How I do keyword research. What is your method?

[Loki Doki]

Haha, SEO p**n, love it. I'm with you on this, I love stats and trying to master the system but I don't think it can be done. All YouTube experts say that SEO is becoming less relevant as the algorithm gets smarter.

thats not quite true. things like tags are becoming much less relevant as the system gets smarter, but you still have to tell the algorithm what it is your video is about. and thats basically what SEO is. trying to let youtube know which 2 or 3 keywords you want people to search and see your video. that will never change and thus SEO will always be hugely important

 

[Morbidejs]

13% is great from search. I keep forgetting that every channel's traffic sources are very different. In your case, definitely maximize that.

For the keywords, say I want to make a video with kids and toys at the playground. So I type in "playground a"... "playground b"... all the way to "playground z" and get ideas of keywords around that. Below are examples for a, b, c, f, but in real research I go through the whole alphabet.

View attachment 37275

So in this case, I would consider the keywords:
playground accidents
playground backflip
playground ball
playground balls kids
playground challenge
playground children
playground for kids
playground fun
playground fun for kids
playground fun place
etc

You'll notice it catches some from near the top, and some from near the bottom. So assuming you can get traffic, the video will rank easily for those at the bottom, and perhaps some near the top.

So when planning the video I would get the kids to do a challenge, throw a ball at each other and down the slides, do some flips on the grass, etc, to catch those keywords. Works the same if you have a video already, pick the keywords with what's in the video already.

Thanks for sharing this information!

I will try this on some of my next videos. The thing I don`t like about this method is that I can calculate the ratio between searches and search results, but there`s nothing to do about it. We`re all in the same boat.

I have already prepared SEO for my nxt video, but I will try this for he video after my next video. I`ll write my results here, though it might not be so soon, because I don`t make more than 1 video per week. My laziness is holding me back to progress faster, but what can you do about it, when you want to go fishing instead of spending hours by computerd. I wait for the inspiration and motivation. I believe in this way my videos are better.[DOUBLEPOST=1471859285,1471858977][/DOUBLEPOST]

Ooooooh I didn't know that. That's awesome! My latest video is being suggested quite a bit, which is unusual for me. Maybe the algorithm is finally taking pity on me

My best video get`s 61% views from suggested videos. It`s suggested on 80+ videos and playlists. Some of the videos are with 10k or even 100k views (for this nich it`s huge), but I`m not quite sure, how YT decides, where to suggest my video, because I have videos with very similar keywords, but they are not as successful as this video. It bothers me when I don`t know why things are the way they are.

 

[Sabrina]

thats not quite true. things like tags are becoming much less relevant as the system gets smarter, but you still have to tell the algorithm what it is your video is about. and thats basically what SEO is. trying to let youtube know which 2 or 3 keywords you want people to search and see your video. that will never change and thus SEO will always be hugely important

It is important but only for the first weeks or so. I remember it being described like this: Imagine you have a video that you title "dog", description "dog" and tags "dog", but the video and thumbnail is of a cat. So at first YouTube will file it under "dog". But over time YT sees that viewers only click on it / give it watch time while on a cat video binge. Now YT files it under "cat". Basically, YT likes to make their own assumptions about the content based on user signals. This is kinda smart. On the one hand, it helps the normal creator who has no idea how to use metadata effectively, and on the other hand it prevents people from gaming the system.

My best video get`s 61% views from suggested videos. It`s suggested on 80+ videos and playlists.

Whoa, that's amazing, congrats!

It bothers me when I don`t know why things are the way they are.

Same. It's gonna be hard to figure that out. The algorithm has 1 million lines of code.

 

[Loki Doki]

It is important but only for the first weeks or so

which is by far the single most important time of a videos life. i understand what your saying about the algorithm. i was just pointing out SEO will always be important. it will change as the algorithm gets smarter. but it will always be vital

 

[Sabrina]

which is by far the single most important time of a videos life. i understand what your saying about the algorithm. i was just pointing out SEO will always be important. it will change as the algorithm gets smarter. but it will always be vital

I guess we can agree that giving YT appropriate metadata is definitely vital, but spending hours on perfecting SEO not so much (anymore).

