Boosting your YouTube engagement and video rankings are about more than just pumping out video after video. You’ll get better results when you spend more time on quality over quantity. That’s how you can rank higher and nab that top spot, skyrocketing your video views and subscribers – or at least stop putting out mediocre videos because you’re trying to meet some arbitrary quota. But as anyone who’s ever tried to boost their engagement and increase video views on YouTube can tell you, it isn’t easy as you think. Fortunately, we’ve had here 26 incredible YouTube SEO tools that can streamline your path to a growing and engaged YouTube following.
Why YouTube Optimization Matters
YouTube is a powerful search engine. The truth is that it’s the second most popular search engine in the world behind Google. And, Google loves YouTube content. Once you do a Google search, video content stands out from the rest of the search results:
When you focus on creating the right YouTube content using the right keywords and tags, you put yourself in an excellent position to rank higher on Google and YouTube’s internal search. That’s the reason why we’ve put together this list of 26 YouTube optimization tools you can use to get more YouTube followers and boost your ranking without spending countless hours creating videos just for the sake of creating videos.
26 Best YouTube SEO Tools
When you think that video is the top-performing content across all social media platforms it just makes sense to pay attention to creating the great, most optimized YouTube videos possible. You can then share them across your social media platforms, growing your followers, and increasing your reach. However, with more than 2 billion users on the platform, getting your videos found can be a bit complicated.
That’s where these YouTube optimization tools come in.
In this post, you’ll find the best tools you need to create interesting videos, find the right keywords and tags, find out what your competitors are up to, and track the performance of your YouTube channel.
Manage Your YouTube Channel
A successful YouTube channel requires a bit more than just publishing videos frequently. You should track the performance of your videos to ensure that you’re not spending time and money on the wrong content that’s missing the mark. In this section, you’ll find YouTube optimization tools that will support you to 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 media platforms.
1 . TubeBuddy
TubeBuddy is a browser extension that provides you with a lot 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 make 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 make use of to know where your channel is succeeding and where it isn’t. You can use it to understand more about your audience and the content that catches their attention, improving your YouTube video views, and keeps them engaged. You’ll also be able to track 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 provides the stats you need to track your YouTube performance. You can also add competitor channels to take a look at 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 allows you to share your video instantly across social media platforms.
Identify Your Best Keywords
Descriptions and titles are essential 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 giving recommendations for keywords and phrases to help you along:
This is an effective tool for users but it’s also an extremely helpful 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 add in your video description, tags, and title.
5. Google Keyword Planner
Google offers many free tools that creators can use to explore the right keywords to add to its content. This is a great tool for your YouTube business. You can access Google Keyword Planner from your Google Ads dashboard (you don’t need to run ads to use it). It will allow you to find the keywords that are worth the most for Google searches so you can include those keywords in your YouTube descriptions and titles.
6. Keyword Tool (Keywordtool.io)
Keyword Tool is a freemium tool you can use to choose 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, then Keyword Tool will give you recommendations in the form of questions, prepositions, and even hashtags. The paid version starts at $69/month and allows you to access 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 recommendations and view search volume, competition, expected visits, and more. Rank Tracker is perfect for finding keywords that will put your videos in the running for that coveted featured snippet position that helps you stay 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 know the number of 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 an easy and 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 your keywords, then let it do its work.