Youtube recently released a keyword tool, which you can find here: Youtube Keyword Tool. I’ve been playing around with it this past week, and it seems interesting, although I must say I haven’t totally worked out how to get the most out of it yet.
Essentially it works very much like the Google keyword tool, where you search for a specific keyword phrase and it provides the exact, phrase and broad match stats for the phrase. The results are ok, but there is clearly not as much data for Youtube videos yet, but I think there will be soon.
The first question that I asked myself was, “how do I use this tool for marketing?”
The obvious answer is to look at the search volume for the keywords and develop a video around something that gets decent search volume. That’s all well and good, but from what I know if still doesn’t tell you how easily you will rank your video in Youtube.
After looking at the Youtube keyword data, I decided to look for videos over at Youtube by searching on these phrases, and in particular I was looking for results where the videos didn’t look like they were optimized for that exact phrase.
At this stage Youtube seems to be mainly ranking videos internally, ie. not in Google, by the “on page” factors, such as the title and decsription, although I assume there is more to it than just this.
So at this early stage I assume if you can find keywords in Youtube that don’t have videos specifically optimized for the phrase, then these may be ones you could target with you videos.
For example if you find in the Youtube keyword tool that the phrase “lose weight fast” has a decent search volume, and then when you search for “lose weight fast” in Youtube and find no videos that are purposely targeting that exact phrase, then this may be an opening to target.
I am no expert at this, but that is my assumptions at this stage. I’m interested to know what you all think, so please comment below and let’s share some ideas about how to use this tool.
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Finally, I knew google would create this tool…. I know I’ll now do more video marketing thanks to that!
Hey Matt,
It’s super easy to rank right now for YouTube vids, but not for long I’d suspect.
The more “aged” accounts you start developing now, the better you should be able to do if this follows what Google has considered important in the past.
-Jim
Hmmm, just had a bit of a play around on it Matt.
Doesn’t seem to be enough data for physical product research from scratch but, quite interesting for checking out existing keywords.
I have a yoga mat site for instance. ‘Not Enough Data’ for “yoga mats” but plenty of searches for “yoga for beginners” and “yoga pants”.
Until the stats improve it might be best for a quick check on existing site keywords to add a quick video (or powerpoint presentation) for back-links.
I seemed to get the most interesting results from very broad keyword terms. Eg. “Yoga” rather than “Yoga Mat”
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2011 at 8:58 am
Hey Mark
Yes I agree the stats are low on some phrases, but you need to keep in mind that people are looking for videos, and are not in a shopping mode, so they will most likely type in more info phrases to bring up videos.
Thanks
Matt
Mark Dickenson Reply:
May 26th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Hey There Matt,
You bring up an excellent point
People don’t usually go on Youtube to shop per se…
But the cool thing is, you can easily monetize Youtube traffic with CPA offers
And the flip side of that coin is that it is a lot easier to get ranked on Page 1 of Google with a video…so that is where we can grab the buying traffic from Google with a lot less effort
And the really nice thing about videos on page 1 is that due to the fact they have thumbnails, they really stick out…
So you don’t always have to be in the top 2 spots to make consistent sales like you would a web page
I always enjoy reading your stuff Matt. Keep up the good work
-Mark
Hi Matt,
I’m finding the same as the previous two commenters. Broad searches are returning some results, but narrow searches often come up with “Not Enough Data”.
It does seem that the high ranking videos at this point come from aged accounts with a decent amount of videos and videos with a good amount of plays and comments.
This could be an interesting opportunity for someone who produces videos and can add links in them. Thanks for pointing this out.
Cheers,
Brian
Matt Carter Reply:
May 26th, 2011 at 9:05 am
Hi Brian
Yeah I am seeing the same thing, and I assume it is the reason I explained above to Mark, or that Google just doesn’t have the stats yet for video.
Will be interesting to keep an eye on this, because if we can work out how to target video, like we do search, then it opens up a whole new world for us.
Matt
Hi there,
like comment Mark, Not enough data yet. at least for spanish. However I believe that this tool will be improved by Google soon.
In other hand, neither can select “no country”. You must always select one, or I don’t see the option.
