Finding keywords to optimize your videos is key to your channel’s success. Correctly using keywords will help your videos rank higher in YouTube search results and get the attention they deserve.
What Is YouTube Keyword Research?
YouTube keyword research is the process of finding the actual terms people use to search for videos on YouTube. You can use this information to create videos people want to watch and optimize your video titles, descriptions, tags, and content to show up for searches related to your videos.
In this post, you’ll learn step-by-step how to perform keyword research for YouTube. I’ll show you how to find keywords manually and with the help of free tools.
How to Perform Keyword Research For YouTube Videos
- Find keywords with the YouTube autocomplete feature
- Find the keywords your competitors are using
- Use a YouTube keyword tool
- Use YouTube Studio (Ask Studio and your search traffic)
- Find trending keywords using Google Trends
1. Find keywords with the YouTube autocomplete feature
The first and easiest method to find popular keywords for your videos is to use YouTube’s autocomplete feature.
When you go to YouTube and start typing letters in the search box, you’ll notice that as you type YouTube gives you suggestions of what keywords to use in your search.
This info comes from your past searches and searches made by other people.
This feature can help you find video topic ideas (before creating your video) and optimize your video content based on terms people are actually searching for.
For example, if you want to create a video about “how to find keywords for YouTube” and type these words in the search box, you’ll instantly get a number of great suggestions.
If you take a closer look, you’ll notice that the suggestions cover both the main keywords (find keywords for YouTube) and some nice long-tail keywords, like “how to find keywords of other YouTube videos.”
You can use these to optimize your existing videos or create dedicated videos around those topics.
Focus on long-tail keywords, the longer and more specific phrases such as questions that start with “how to”. They have less competition than broad one-word terms, and the people searching for them know exactly what they want. Use a private or incognito window so your own search history doesn’t influence the suggestions.
2. Find the keywords your competitors are using
Another easy way to determine what keywords to use in your videos is to look at the keywords used by top-ranking videos and your competitors' top videos.
Find Keywords Used by Top Ranking Videos
The process is straightforward, and these are the steps:
- Go to YouTube and search for the keywords you want to rank for
- Visit a video and examine the video title and description
- Use the View Source tool to find the keywords associated with the video
Let’s see a real example of how this works. Assume that you want to create a video on “how to delete an Instagram account”
Go to YouTube and type “how to delete an Instagram account” in the search box.
Scroll down the results to go past the ads and look at the videos in the top positions.
For each video, examine the total number of views and published date. Spot the most popular video and click to visit the video page.
In our example, the first video with 5.9M views is a great candidate for further analysis.
Look at the top three videos for your keyword. If they have plenty of views and recent upload dates, the topic has proven demand. If the top results are old, low-quality, or have few views, that is an opportunity for a better video.
While on the video page, examine the video title and description. As you can see in the screenshot below, they are using their primary keyword and a few related keywords in both places.
To see which exact keywords they are targeting, right-click anywhere on the page and select VIEW PAGE SOURCE. This will show you the source code of the page.
Scroll to the top of the page and check the LINE WRAP checkbox and then press CTRL-F to search the page. Type “Keywords” in the search box and click Enter.
What you see in the keywords meta tag are the tags this video uses. Browser extensions such as vidIQ and TubeBuddy show the same tags next to the video without opening the source code.
Analyze your Competitor’s Top Videos
Another way to use this technique is to visit the channel of a top competitor and, in particular, the VIDEOS tab.
Sort the videos by the most popular and search the page’s source code to find the keywords they are using.
3. Use a YouTube keyword tool
The above two methods work great for finding potential keywords for your videos but they are manual and time-consuming.
A better alternative to make the process faster and at the same time get more data is to use a dedicated YouTube keyword research tool.
Your top options are:
vidIQ - vidIQ is a great tool for YouTube keyword research. It has a free plan, and the paid plans are packed with features to help you find topic ideas for new videos and the best keywords to optimize your videos.
Its paid plans (Boost and Max) are billed monthly or yearly, and besides automating the keyword research process, they also:
- Tracks and compares your video performance in real-time so you never miss an opportunity to get more views and make money from your videos.
- Using artificial intelligence gives you recommendations on the actual title and descriptions you can use on your videos.
- It provides you with daily topic ideas to boost your channel’s growth.
Overall, it is a great tool for growing your YouTube channel by making data-driven decisions.
Keyword Tool Dominator - Another option is Keyword Tool Dominator. What is nice about this tool is that it uses the same data as the YouTube autocomplete feature but it gives you a number of filters and additional data to find the best possible keywords to use in your campaigns.
You can filter the results by country, language, or popularity and even download the list to a spreadsheet for further analysis.
KTD has a free tier. For more searches and full functionality, you buy a one-time pass (from 30 days to lifetime access) instead of a monthly subscription.
Ahrefs YouTube Keyword tool - A more expensive but more professional tool is the YouTube keyword tool by Ahrefs.
If you want to view the actual search volume of a keyword and not the estimated volume given by all the other tools, then Ahrefs is your best option.
The tool comes with all the expected features a good keyword tool should have like filters, lists, related keywords, and a nice-to-use interface.
Ahrefs is a paid tool, and a subscription gives you access to all Ahrefs tools (not just the YouTube keyword tool).
TubeBuddy - Another popular browser extension, TubeBuddy has a Keyword Explorer that scores keywords based on search volume, competition, and how well your channel can compete for them. It has a free plan with limited features.
4. Use YouTube Studio (Ask Studio and Your Search Traffic)
YouTube Studio gives you two ways to find keywords based on your own channel’s data.
