This isn't a post about keyword research for video content on YouTube, but about exploring the ways in which it can be used to find relevant data, information and keywords in topics where you have a low understanding of the services and industry.
Now for an example...
You've just taken on the SEO contract for a private speech therapist based in the UK, and need to carry out industry and keyword research into the sector to best understand the opportunities available, and to structure their in-development website accordingly.
You don't know much about speech therapy, but you've been given some information by your client and now you're on the hunt for keywords. Heading over to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, you put in "speech therapy" to see what suggestions/volumes are thrown up.
Now although the results displayed by the Google Keyword Tool might be relevant to what you are looking for, they don't provide the bigger picture, which is what you should be looking for.
- Are there any common phrases used by experts/consumers in the industry?
- Are there any related (similar) services that the client could offer, but not have mentioned?
- What are the conditions that most commonly lead to speech problems?
All of this information can no doubt be found by carrying out your own research on Google/your other favourite search engine, but it can still be difficult to sift through the results to find the correct information you are looking for... and this is where YouTube can really help.
Using YouTube as a Keyword Tool
Unlike creating a web page, uploading a video to YouTube is very accessible to anybody with a video file and an internet connection. The great advantage of the upload process is that Google prompts people to provide descriptive content about the video, such as explanatory text (description), a relevant title, and appropriate tags - so not only is it easier for the videos to be sorted, it means more data is available for us to mine.
A search on YouTube for "speech therapy" provides 3,870 results, and at random I chose a video recording of a speech therapy class.
Scrolling past the video to look at the related information provides a great initial insight:
From the above information we can get the following keywords:
- down syndrome (40,500 searches)
- oral motor therapy (58 searches - low, but still relevant)
- speech therapist (we already knew this one - 12,100 searches)
- apraxia (2,900 searches)
Even with a somewhat basic knowledge of speech therapy it would have been difficult to know that "oral motor therapy" and "apraxia" were related to problems with speech - and it's a great stepping stone in our keyword research.
Scrolling further down the page to analyse the comments, we see:
Which provides us with further keywords and opportunities:
- autism (201,000 searches)
- oral motor exercise (91 searches)
- chewy tube (the "t-shaped orange material" - answered in a further comment - 390 searches)
Other comments on the page are equally as helpful, with examples such as "decreasing hyper sensitivity" being another useful research avenue.
Looking around YouTube, comments can actually be much more helpful than the published video data. Conversations often arise between people, and this is an essential place to look if you want to know more information.
Once you have taken the time to browse the videos, note down some of the related information and make a list of possible opportunities, then you can go back to the Google Keyword Tool (or whatever tool you might be using) with a whole load of ammo for your next stage of research. The advantage to this second iteration is that you will have also used YouTube what it is intended for - to watch videos, and to find out more information about the services and conditions related to speech therapy (greater understanding of your client's business means you can ultimately do a better job for them).
Also note that you should research any of the phrases you find in more detail before optimising a website for them - more about this point at the end of the article.
From just the initial view carried out on YouTube above, we have gone from a sitemap looking similar to this:
To something more representative of this:
The above sitemap has been generated after looking at only one YouTube video on the subject, so imagine the level of data you could get into if you carried out full research?
By following an iterative process of looking at YouTube, understanding the opportunities, and analysing the search volumes, you can begin to form a visual picture of how products and services are related - something that can be then portrayed back to the client for approval and additional ideas. Clients can often be too familiar with their business, and miss out a basic level of information when attempting to explain what it is they offer - and this is usually the most valuable detail from an SEO perspective.
Carrying out your own research is vital to covering all of the best angles when working with a new website, and you shouldn't just stop at the list of service offerings that the client provides you with. Take things one step further, and you'll no doubt find the website is in a greater position to dominate search visibility than some of the key comptitors in the industry.
Use All of the Data Available
With people of all ages, backgrounds, specialties and even personal experiences uploading and contributing to YouTube, it really is a gold mine of information and can help a great deal for search marketing campaigns. If you're researching a particular service/product/industry, why wouldn't you use all of the information that is freely available? - especially when you have a user-updated resource such as YouTube at your finger tips.