I have a bit of a frustration with YouTube that maybe someone can help with. How do you find the most recently added videos? Everytime I type in a keyword it comes back with videos that can be years old…I want something that’s up-to-date.
As for the KW tool – pretty good, certainly got potential.
Reph Reply:
May 27th, 2011 at 7:35 am
Jane – after you put in your search term in YouTube and get the initial results, there’s a Filter & Explore button right under the number of search results. If you click that, you can add filters to show videos uploaded today, this week, this month. You can also sort them by Date. hope this helps.
Jane Reply:
May 27th, 2011 at 9:07 am
Yes, that does help – thanks so much!
Matt,
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you…this is huge IMO. Video is exploding. This media is going to launch many success stories (above the one offs we’ve seen to date.)
Hi Matt,
Thanks for this. I would never have known this without you. You see I got this from your email. I subscribed from your email list last year and I was never disappointed, not even once.
Not like others, you do not spam people with sales letters on there emails. Thats what I like being on your email list. Keep up the good work buddy.
Thanks,
Randy Bonachita II
Thanks for the tip.
I have a bunch of videos that I have made of my customers order for a personalized wine box being MADE – I’m trying to latch onto the “unboxing craze”, but “the making of your box” and let my customers SHARE the video with friends, etc. It’s a ton of work, and I am wondering if I should have multiple YT accounts for each different product, or project, and to be able to cross market. I am reading everything I can get on YT strategies, linking, etc – I’m open to suggestions. I looked at the YT tool several weeks ago and it looked pretty weak at that time. My niche with this is kind of in the GIFT business – hard to find buyer keywords since lot’s of people don’t plan ahead for a nice, personalized gift…
Interesting- if you click on the ‘Show more’ button underneath high ranking videos the keywords are right there to piggyback a potential Youtube page 1 ranking, but I feel in order to get a consistent response you need to be focused on a category, not a traffic response in order to get quality leads.
Response time to create videos, and niche targetting seem to be a bit behind google- but there must be a pattern here
Hello Matt,
Thanks for the awesome solid contents you always roll out each time. The value of these contents are really amazing and rewarding to me, personally.
I just sent you an email about an awesome YouTube Video Traffic Explorer software that I developed and giving away for free. A warrior member described it as a “YouTube Samurai” software. I hope you got it?
I will appreciate your opinion soon.
Thank you!
Matt, as always another great post coming from you. Im always looking forward to your email for any tips. I discarded all those guru so called, and leave 2 or 3 people to email me. And one of those is you.
I appreciate the youtube kw, I will put this into action. Just bought a Nikon d90 and I will use this to shot videos.
In my experience with youtube and getting a YT video to rank, both on google and YT you need to produce videos that are not commercial in intent. In other words a “how to” type informational videos do rank better on YT search results thus it will be picked up by google as well in one of their video blocks. There are tricks that need to be employed to get a video ranked. Basically, get it ranked on YT, google will rank it as well. The old way of thinking that did work, make a video and just build links, seldom works these days.
It seems too many people tried to create a “commercial” to sell their products. Considering how relatively easy it is to do that I can see why google and YT stopped ranking those type videos so easily. You need to be creative and make videos that sell products without making it look like your selling a product
JP Reply:
May 26th, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Great tips and advice David (and Matt), thanks!!!!
This is going to be very interesting. I was considering whether I should start looking into making videos.
I guess I need to go buy a camera and start researching some keywords on You Tube.
Hi Matt,
It seems there are so many options we have rightnow when doing business online, but I just want to focusing on what you teach us with the RPF. Thaks btw.
A video tutorial would definitely be helpful for this.
Reph Reply:
May 27th, 2011 at 7:42 am
Rich et al. The BEST video guy on the internet that I know of is Andy Jenkins – he’s presently launching a new coaching program to teach you how to use video in online marketing. The course includes everything you need to know about how to rank on YT and Google. I took the course last year and it was outstanding.
Here’s the link for the course: http://www.1automationwiz.com/app/?af=1352696
(Yes, I’ve become an affiliate for coaching program since I took it – it’s that good).
Hi Matt
Thanks for the heads up on the tool.