Ask Studio
Ask Studio is an AI assistant built into YouTube Studio that helps you brainstorm video ideas, review audience trends, and analyze your performance. It replaced the Inspiration tab, which YouTube started phasing out in August 2026.
To use it, sign in to YouTube Studio on a computer and click Ask Studio in the top corner. Then choose a suggested prompt or type your own, for example: “What topics are my viewers interested in that I haven’t covered yet?” You can save useful suggestions as Idea cards.
Treat its suggestions as a starting point, and check them against real searches with YouTube autocomplete or a keyword tool. Ask Studio isn’t available for every channel, such as Made for Kids channels.
The search terms viewers already use
If your channel already has videos, YouTube Analytics shows the exact searches that brought viewers to them. Open a video’s analytics, look at traffic source types, and select YouTube search to see the search terms. Terms that bring views but aren’t in your title or description are ideas for new videos or for better optimization.
5. Find trending keywords using Google Trends
Google Trends is another tool for understanding what people are looking for on YouTube.
Google Trends is a free tool that shows a list of trending topics and keywords across all Google platforms, including YouTube.
The tool is very easy to use. Go to Google Trends, enter a search term or topic in the search box, and click enter.
Then, use the top filters to specify YouTube search as the data source.
You can then view the Top and Rising Topics and Search Terms related to your search.
How to Use Google Trends Data to Gain More Views and Subscribers
To take advantage of Google Trends, you need to be proactive. This means you need to visit the tool regularly to find search queries related to your RISING topics. You then have to release videos optimized for those queries as fast as possible.
This will dramatically increase your chances of ranking for these search terms before there is too much competition.
How to Use Your Chosen Keywords
After creating a list of keywords for which your videos want to rank, the next step is to use these keywords to optimize your content.
This is part of what is known as YouTube SEO, which covers a number of other elements that need to be optimized for maximum visibility of your video content in search results.
Just like “regular” SEO, when optimizing content for a keyword, you use both target and related keywords together.
Where to add your target keywords?
The best places to add your target keywords are the video title, the first line of the video description, and the first video tag.
Here is an example of a video about the best digital marketing certifications.
You also need to make sure that you SAY your target keyword within the first 30 seconds of the video.
Where to add related keywords?
You can use the related keywords you found as part of your research in your video description, video tags, and within the content of the video as spoken words.
Do YouTube Keywords and Tags Still Work?
Keywords still matter, but where you put them matters more than it used to. YouTube reads your title, description, and what you say in the video (through captions) to understand what it’s about. Those are the places to use your target keywords.
Tags matter much less. According to YouTube, tags play a minimal role in helping viewers find your video and are mainly useful when your topic is commonly misspelled. Add a few relevant tags, but don’t spend time on long tag lists.
Keywords alone won’t rank a video either. YouTube also looks at how many people click your video when they see it and how long they keep watching. For the full picture, read our guide to YouTube SEO.
How to Choose Keywords For Your YouTube Channel
Besides optimizing your videos, you can use the outcome of your keyword research to optimize your channel.
In particular, you can use your main keyword in the channel keywords and as part of your channel name.
To set your channel keywords, open YouTube Studio, go to Settings, select Channel, and then Basic Info.
Add the keywords that accurately represent the actual search terms for which your channel wants to rank and then click the Save button to save your changes. The field allows up to 500 characters, so pick a focused set rather than every term you can think of.
Here are examples of channel keyword sets for a few common niches:
- Vlog channel: daily vlog, travel vlog, day in my life, weekly vlog, lifestyle vlog, family vlog
- Cooking channel: easy recipes, quick dinner ideas, healthy meals, meal prep, baking for beginners
- Tech review channel: tech reviews, smartphone review, laptop review, best budget gadgets, unboxing
- Fitness channel: home workout, workout for beginners, fat loss workout, strength training, yoga for beginners
- Digital marketing channel: digital marketing, SEO tutorial, YouTube SEO, social media marketing, affiliate marketing
Use the words your audience actually searches for, which you can check with the methods above, and keep them consistent with your channel name and description.
Conclusion
Finding the right keywords for your YouTube videos is key to your channel’s success. After creating a YouTube channel, your next step is to come up with topic ideas on what kind of videos to produce.
Then, you need to transform the ideas into keywords people are actually searching for on YouTube. This is what YouTube keyword research is all about.
You can do this manually or with the help of tools. Either way, at the end of your research you should have a list of keywords that combines both the top searches made on YouTube and the keywords your competitors are using.
Once your keyword list is ready, you can add the keywords to your videos to help YouTube associate your content with the right search terms and use them in your YouTube marketing and ads campaigns.
YouTube Keyword Research FAQ
How can I do YouTube keyword research for free?
Use YouTube autocomplete, check the titles and tags of top-ranking videos, filter Google Trends by YouTube search, and review the YouTube search terms in your own analytics. vidIQ, TubeBuddy, and Keyword Tool Dominator also have free plans or tiers.
What is the best keyword research tool for YouTube?
vidIQ and TubeBuddy are the most popular because they work inside YouTube and show search volume and competition. For a quick list of autocomplete keywords, Keyword Tool Dominator is a simple option.
How many keywords should I use per video?
Choose one main keyword for each video and a few closely related ones. Put the main keyword in the title, the start of the description, and the first 30 seconds of the video, and use the related ones naturally in the description and spoken content.
How do I learn to grow a YouTube channel?
Our YouTube Marketing Course shows you step by step how to find topics, optimize your videos, and grow your channel. You can also compare other options in our list of the best YouTube courses.
