How to Use Your Keywords on YouTube

Everyone knows that the least-visited place in the digital world is the second page of Google search results. That’s why people work so hard to improve their SEO efforts and their keyword game: to be on top of the SERP!

The same happens with YouTube. People don’t scroll too far down to get what they want, so if your video is not on the top results, it probably won’t be seen as much as you’re hoping to.

But don’t worry, there’s a way to make your video content easily findable for your audience: you just need to use the right keywords! Today, we bring you the keyword strategy tips that professional video companies use to get their videos featured on the first page. Let’s get to it!

Use Keywords on Youtube

How to Choose the Best Keywords

Being among the top positions on YouTube searches can be extremely beneficial for your business, and for that reason, you need to choose the right keywords.

There’s a secret to this: Try to avoid using the most searched keywords, as they can be quite hard to crack. Instead, use longer, more specific phrases that include ―but are not limited to ―the most searched keywords in your business niche.

Choose Keywords on Youtube

These phrases are known in the marketing world as “longtail keywords” and are basically longer sentences that include your main keywords in it — so, instead of using “Drill,” you can use “Best drill brands for woodworking.”

This way, you’ll be reducing your field of action, getting exactly the right people you’re looking for. You’ll make them find you faster (which will give you more views and exposure) and you’ll also be facing much less competition.

Find Reliable Sources for Your Keywords

Many online tools can suggest you popular keywords, but the best advice I can give you is to go out there ―to the YouTube world ―and do some field research on the keywords that other companies and YouTubers are using.

That being said, there are some places you can keep an eye on, to make your research more successful:

● Trending Videos

Take a look at the featured YouTube videos that are related to your niche. These will not only give you an idea of the most popular topics at the moment but will also help you realize the keywords that they’re using and see how you can position your content with those –or similar– ones.

Keep your eyes open for those keywords, but here’s a tip: notice the way that other YouTube creators write their titles and descriptions? That’s where the keywords hide!

● Search Suggestions

A very simple way to find popular keywords is to go to the YouTube search form and start writing words related to your niche to see what the algorithm suggests. This is an excellent way to find out which longtail keywords people are actually looking for.

● Competitor Tags

If your competitors are using YouTube, it’s a good idea to take a look at the hashtags that they’re using, and the topics that they’re covering.

Maybe your target audience is not exactly the same as theirs, but you can still take the keywords that they’re using as a base to create your own longtail keywords, more specific to your audience and product.

● Google Trends

A more methodic way to find the right keywords is by relying on Google itself. As you know, Google owns YouTube, so they’ve developed great tools like Google Trends, in which you can see how well a certain keyword performs on YouTube and how much it has grown over time by the number of searches. Pretty cool, huh?

Implement Your Keywords Effectively

Now that you’ve identified the correct phrases to use, let’s talk about how to implement them. Some of these placements are obvious, some are more hidden, but they all will help you build up your ranking on YouTube!

● First Things First: The Title

Your main keyword should be included naturally in the video title. You see, when Youtube users look for a video online, one of the first things they look at is your title, so it needs to say what they’re expecting to find!

Longtail keywords are essential for this, as they match closely what the user is searching for. So, instead of naming your piece “Explainer videos for businesses,” you can call it “How to make a great explainer video?” and you’ll be providing an exact match for your user’s search.

● Short and Informative Descriptions

Your video description box is a great place to introduce some keywords naturally as well. The description should be concise and informative, explaining what your video is all about, which will give you the chance to write in some key phrases.

Use Keywords on Youtube 2

● Don’t Forget the Transcript and Captions!

A lot of YouTube artists forget about the video transcript and captions, which are not only something that will make your video more inclusive to viewers with hearing impairment but are also a great way to introduce some more keywords.

Having these extra keywords on your transcript will help with your SEO — Search engines can’t process the audio on the videos, but they can read your transcripts, and it all helps feed the algorithm!

● Hashtags

Yes, you can use hashtags on YouTube videos, and they’re a fantastic way to position your video among certain search terms. You can add up to 15 hashtags on each video, but make sure not to surpass that — using more than 15 hashtags will end up in a YouTube penalization, rendering all hashtags useless.

Still, this amount is more than enough. Start with the most relevant keywords upfront and then try some of their variations, along with some other topics you may cover in your video, to help the platform boost your content in all the right places.

Let’s Wrap It Up!

As you’ve probably noticed by now, creating high-quality videos that are relevant to your viewers’ interests is just half of the job. The other half is to have a great keyword strategy to make sure that your content will reach your audience!

If people won’t scroll down to find your video, you need to take your video up to where they are instead (all the way up to the first page of YouTube search results!). So make sure to choose the right keywords and include them strategically on your title, description, transcript, and so on!

That’s the recipe for YouTube success. So, are you ready to start cooking?