Video for me has always ranked well in the Google search engines. Prior to Google buying YT I also use to obtain great ranking using Viddler, Revver , Metacafe etc but not any more.
One tip if you want to use video on YT to support your web site.
If you make your videos with a strong sales theme and they find you, then they will close your account with no warning or reason.
Viewers have no hesitation in reporting videos back to YT and if you have a library of video’s supporting your various web sites then your business could go backwards overnight.
I wouldn’t overdo the keywords or description box either.
David Reply:
May 26th, 2011 at 10:40 am
I agree peter. Like I stated earlier, you need to make videos that don’t look like your trying to sell something. Make “how to” and instructional videos. I have also noticed that at the very least google does not actually watch the video when it ranks you. They instead will read your description so thats very important that you make your description seo freindly while not overdoing it either. It’s a tricky game both with YT and google
Hi Matt, Thank you for updating with this valuable information.From this moment, we can use Youtube
Keyword tool to find for a specific keyword phrase
and it provides us data for Youtube videos. Indeed,
It’s another Google’s great innovation.
Hi Matt,
I think now that they have a keyword tool, everyone will start using it and data will be available soon enough. So my thoughts are to ask you if you could come up with some sensible way of making videos. The business of getting slides,Power Point etc somewhat cumbersome.Camtasia is good but I think we need something easy, professional and be ready yesterday type of thing.I mean to say quick, may be you would like to look into creating a product, this way? That would be awesome.
Kind regards
Thanks very much as always looking out for your posts, emails as the information is always to point and enjoyable. Great!
Wow… Cool… But…
I tried to use a few of my keywords – very non-IM stuff, and the results were a whole lot of crazy. For “personal finance” for example, here’s a few of the gems that came back with the tool:
* maplestory save (I don’t even know what that is!)
* aqua man
* xbox 360
When I got down to some ‘real’ words (“managing money” did come through), it showed “not enough data.” Grrrr…. “Warren Buffet” did show 7300 views.
Great idea… but I’m going to have to wait a while to get some useable results.
Bill
PS – “Cow” got more than 600,000 hits, so maybe there’s a product there… hahahaha
I agree that the trick with marketing on YT is not looking like you’re marketing on YT. Just look at how many “how to” videos there are. Most are good content and useful. Once you’ve taught someone or solidified their opinion that they are doing the right thing, you have gained their trust.
A great place to become an expert in your field too. Most punters would be pretty impressed in receiving an email from the guy in the YT video. You’ve created celebrity staus within your niche.
Only problem I see is if like me, you have a good head for radio, you might need to learn a bit more about powerpoint presentation.
In terms of ranking in youtube, I tend to agree with you that internal on page factors make the difference for now. I’ve seen some videos that have complete articles in the description and they seem to rank well.
Thanks again, Matt, for helping us stay on top of what’s going on in the internet world that could help us with our businesses!
I tried out the YouTube Keyword tool and although I only did a few searches, I couldn’t believe the weird suggestions for keyword ideas! I think it will improve with time, but for now, the keyword ideas that came back were not even CLOSE to the phrase I had typed in as the keyword phrase. For instance, this is pretty funny. I typed in “stressed dogs” to see what would come up. “reporter bloopers” and “thecomputernerd01” were 2 of the phrases they suggested! Huh??
I think it needs a little work, but definitely something to keep our eyes on. Thanks!
Hey Matt, Thanks again for sharing new techniques you are using. We have camtasia studio and power point and was looking at creating video’s for all of our sites. It’s great to know YT has a keyword tool. We were not aware of it but will definitely start using it.
Hope all is well across the pond. Thanks again for sharing what you are doing in your business and helping us to grow ours at the same time.
Jim
Hey Matt,
My only experience in YouTube marketing is with local business videos. They’re pretty easy to rank right now. When I checked the term there was as expected, “not enough data”. However, that one term, “city”+”profession” as title, ranked on the 1st page for 9 variations. I include backlinking, geotag and a legitimate description, while some I’ve seen ranking well use keyword stuffing tactics which I expect to get slapped at some point. Google knows that old trick and will catch up to it. It’s my feeling that Channel theme is gaining value. Next, I’m going to test non-local keywords.