The one point I'll leave on, is that YouTube shouldn't be used for all of your research on a particular subject, as it is, after all, open to mislabelling, incorrect information and of course the efforts by fellow SEOs to promote video content ;)
I'm no way affiliated with anyone in speech therapy, but I'm sure the children's communication charity I CAN would appreciate a donation if you're feeling generous: https://www.ican.org.uk/Support%20Us/Donate/Donate%20Now
Great idea Kieron and very well broken down and tied back to specifics. I guess the wider point here is that just relying on keyword research tools to come up with alternative terms is lazy - you need to look at what people are saying, whether that's on YouTube as you describe here (which is after all one of the largest 'search engines', volume-wise) but across the web, in forums, blogs, and anywhere generally where consumers discuss the product.
Good stuff, look foward to the next one!
RIP.
Wow... never thought to use YouTube this way. Very original... but somehow so obvious if you think it, because it is the same than conducting an on the field marketing research, in order to discover what real words people use to refer to a product/service/need.
Compliments!
This is what bugs me -- people look for these shortcuts.
Instead of wading through pages of inane YouTube comment (seriously, they're among the worst on the entire internet), why don't you just actually...you know...research the topic? Reading a few articles on the subject would give you all the keywords you need, and you'd probably learn something too -- which is something that's almost statistically impossible to do while reading YouTube comments.
I don't see this as a shortcut at all. As you said, you have to wade through tons of comments... that's no shortcut. :)
What I got from this post is that sometimes it's necessary to jump out of your regular process and try something new. I don't particularly think that using Youtube for keyword research is always going to work or be the right course of action. But it at least has me thinking about what other sites I can use in this way that I hadn't thought about before.
I love a post that gets me thinking!
Great post Kieron.
I often find researching a topic boring and tedious (particularly when looking at other SERPs), so looking at social avenues such as this are great ways to get keyword ideas. I'd never thought of YouTube though - a little too much noise for my liking.
Very cool idea I had never thought of. It is always nice to add another keywrd research resource to the mix. Can't ever to seem to have enough of those and while I can imagine some niches where this wouldn't be as effective, I am excited to try this out on a few I think would yield good results.
Brilliant. I'm working on a project at the moment for a pair of medical professionals, and getting content from them, and then making it right is proving tricky. They've got the knowledge, and I know how to write (for the web). Getting the right keyphrases in has been bothering me and this helps. Bookmarked ;)
This is really a great post. Looking at Youtube as a public test audience..
This doesn't help in every subject but great post, will remember for future references
Very interesting, specific and nicely illustrated example - thanks for sharing!
Very good! I'm always looking for different ways of gaining valuable keyword data. Although it wouldn't be my first choice as you can find yourself looking through thousands of posts and many videos to pick up on this data. I would prefer to look at related blogs and websites for this kind of thing. Usually the input to related blogs is much better and quicker to find. Good work anyway my friend!
Oddly, I used the YouTube comments for years in my personal research of music and bands and movies, etc. What a "Well DUH!" moment to use them for my work as well. Plain as the nose on my face, I'd say! Thanks, K!
This post is great,Till now i used to do keyword research only by google adwords keyword tool.But Now i have gotten a new technique to research the keyword. I will surely apply this techniques to make my seo promotion successful in future.
thanks for sharing the wothful Tips.
+1 for thinking outside the box!
So how is this different to seeing what KWs are used on a competitors site and/or reading about it on wikipedia?
very smart and clever use of the youtube comments. I will certainly use this in the future, Very done and thanks
So simple and brilliant. Thanks for the great post!
Excellent work Kieron. You have highlighted the importance of the human touch over computer data. Especially as in the UK our language can differ greatly from our friends in the states.
It's good to see an SEO thinking outside the Google suggestion box!
Really great idea for market research. Had never thought of doing it that way before
same with me, i never know about this useful idea until i get here :)
It's very well post thanks for sharing this useful informations about keyword tools. but i think the best in this feature is the good adword tool i usually use it to search about keywords for the silica sand and mining Materials
Good idea and an interesting new way of findin out what keywords people tend to use. We do it with Facebook and Twitter so why not You Tube?
This is cool, im using google for quite sometime and i never thougt that we could use youtube too..Of coure ive known youtube very much but not to the extent that im using it as a tool much more considering it for seo. But thanks now this enlightened me and im planning to make my own free seo software soon and post it on youtube and see what happens. Im excited what would be the results! :)
Very creative and possibly humorous with all the slanging matches that go on in youtube comments. This could be extended into related niche blogs and forums
Nice post. Never really thought to look at YouTube in that way. But you're right - there's plenty of data in there.
