YouTube Keyword Tools I Use for Views & Growth

Share this article

In this post, I show you the 5 YouTube Keyword tools that I use in 2018 to help get YouTube video views every time I upload. This goes along with episode #11 of the Video Pursuit Podcast, where I cover the 5 YouTube Keyword Tools that I use for researching and fine-tuning my video topic ideas.

YouTube Keyword Tools

In the video that goes along with this post, I show you exactly how I use all five of them in different ways to help ensure that my videos get more views than from just from my subscribers. I want new eyeballs on my videos! So this is how I get new views from search results and recommended videos.

Note: This is video #3 in my YouTube Playbook for Bloggers series. Find the other videos in this series here: https://youtu.be/6H7Us28tvFk

I use YouTube keyword tools to brainstorm my video topics, to refine those topics, to maximize the potential views, and to maximize my channel growth as much as possible.

Let me be honest – I do not do keyword research every single time I publish a video. That’s terrible, I know. One reason that I may not do keyword research is that I want only my subscribers to see certain video content and I’m actually not trying to attract new subscribers with that particular content.

Listen to Episode 11: YouTube Keyword Tools

Some product links in this post are affiliate links, and I will be compensated when you purchase by clicking our links. Read my disclosure policy here.

#1 – TubeBuddy

My number one choice for keywording on Youtube is Tube Buddy. There are a couple of reasons why I love this one so much beginning with the fact that the free version is fantastic.

There are different levels to choose from of course, but the free version gives you some extremely valuable information. You can use the “tag explorer tool” to type in your idea of what your video topic is and it gives you feedback on how that topic performs in competition and people searching for it. Why do these 2 things matter?

Simple. You want to choose topics that a lot of people are searching for but that there isn’t very much competition for. Tube Buddy gives you a gauge that scores your keywords. If your keywords rank in at least the 70’s or 80’s, you are good to go with that topic.

If your rank is low, there are a couple of things you can do. First, you can try changing the words around a bit. Second, you can niche down lower. Always niche down as low as you can to get the best ranking possible.

#2 – MorningFame

I only found out about this one a few months ago but I have been using a ton lately. The way this works is that when you publish a video, you get an email 24 hours later from Morning Fame telling you how that video is performing.

The reason I love this so much is that when I publish a video on Youtube, it is now firmly out of my head and out of my mind. I am on to the next thing, whether that’s a blog post or the next video. I don’t always think to go back and see how the last video is performing for me.

Morning Fame also has a keyword research function that is super unique. It actually allows you to see who you would be competing against by showing you thumbnails. If you are a super visual person, you will likely love this feature.

Click here for a free 30-day trial to MorningFame!

#3 – Trends.Google.com

This tool is one that I rarely see mentioned but that would work great for Youtube videos and blog posts. It allows you to compare words, phrases, or terms.

Let’s talk about why this is so important by using a real example. I talk a lot on my blog and in my videos about GoPro cameras. There are a whole bunch of different models of GoPro’s and some of them have numbers and/or colors in their names. The thing is, people don’t typically know exactly how the numbers or additional parts of a name are spelled or where they are included in the name.

So somebody might be searching for a GoPro Hero 5, when the actual name for the camera is a GoPro Hero5. No space. People don’t type in trademarks; they type in what they think it says.

When assigning a title to your video, try to find a way to include both the correct spelling and the most common spelling used by viewers.

#4 – Google and YouTube

Wait a minute…is Meredith really telling me to use Google to search for keywords for my Youtube videos? And use Youtube itself? Yes!

Both of these search engines have what’s called predictive search, which simply means that when you start typing something into the search bar, it will give you suggestions of what it thinks you’re searching for.

The beauty of these searches is that Google and Youtube are literally telling you what other people have been typing into the search bar. Use both of these when brainstorming titles for video topics to get the most information possible.

#5 – SEMrush

I use this one more for my blogging topics than I do my videos. This one is a bit pricey at $99 per month but since I have been using it for my blog posts, I have greatly increased my ad revenue on my site so it pays for itself and then some.

There are times when I am both publishing a blog post and doing a video to go along with it and that’s when I find SEM Rush to be the most helpful.

Youtube Keyword Tools Pin