Wow this is amazing, now just need a way to create videos that would convert easier.Also, you’re right Matt, the way to optimize videos are based on titles and descriptions. Backlinking the videos is how you can really boost them up to the first page of Youtube and also in the search engines. Also ratings,comments, and the bounce rate of a video plays a role as well, oh and also the youtube channel, it’s a great pratice to place your keywords on your channel, as thier are tons of opportunties to do so.
Hi Matt,
Always good to read your blog. This one is new to me and as I only just started video marketing it comes at the right time.
I have had some luck with local business marketing like Ted but not so good with others unless I do them in volume from one channel…seems to help even for different keywords but I don’t really know why.
Any ideas? or is it pure luck do you think? I’ll take it anyway !!!
Hi Matt
May I start by saying that I found you on U-tube so that worked out well.
I have been trying out a few things on u-tube. First I have made a few short vid’s about 45 seconds which is Google’s recommendations, naming them with my keywords as part one, two and so on. I then make sure I like vids in the same category line as my vid’s with no attempt to market my own so that I do not get flagged as spam and I see that is going well.
I think ranking of videos on YT is a black art currently and I’m sure Google/YT are doing clever stuff with the content in the video. I’ve noticed that videos without meaningful titles or tags are matched as related videos based on the content of the thumbnail. Aligning the content of a video by creating a tie-in with another highly viewed video could cause your video to show up as a related video on the high traffic video. For example, I had a video promoting a weight loss product that had a ‘Shrek’ theme. It got a lot of views because it showed up as a related video on other highly trafficked Shrek videos. Not very targeted I admit, but if you’re smart about this there could be a lot of mileage in this technique.
Also, you can add a “captions/subtitle” file to your video which is meant to aid accessibility for hard of hearing people. If you transcribe the voice content of your video and add it as a caption file I’m sure that it gets indexed and used in search results.
I’d be willing to bet that YT are working on voice and optical character recognition techniques to extract video content to make it indexable.
Hi Matt,
I discovered something interesting about my YouTube video. I built backlinks to my video and got a PR4 for this video and the exposure just took off.
The great thing is that I now have a PR4 backlink from my YouTube video. Check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aom726SA5qU
My video also pops up in the first place in Google if you search for Public Speaking. I thought this was pretty cool…?
It´s good to know that!Thanks.
Hi Matt.
Thanks for the great blog you have sent us.
I like many others I am sure, who are learning your Rapid Profit Formula system are still in the walking stages and are only just getting used to Google Keyword Tool, but I will keep this tool in my “to do” folder.
Thanks for the great work you are doing for us.
David Allen
Teeth Whitening Manager.
Thanks for this great info and good to see some of the search stats behind the Youtube videos keywords.
Matt,
This may not be the best place on your blog but I just wanted to give you a shameless plug for Rapid Profit Formula.
I have a lot of unsuccessful Amazon affiliate sites. I earned a little money over Christmas with some IPK style sites but generally I’ve never had more than 10-15 visitors a day on a regular basis and my most successful sites earn me about $15 USD a month!
I’ve just finished my first Rapid Profit Formula site and so far the results are great. It’s very early days and, I’ve done no back-linking but, visitor numbers are straight in at a regular 80-100 a day. And I’ve made 34USD from the first 3 orders.
There’s nothing startlingly new, and it’s not rocket science but your system works Matt! It’s a really solid, common sense, business method. And it’s helped me to turn that corner!
Thank you.
Hi Matt – Thanks for letting me know about this great Google Keyword Tool. This SEO is a real puzzle and it’s good to get the nod on new tools.
Matt, thanks for the heads up. I am starting to focus more effort on video marketing for my business and I didn’t know about this tool yet.
Your content is greatly appreciated.
Richard
This is great news Matt! I certainly plan to do more video marketing and this new tool will help.
Interesting thing to note is that one of my websites has and an entire sub-domain of movies and videos, many of which came from YouTube. This sub-domain gets the lions share of traffic volume to my entire site, about 40%.
http://www.movies.martialarm.com/
Within a month of adding Google Adsense to my website, Google banned Adsense from this entire sub-domain due to “violation of terms”. In my opinion, they just did not want to reward me for competing with them.
