It isn’t enough anymore to have great, creative content in order to succeed on YouTube.
Creators need to maximise their reach and accessibility to their viewers.
Enter “YouTube SEO.” We’ve rounded up six of the best tools that can help you with your YouTube SEO game.
Check them out below and let us know your thoughts in the comments.
YouTube Analytics
The first place to go would be the analytics YouTube already offers you. You can look at your Watch Time and Realtime reports to find out the average percentage view and duration watched for each video, as well as audience retention.
You’ll be able to spot trends in your videos, see what’s work (and what isn’t) and identify patterns in like, comment and share activity.
Google Ads and Google Trends
Given Google is the most popular and widely used search engine, it’s only logical you use their free data sources to find the search terms with the highest success rate.
Using Ads Keyword Planner, you can enter a specific topic and the program will present you with a multitude of options of keyword ideas and their average monthly searches. Google Ads also allows you to identify competition in the field.
Google Trends provides you with graphs on user interest in topics over time. You can refine your search by field, geographical location and time period, as well as compare it to another topic to analyse popularity.
TubeBuddy
This browser extension acts as your own, personal YouTube consultant. It helps enhance the content of your videos, by not only providing you with insights into all videos you open, but also suggests ways to optimise you own channel. This includes ensuring your videos are set up according to YouTube guidelines and assisting with titles, descriptions, tags and annotations.
Awario
This tool is an excellent investment to make if you’re looking to monitor and increase user engagement. This focuses not solely on your video engagement itself but any mentions of it, or your channel elsewhere on the Internet.
For the more tech-savvy and brave, filter your search further by looking for pre-existing references of your content and distinguish new potential links.
VidIQ
This virtual toolkit offers immediate insights into all YouTube videos you open, meaning you can keep an eye on the competition. You can compare top channels against one another to identify points of success and even match your competitors to your own channel. Learning from this data will help you to figure out how to boost your own performance.
Work On Your Graphics
A seemingly simple, and often overlooked tactic in the world of metadata is focusing on your graphics. Aside from tags and annotations and trends, by developing the aesthetics of your channel (especially thumbnails) you increase the likelihood of users clicking on your videos and channel.
The waters of SEO are not easy to navigate but the skills are proving more and more necessary to be a successful YouTuber in this day and age. However learning and integrating these techniques into your approach will surely be valuable and help you stand out.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.
Written by Anushé Samee.