HOW TO: Get More Views by Targeting 'Long Tail'/Compound Keywords for Tags

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just Moto

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I've never written one of these before so here goes nothing. I'm sure it will help a few people, because it is working for me quite well.

In the last month, I have successfully gained approximately 130,000 views specifically from using long tail key words for tags, which were searched for by users through the Youtube search bar.

Long tail keywords are those three and four keyword phrases which are very, very specific to whatever your video is about. They are also known as compound tags. The number 1 thing to keep in mind, is that most people who upload a video to YouTube don't use alot of Long Tail tags, so when someone types in a three or four word search query, there isn't much competition for that tag and you have a much higher chance of coming up on the first page of search results.

So lets get into the nitty gritty. How do you find some good long tails to use for tags.

Step 1. The YouTube search bar



I've simply found the first image on google images here to use as an example. Let's assume we have uploaded a relaxing music video and want to target some long tail keywords specific to our video.

Quick note, make sure to ctrl+shift+p (in firefox) to enable private browsing, or the equivalent setting in other browsers in order to get youtube search terms that ARE NOT tailored specifically to you.

As you can see, the person has typed in relaxing and alot of Long Tail tags have appeared. This is how you find your long tails.

If someone was new and uploaded a relaxing music video their tags might look like: relaxing, music, meditate, soothing, stress, etc... you get the point. Alot of single word keywords that fill the tag box and have such high competition or just aren't searched, that the chances of them ever showing up in a search are almost zero.

For more chances of showing up in searches you want to target the three and four worded tags. This is because they aren't used often but alot of people are looking for them.

Also try typing relaxing music a, relaxing music b, relaxing music c... and it will bring up the most searched terms for starting with that letter. This gives you heaps more ideas to test and target high ranking search terms specific to your niche...



Write down a bunch of these three and four word seach terms on a piece of paper and then we can explore which ones are best in the next step.

Step 2. Find out which Long Tails are best

This isn't as necessary as what you just did in step 1, because you may still have some success using any of the long tail keywords, but I like to try find the ones with the lowest competition and the highest search volume.

I was using Google Adwords to find out search volumes etc, but just last week discovered a program through this site called Tube Buddy with the built in Tag Explorer feature. You can install it for free if you want and still use this feature. There may be other programs you can use also but I'm happy working with this one for now.

So I have just used the Tag Explore in Tube Buddy to test some keywords. Here are the results.

This is the keyword score for RELAXING... pretty self explanatory.



Let's try the keyword score for relaxing music... As you can see, the competition makes it almost impossible to ever show up in the search results.



Now lets try some long tails...

"Relaxing Music For Studying"


"Relaxing Music For Stress Relief"


"Relaxing Music Sleep"


"Relaxing Music for Children in Classroom"


So now you can see the longer tail keywords have a very high search volume, and very few people are using them. These are what you target. Anything with a score 80+ is gold. Include them in your tags as well as some of the GOOD rated ones also. They are going to get your videos popping up on the first page when people search for specific three and four worded searches.

At the moment I would still include the search terms like relaxing, music, relaxing music at the start, but then use a good bunch of long tail keywords. I'm using 7 - 10 long tails for each video and using the Tube Buddy features can see that I rank first page for many of the tags I have chosen which is why I am getting good views from them.

If you want to see what keywords are currently working for you, go into your Youtube Analytics, then click on Traffic Sources and then "YouTube Search".

Looking at mine for the last 28 days, there is 128,927 views with 561,645 Estimated minutes watched

Only three of my tags that have shown a video in search results are single worded, 12 of them are two word tags, and the other 10 are three or more worded tags. The highest seached term for my results is a three worded tag with approx 15,000 views. THATS 15,000 VIEWS WITH 82,617 MINUTES WATCH TIME FROM USING ONE LONG TAIL KEYWORD!

I've used many different tag words with single, double and long tail across 160+ videos and from these results I can see that the long tails are most effective.

I spent about 4 hours yesterday going through and researching all my tags and switching things up in the tag boxes for different videos so will let you know how it all went in a month.

While some YouTuber's have great success using single word tags or not very good tags at all, there is a high chance you aren't one of them with the ball rolling already. So this is going to be most beneficial to the small timer/newbie trying to get of the ground or to the person who is having some success already but looking for ways to optimise their channel and GET MORE VIEWS!!!! (THAT INCLUDES ME)

I'd encourage anyone and everyone to give it a go if you haven't already, even if it's only for a few videos, and see how you go. What have you got to lose?

Just an upadate (January 2016), I've noticed Tube buddy now has a feautre so you can check if your long tail keywords have ranked! It will show a little green box with a number on it on any keywords that your video owns. So if it is a green 3 then your video is showing up 3rd on page 1 in search results for that search term!

Good luck and have fun :)

Moto.
 
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Lightsen

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Incredibly helpful! thank you! :)
I'm going to try this for my next upload, ill let you know if it does extra well :)
 

just Moto

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Incredibly helpful! thank you! :)
I'm going to try this for my next upload, ill let you know if it does extra well :)
Awesome, and you are very welcome :) You can also go through your other videos and just add a long tail tag if you discover a really good one that's working for you and want to test. Best to give it a full 28 days to check results
 

Panton

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Wow you just taught me a new tool. Thanks, i will defently take this into consideration and go back to my old videos and rework them. But i must ask is tube buddy free? because it says there's pricing and you said that you can download it for free. So i'm kinda confused.
 

wasabiroots

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Wow you just taught me a new tool. Thanks, i will defently take this into consideration and go back to my old videos and rework them. But i must ask is tube buddy free? because it says there's pricing and you said that you can download it for free. So i'm kinda confused.
Its free with limitations but you could still see the scores which is cool and you only pay for extra features. Its a google chrome extension tho, so I don't know about the other browsers :s
 

Panton

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Its free with limitations but you could still see the scores which is cool and you only pay for extra features. Its a google chrome extension tho, so I don't know about the other browsers :s
Thank you. That really stomped me.
 

just Moto

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Yes, I was using the Tag Explorer on Tube Buddy for free with Firefox before upgrading to paid for other features.[DOUBLEPOST=1439475921,1439475799][/DOUBLEPOST]
Great guide, basically expands off the tag explorer guide I wrote already, great job!
Thanks Weise, your tutorial was what put me onto Tube Buddy and for some reason I felt the need to write this up this morning. Think it was to take my mind off a shoulder operation I'm getting in a couple of weeks :hot:
 

WeiseGamer

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Yes, I was using the Tag Explorer on Tube Buddy for free with Firefox before upgrading to paid for other features.[DOUBLEPOST=1439475921,1439475799][/DOUBLEPOST]

Thanks Weise, your tutorial was what put me onto Tube Buddy and for some reason I felt the need to write this up this morning. Think it was to take my mind off a shoulder operation I'm getting in a couple of weeks :hot:
Hey I'm not jealous/mad, haha. I think it's awesome!

Glad you are finding it working well for you. The paid upgrade to "Star" is totally worth in for the extra keyword help and other micro-managing. Making a new guide/tutorial video this weekend to resolve the whole issue with comment notifications so you can still engage your community with ease.
 
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