Great! I’m just getting my head around things like Market Samurai and along comes another keyword search tool!
Actually, I can see this being an essential tool in the future as more and more marketers turn to video sales letters through courses like Russ Ruffino’s new WSO.
Does anyone know if the number of inward links, views, likes, comments, subscriptions etc. count positively toward your ranking in YouTube?
David Reply:
May 27th, 2011 at 12:00 am
From what I have seen it does Louise. Especially views, likes and comments.
Paul Facey Reply:
May 27th, 2011 at 6:32 am
Absolutely, yes!
Here’s the list in order of importance:
1. Subscribers
2. Friends
3. Comments
4. Thumbs Up
5. Views
By now you should already know the IM RULE – ‘the money is in the list’ :0
Hope that help.
Paul Facey
Louise Lewis Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 1:02 am
Thanks Paul ! 🙂
Mark Dickenson Reply:
May 27th, 2011 at 7:11 am
Hello Louise
Absolutely 🙂
Think of all of the above as votes for your video and if you can
increase those factors, you will see more traffic and conversions provided your keyword research was on point
Good question!
HOpe this helps
-Mark
Louise Lewis Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 1:02 am
Thanks Mark ! 🙂
Hi Matt, Thanks for the tip. Didn’t realize youtube has such a tool. Will check it out.
Hey matt
Thanks for your email, no adversiment in but useful stuff, good job!
I have just started to make videos about plumbing tips to try and improve the rank of my Wolverhampton plumbing site and like a lot of people have said a lot of the keywords I put in do not have any data. But I a lot of stuff did come back that sparked a few internet marketing ideas.
Internet marketing is something I have been trying to do for a while now because I want to get out of the plumbing game. I haven’t had much success at the moment.
What interests me is doing offline marketing to small businesses. Matt can you recommend a course that covers SEO or website building for local businesses?
Hey Matt. Thanks so much for bringing the You Tube Keyword tool to our attention.
I looked at it … seems there is “not enough data” on many of the ones I typed it, but I’m sure that there are likely tweaks they need to make. It will likely develop more over the next weeks.
I am amazed how you manage to keep on top of all the changes.
BTW, I’m loving your Rapid Profit Formula. I’m working on different campaigns often and absolutely thrilled with it. (just a side note).
I even did a blog post about it and have had a couple of effortless sales of your product through my clickbank. I don’t recommend products often, I guess since my readers know this, I have gleaned quite a bit of attention. I guess they know I’m serious!!
Thanks for continually providing such awesome content.
Jayne
Matt,
Thanks for this. I have been playing about with the tool and there is much work to be done. I agree with one of your earlier commenters that people don’t normally go to youtube to buy something, but maybe this will change.
HI Matt,
This completly new direction for me, but it allways nice to learn something new and the ways you can use it.
Thank you for sharing this great information.
Hey Matt,
I must say that this is one of the most under-utilized tool at your disposal as a youtube use/marketer.
With just ten minutes of work and elbow grease, you can have your videos ranking extremely well within youtube and generate LOTS of views.
But, that’s only if you TAKE ACTION!!!
Cheers,
Paul Facey
Hi Matt, it’s been in beta for some time now, but as you say finding high search and low results is the key (same as any keyword research really) optimising the video with backlinks also gets fast results, then post the link to the video to Twitter and other micro blogs gets the search engines ranking it quickly.
Good to know however that there is a new platform to use good old fashioned keyword research to great effect. I appears however that youtube ranks more on tags and related comments than meta titles, so theres a great tip for you all.
All the best John
Thanks Matt for the YouTube Keyword Search Tool Link.
I tried it out on a keyword that I know has some YouTube videos available, but the search resulted in ” not enough data”. I am wondering how useful this tool really will be. Perhaps it’s too early to evaluate.
I can only imagine that, now that this tool is available, that there will be a continual improvement as to how the tool works so that someday in near future this will be a viable tool to use, as well as the other processes that we are using. The more this is looked as a tool
to use, which means the visitations to YouTube will increase, the more valuable this has to become.
