How to Use the YouTube Keyword Tool

Publishers look for a YouTube keyword tool on other websites to help them optimize their videos for YouTube search. But YouTube already has a useful keyword tool.
Why do they want a YouTube keyword tool? Because it helps them identify keywords that rank their videos better on both YouTube itself and also in Google search.
Keywords are useful with YouTube videos in four major ways:
- The video title.
- In the video description.
- The summary, which is the first words of the description.
- In the script itself, especially for closed captions.
Where to Find the YouTube Keyword Tool
Click on YouTube Studio in the account and then on Analytics in the left column. Under the main graphic, click on See More. At the top, click on Traffic Source, scroll down and click on YouTube Search.
This version shows the keywords that visitors used to find the videos for the default 28-day period for the entire account. For better and more accurate numbers, change Last 28 Days in the upper right corner to Last 365 Days.
The longer time period will resolve any short-term fluctuations because of holidays, seasons, changes in YouTube ranks from competition and other factors.
Keywords for Individual Videos
But what we really want is a keyword list for individual videos. So in the menu bar at the top, click from Traffic Source to Video. In the list below, click on an individual video, then on Traffic Source and finally on YouTube Search. Make sure the time period is still 365 days.
The numbers will vary greatly for videos with decent viewership. The ones at the top will reflect both demand and the presence of the keywords in the title, summary, description and script.
The opportunity lies with the smaller numbers. Because these are numbers of an existing video, any changes will take place in the title, summary and description but not the script.
Next Best YouTube Keyword Tool
The Google Ads keyword planner is the next best tool for YouTube keywords because it will have a much greater volume of potential keywords. It’s also useful for identifying keywords that will go into the script before video production begins. (Note that YouTube uses the script in its search algorithms.)
Go to ads.google.com and create an account. Click on Tools & Settings at the top right, Keyword Planner and Discover New Keywords. Enter the search term and click on results.
Keep in mind that the results reflect searches on Google.com, but they offer useful ideas for YouTube.
No website knows better and more about YouTube keywords than YouTube.com and Google.com.