretically that would mean that Millions of people are searching for This term every month but I just want

You to pus for a moment and use your Common sense do you think millions of People are searching for calm Sunset Painting tutorial for beginners every Month does that make sense especially When we saw just a few moments ago that At least theoretically only a few Thousand people are searching for galaxy Painting tutorial each month even though Those videos were really popular and Basically what it is is the longer of a Keyword you are searching for the more Long tail the keyword is tubebuddy Doesn't have any data because very very Very few people are searching for this Is specific term and when tubebuddy has No data for some reason it tells you That the search volume is excellent now The competition that might be true Moderate competition but then it Concludes that therefore this is an Excellent keyword to go after now we Already saw that on someone's Channel it Did get a lot of views and so it could Be a good keyword to go after but just You'd be aware that if you type anything Long into tubebuddy it's going to give You this answer nine times out of ten And finally I want to share with you a Cool new hack you can use this is brand New YouTube just came out with this About two months ago so all you need to Do is go into your YouTube channel click On analytics and then click on the

Research tab right here and it's going To open up this new YouTube research Tool and so you can start either with Your viewers searches if you already Have a fair amount of data on your Channel you can see what other topics Your subscribers are searching for so These you'll see a little bit of Crossover here with terms that are Sending people to your videos if you go In and look at your analytics and you See what keywords are giving you traffic But but these are not necessarily Keywords that people are using to find Your videos these are other keywords That your viewers your subscribers are Commonly searching and so this can give You some ideas for maybe topics that you Haven't thought about covering on your Channel that your viewers are interested In so this is a wealth of information The other thing you can do is you can Look at searches across YouTube so you Can just enter a topic like watercolor Painting And you can see the different topics That are getting searched and how Popular they are because it tells you The search volume on YouTube and the Reason that they're focusing here on Search volume is again because that is What YouTube recommends as the most Important factor for what topics you Should make videos about and now one

More thing this is amazing YouTube in This tool has kind of like just handed Us like the golden key they have Identified content gaps so as you might Recall earlier I told you that a Content Gap is when there is a search term that Is popular and also is not very Competitive and this is relatively Uncommon and it's really difficult to Find them when you are just doing the Research yourself but this is the only Tool that can find them for you you can See a couple of them right here this one Is labeled as a Content Gap and this one Also so these are keywords that are at Least moderately popular but there Aren't that many videos about them and The other thing you can do is you can Click here and you can just search for Content gaps only and it's going to show You all content gaps now you will notice That a lot of these terms are going to Be ones that you are not interested in Covering on your channel because they Are often a bit more obscure So you have to like take it with a grain Of salt it's not going to instantly give You just tons of ideas but I mean in This popular category watercolor Painting I'm seeing a bunch of ideas Here that is really surprising to me That they are content gaps but YouTube Is telling us that they are and that There is not very much content on these

Topics and you can also do the same Thing if you're in your viewer searches You can look at content gaps only and See what the content gaps are that your Viewers are interested in so like I said That's practically just like handing you The golden key I have no idea where this Tool is going to go even in the next few Months because it is so new and YouTube Is still actively shaping it but you Should jump on it right now because Right now there is a wealth of Information there that you can use to Find some incredible keywords for your YouTube videos that can get your videos To rank higher well that's everything For today's video thank you so much for Joining me for it if you enjoyed this Tutorial format and you want to see more Videos like this in the future then be Sure to let me know in the comments down Below that you want to see tutorials and Also give this video a like also if you Want to see more videos from me like This in the future then make sure you Are subscribed to my channel and if so Then I'll see you next week