How I do keyword research. What is your method?

[Morbidejs]

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.

Maybe.
Yes, in my experience tags have effect on for what keywords and how high you rank, because you can`t look at tags as an individual, they are a part of your metadata, therefore it`s important to use tags combining with what you say in your video, what you put in your description, how you name your video, how you name your video and thumbnail file. When you combine them all and they resonate with each other, tags are another brick that help your video to appear and rank higher for certain keywords.

Yeah, certain search terms will not be found in your tags, but they are somehow connected to your video. Either it`s in the description, or you say it in your video (that`s why it`s important to transcribe your videos) or it has a direct connection with some information in your tags.

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.

I believe this is not 100% true.
If you use all the SEO possibilities, you can rank higher for certain keywords. I can see it on my videos, where the first videos I made for an online game rank much lower for same keywords, comparing with videos I made on the same topic later with more knowledge about SEO.
I guess factors involving audience engagement (watch time, audience retention, views, subscribers, comments, likes/dislikes, shares) are more important in the longrun, but in the first week for a small channel metadata is your tool to make your video to be found.
You will be ranked higher for your main keyword if you use it in multiple places (title, descriptionx3, file name, thumbnail name, tags). Ofcourse, other factors have huge impact on how high your video will be ranked, but these tools are too valuable to ignore for a small channel.

I`m talking here about every smallest detail that counts. When you combine all those small details, the beast called eanking can be influenced by your actions.