YouTube Offers 3 Keyword Research Tips and Answers Questions About Its Algorithm

The popular video-sharing platform, YouTube, has shared three valuable tips for competitive keyword research for videos and simultaneously answered a series of questions regarding its search and discovery algorithm. 

In what has turned into a regular series on the “Creator Insider” YouTube channel, a search and discovery team’s member deals with several questions from the audience in their first video uploaded this year. 

Among those questions was one query focusing on keyword research for videos and the ways to determine which topics will resonate with the target users. 

In this blog, we will look at those questions starting with the competitive keyword research tips. 

3 Tactics for YouTube Keyword Research

One of the questions that users put forward goes like this – when performing keyword research for videos, what is the best way to determine the probability that the video will be surfaced in the target users’ suggestions. 

For this, YouTube advises to use these three keyword research tactics:

• Audience Insights
• Google Trends
• Competitive Analysis

Audience Insights

Within YouTube Analytics, you can find an Audience Insights card that lets the creators know which other videos their audience is viewing. 

When it comes to keyword research, this can prove to be a fruitful source as creators may come across new video topics that their target audience is interested in watching that they had not thought about before. 

Observe closely the thumbnails and titles of videos surfaced in your Audience Insights card. Sift through the correlations as a method to direct the optimizations of your future videos. 

Google Trends

While this might strike as apparent to SEO practitioners, Youtube highly recommends Google Trends as an excellent way to keep abreast of the popular topics trending at the moment. 

Creators can use Google Trends to search various topics and compare their popularity over a period of time to find out which ones are sparking the maximum interest currently.

If you have a number of topics in your mind and are struggling to decide which one you should focus on for your next video, using Google Trends can offer you useful insights and help you make more informed decisions. 

Competitive Analysis

This is yet another helpful strategy that SEO professionals are already aware of. When performing competitive analysis, creators have to search their chosen keywords on YouTube and analyze the top-performing videos and see what they can learn from them.

Examine aspects like titles, descriptions, thumbnails, ad placements, intros, use of video chapters, etc. 

While performing competitive analysis, your goal should be to find out what encourages people to click on their video and also what motivates them to keep watching it till the end. 

Other Questions About YouTube’s Algorithm

Besides the keyword research tips, YouTube also addressed numerous additional questions regarding the platform’s algorithm. Let’s take a look at these questions and answers. 

1. Video Upload Frequency

What is better – publishing videos regularly or letting large time gaps elapse between two video uploads?

The ideal frequency to upload videos relies more on your target audience and the amount of video content they are willing to consume. There are several groups of users who love binge-watching content, and on the other hand, there are audiences who prefer watching videos less frequently. 

In relation to the discovery algorithm of YouTube, there is no one shoe fits all kind of approach that will work for all channels in the same way. The platform’s algorithm is designed to surface videos on the basis of the way people respond when they notice those videos in their recommendations section.

So, if you publish videos regularly and the majority of those go unviewed by most of your target users, it may potentially affect the way YouTube’s algorithm surfaces your future videos over time. 

YouTube suggests creators first experiment to find out what works best for their particular target audience and then, based on what you learn, cater to their watching habits. 

2. Monetization

Do monetized videos have better odds of being recommended by YouTube’s algorithm as compared to non-monetized videos?

No, that is not true. According to YouTube, its search and recommendation algorithm is unable to distinguish between the monetized and non-monetized videos. The discovery and advertising algorithms are independent of each other. 

Therefore, answering the question, YouTube says that monetization has zero effect on which videos get recommended to users and which ones don’t. YouTube channels can even turn off monetization temporarily without impacting their videos’ performance in any way. 

3. Taking Breaks From Publishing Videos

Is it okay if creators or channel owners take breaks from publishing videos? Can an extended time length between old content and new content being uploaded harm the channel algorithmically?

Yes, it is utterly fine for creators or channel owners to take breaks from publishing videos. YouTube actively encourages to do so and quotes data to back this statement. 

The platform examined tens of thousands of upload breaks that lasted between a week and two months. During this analysis, they discovered no interrelationship between upload breaks and a constant viewership loss. 

In fact, numerous channels even got increased viewership after taking a break from uploading videos. The study found that one-fourth of the channels that took an upload break saw a whopping 50% growth in their viewership upon returning. 

YouTube’s algorithm does not penalize channels for taking a break from uploading. In fact, the data shows that the longer the break a channel takes, the more positive change is seen in its viewership. Hence, there is no need for the creators to feel pressured to publish content every day or week. 

So if you are trying to determine a good time to take an upload break, YouTube also mentions that a lot of creators take breaks from uploading videos in the month of January since that’s when most often their advertising budgets run dry. 

Wrapping it Up

So these were the three useful tactics for keyword research recommended by YouTube itself. Implement them the next time to set out to create a new video for your channel. Keep in mind that your uploading frequency depends on the type of audience you are targeting. Don’t hesitate to experiment to find out what works best for your specific audience. Remember, it is okay to take breaks from uploading, and you should not feel pressured to upload weekly or daily.