Writing, research, and keywords - YouTube Tutorial

- [Instructor] You might think SEO starts when you upload a video, but slow down there, pal, because it actually starts before you even record your video. Whoa! Crazy, right? But I just blew your mind. What was that? I didn't? Well, okay, Mr. Smarty pants. Anyway, first step, you want to do a little research on the competition, and discover good keywords. When doing research, you want to see if anyone else has made the same video, and what kind of titles and thumbnails they use, and most importantly, what keywords they use. This phase is also important because of the video you want to make already exists, you need to figure out how you can create the same video, but bring something new to the table. Maybe that's your own personal perspective, more flashy B roll shots, or just a unique flare you bring to every video, you know, like doing silly skits. It's okay to be similar, but you just want to make sure, you're offering a new or different value to the viewers, to help your video stand out. Next step, you need to find good keywords. Good keywords are keywords that are heavily searched, but don't have a lot of competition. To find these, I recommend investing in the YouTube plugin, Tube Buddy. With Tube Buddy, you can use the keyword Explorer tool to see how your potential keywords rank, as well as see their search volume, competition, and optimization strengths. Plus, Tube Buddy will suggest other related keywords, so you can find even better ones. And you can use Tube Buddy to see the keywords your competitors use, so you can copy good keywords from them. Now, when you're done finding keywords, you want to divide them into two categories, your target keyword, and your related keywords. Your target keyword is the main keyword you're hoping to rank for, and should be the strongest keyword with the best score. All other keywords are your related keywords, and should support the main target keyword by being variations of that keyword. I also recommend putting these in score order. Now, the most important and effective tip here, is once you have your target keyword, you'll want to incorporate it in your video by saying it at least once. And it's also great, if you can incorporate other keywords as well. You see, Google has actually developed the technology to listen to what's being said in your video. So, by saying the good keywords in your video that you found during your research, you're actually, significantly boosting your video's SEO, and it's even better if you say those keywords multiple times, as this really signals to the algorithm that your video is really all about that keyword. In fact, this is actually the most effective way to rank your videos in search, and why in order to dramatically boost your video's SEO, you need to do keyword research before recording. You can always try to shoe horn good keywords into a video, but at the end of the day, if you didn't actually say that keyword in your video, it will be much harder to rank for it. So, now, that you know the importance of researching keywords, let's dive deeper in to how you can use them to boost your SEO. And we'll move on to that as soon as I can find the right keyword to open the next door. Ah, here it is. Well, come on, what are you waiting for?