Wow i never thought to use U Tube in this manner, but once i read through this post it will become a really useful tool for keyword research.
Yes, that's a great idea. But, to get the best results you often have to go through the several videos because not all people upload the video with well researched keywords. But, a very good idea nevertheless.
Nice one! At first I was thinking you were reaching by suggesting to manually troll through random Youtube video descriptions and comments - However the example you used really showcased your method. It is similar to going to niche forums to get an idea of what people involved in the specific niche are talking about and what language (keywords) they actually use, which is something keyword tools can't always help you with.
Great way to see how people actually help in providing insights - I guess this is why social communities are great tools for keyword research. I do agree with reading in between the lines, But what you also need to avoid is not to associate every relevant term as an actual page as shown in the site structure.
Excellent work Kieron and a nicely illustrated example too.
Finding keywords related to a particular niche can be tricky - this is a great method to add to the armoury :)
I missed this yesterday, but I found your approach really creative. There's a wealth of information out there that search is, in some ways, OVER-filtering for us. YouTube lets you get at raw data from the expert's mouths, in some sense. Plus, you can never have enough keyword research resources. Good stuff.
Nice article. Thanks
Nice one Kieron! I think Jaamit really nailed it on the head but thank you again for sharing this stuff. Will definitely look forward to the next one - love any outside of the box keyphrase research so cheers for sharing another avenue with us.
Great idea. Unfortunately not all YouTubers are a) aware of or b) thorough with the description/title fields...yet. Getting there, tho'!
Yeah, there are obviously videos that are more valuable than others in terms of extracting useful content/keywords - it can just take a little bit of digging around. There are also some subject areas (particularly specific niches) where the information is much more useful than others, which is why it can often be most beneficial for areas where you don't have a strong knowledge of the subject.
As someone trying to absorb everything SEO-related for a future career, I found your article to be very interesting. It really is obvious, as stated earlier, and yet never occured to me. While Youtube does have its share of undeveloped content in the description tag for videos (and less relevance in the comments at times), there are definitely enough people on there for field that you may be looking up to find useful keywords that people are using.
Thanks a bunch for sharing this! Looking forward to trying it out in the coming weeks. :)
Great ideas. I like those original ways of improving SEO. That kind of ideas differences average and advanced techniques.
Great, creative approach. I have a new client in a very specialized field. This might work! Thanks!
Good post, I never thought to use youtube for that but your explanation can really help for ranking on some keywords. Thanks for sharing this trick !
Interesting use of well known sources for SEO ideas. Appreciate the way you relate this also to site hierarchy - a real tangible that will be appreciated by clients.
Because of this post, my $75/mo subsciption to SEOMoz feels like a super smokin' deal. SEOMoz is already a great deal, but posts like this are really informative and make me realize is was missing out on something I would have though of in the first place. Thanks for the post!
Very interesting post& really cllever idea. I will try to use it more often, since in some industries it is just underbelly.
Great Post!
I am personally going to use this tactic in increasing my LDA for the content I write for the sites i work on. I feel that it can be used for LDA as well as more authentic keyword research.
Edit: If you were the pioneer of this method, then 'mad props' go out to you.
Good post, but got any ideas how to automate? A quick way to scrape the content...
Great Post Kieron,
YouTube would never bee a point of call for KW research but you have opened my eys to a new avenue here. Think it will benefit some but not all people though, if your not accustomed to the topic your researching then this will really help.
Good Work :)
Its awesome, If you can do this with youtube, then slideshare, twitter will do the same. Using Facebook give me some light but to restricted search and comment will not let you do that.
But Brilliant Idea..
Thanks for sharing.
Great idea! I've never thought of trying something like this and will have to give it a shot in the future. Thanks for the tips and great post again!
This doesn't help in every subject but great post, will remember for future references
Great idea, it´s a simply way to get keywords for some especific markets....
thanks!!!
Hey,
Simple, smart post.
Very useful :)
Thanks!
Jurgen
youtube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos.I have a very good exprience with this site and i have seen many useful videos in this site.