 

[Loki Doki]

I guess we can agree that giving YT appropriate metadata is definitely vital, but spending hours on perfecting SEO not so much (anymore).

of course, especially considering metadata is basically part of SEO

 

[Morbidejs]

I guess we can agree that giving YT appropriate metadata is definitely vital, but spending hours on perfecting SEO not so much (anymore).

If I would not spend hours, if not days, on researching SEO, most probably I would get less than 10 views per day. I agree with @Loki Doki , SEO is still very important as it helps you to reach the maximum view boost in the first week. If you have 100k+ subscribers, ofcourse you`ll get alots of views during the first days and your video will be pushed up in the search ranking eventually, but this is not the case for, for example, me, where I have to fight for views (I`m actually not fighting or being stressed about views ), so SEO is the main reason why I receive traffic at first place.

Yes, I still spend 30-50 minutes per video to research keywords, to write a SEO friendly description etc., but for me doing something with a reason is very important. I will not make a video and just post it with a title and one sentence in the description and choose keywords on pure luck. For me it`s important to get better at what I do, learn and do research.

I looked at your tags. Looks like you`ve find a good way, how to rank up high in the search results. And that is awesome! If it works for you and you enjoy the way you work, it`s the most important thing here. I really liked the way, how you tagged your anxiety video, where you walked in the forest (few days ago it was your newest video). Very creative and clever!

 

[Sabrina]

The things I've said in this thread aren't an opinion of mine. I read and heard it from YT experts like Tim Schmoyer, Derral Eves and websites on video marketing, back when the changes were made, around 2 years ago? And I wish it wasn't so!! I wish we had more way of controlling the algorithm and the outcome. And I still put work into my SEO because I'm only a tiny channel and I want to know that I did everything I could.

Also about tags: YouTube themselves have said that they're not really important anymore and if we wish to use them we can do so to add additional keywords that aren't in the title and description. But they have much less weight.

 

[Morbidejs]

The things I've said in this thread aren't an opinion of mine. I read and heard it from YT experts like Tim Schmoyer, Derral Eves and websites on video marketing, back when the changes were made, around 2 years ago? And I wish it wasn't so!! I wish we had more way of controlling the algorithm and the outcome. And I still put work into my SEO because I'm only a tiny channel and I want to know that I did everything I could.

Also about tags: YouTube themselves have said that they're not really important anymore and if we wish to use them we can do so to add additional keywords that aren't in the title and description. But they have much less weight.

I`ve learned from Tim Schmoyer and Derral Eves too. Bu the thing here is that SEO is more than tags. Tags themselves can`t guarantee success - they have to appear in the title, description, what you say in the video (if it`s a video with a speach).
Seo is used to make you appear higher in the search results, so everything that helps to achieve this is considered SEO.
I can`t be 100% on this, but as I understand even sharing in other social platforms, websites and blogs have impact on the ranking in the search results. And if you use the same keywords as in the metadata when sharing your video it helps to rank higher.

But, as you said before, algorhitm has million lines of code, so it`s hard to be sure, how certain actions impact reanking in the search results.

 

[Sabrina]

Bu the thing here is that SEO is more than tags. Tags themselves can`t guarantee success -

I feel like we're speaking about different things. I didn't say SEO is just tags, I said tags are almost irrelevant. And I only mentioned tags because you were congratulating me on how I was tagging my video. But do the tags have any effect? The first search terms (I saw in Analytics) that YT directed to my video weren't even in my tags, like at all, because I didn't think I'd have a chance to rank for them. But YT just does its own thing.

Seo is used to make you appear higher in the search results, so everything that helps to achieve this is considered SEO.

Hm? In this thread we're talking about optimising our metadata and metadata only determines what a video ranks for, not how high. (Tim Schmoyer). The ranking itself is another beast and it's mostly influenced by session watch time.