Paul
Thanks for your information.You always seem to find a new way to look at things. I will give a try. Key words are a big thing.
Fantastic article. I’ve been working through your eCourse over the past few weeks and the content is incredible. Thanks.
you tube has started renting videos, etc, so you can basically have your show, and sell video course on you tube. this is when this tool will rock.
Hi Matt
I just had a play around with the tool and I hope that they do improve on it – you can’t do much with it now.
Neil
Using brand names as keywords seems to be a promising way to begin a search.
Hi Matt,
Good post. As usual you always on the look out for the software tools that can add value to our businesses. Personally, my effort is on working (SEO) my affiliates sites. When my RPF is decently paying me back, then I will attempt YT.
Hi Matt,
Having put videos on YouTube for one thing and another I guess it boils down to Youtube knows what you watch , when you watch, why didnt you watch..what you dont watch…I think that about spells it out. Eyeballs are eyeballs not necessarily about learning anything new just be entertained. It is like that fellow a vagabond who started doing his radio voice over by the roadside..as soon as youtube got a hold of it that guy had important job offers…video is about standing out from the crowd with Youtube. With the exception i.e. your name is Justin Beber.
Matt,
Thanks for the info. This is the first I had heard of the YT kywd. tool.
I’ve unsubscribed from every marketer’s list except for yours and two others I believe. This post is an example of why I keep getting your emails.
Keep up the good work.
Hi Matt Carter speaking,
Thanks for a useful post and thanks to all those who have posted some useful and interesting food for thought items.
i guess another question for people to answer, is how many people have come across through an organic search and watched a video, then proceeded to buy?
And if they did purchase, what type of keywords did they use? e.g., was it a ‘how to…’ vid?
David Reply:
May 30th, 2011 at 10:25 am
In answer to your question I do not generally purchase things from the internet. I try to sell instead 🙂
Just to clarify my earlier posts, it is not impossible to get a “commercial” type video to rank on YT and google. Search “teeth whitening los angeles” for an example. The top result in YT is also ranked first page on google and is an obvious commercial. YT and google will take the best of whats available it seems. However if someone comes up with a “how to” or “review” type video that particular video will get tirst page and the other video will drop like a stone. Seen it happen often lately.
As a side note “how to” seems to take precedence over “review” videos as well. Just my 2 cents
Thanks Matt, I did not know about that tool until now.Before I say anything about it I’m going to spend some time testing it.
Very interesting tool.
Even though we don’t really get enough synonym data for the keyword we are looking for as the “google tool” does, we still do get some decent information.
Thanks for the post,
Dev
Thanks! this helps a lot, because I started making a lot of youtube videos. I think video marketing is king right now. I makes the most traffic for me and it`s great for the search engines. With this tool it is gonna be even better.
Thanks again
Andrej
One more keyword tool for video optimization, google always rocks in online. This will definitely use full tool for video optimization.
Thanks for the heads up on this. I am sure it will be a very valuable tool.
Hi Matt,
I watched your video on how to obtain the gov and edu links from the foreign websites. It works very well on the gov sites I tested, such as the vn,cn,rs, etc.
But, I couldn’t get any edu sites to come up.
Also, do you have any idea why this wouldn’t work on US gov and edu sites?
Still a pretty cool technique and really appreciate you sharing it with us.
Wayne
Thanks Matt – a really useful tool for us IMers.
Bookmarked and added to my toolbox.
I’m sure this tool will improve over time.
I know somebody already have said it, but thanks a lot for the tip about Youtube Keywords tools. I you haven’t mention it, I would never have found it.
For me it looks like a huge potential, for some more creative ways of doing business.
Thanks Again
Matt Carter Reply:
August 23rd, 2011 at 8:02 am
No problem Tom, I’ll always share cool tools I find,.
Cheers
Matt
I’ve looked at the keyword tool and I think the secret to it’s value in video marketing is to give you a general idea of the amount of interest in a given topic. Don’t expect to get detailed stats on a long tail keyword phrase…
I found it helpful in picking keywords after checking out the competitive videos.