YouTube Keyword Tool: Find Topics That Drive Views
A practical guide to using free and paid YouTube keyword tools and a simple workflow to pick topics and titles that drive views.
Vincent JOSSE
Vincent is an SEO Expert who graduated from Polytechnique where he studied graph theory and machine learning applied to search engines.
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YouTube is not just a social platform, it’s a search engine with its own ranking signals, intent patterns, and “SERP” dynamics. A good YouTube keyword tool helps you stop guessing and start publishing videos around topics people already want, with enough demand to matter and enough opportunity to win.
This guide breaks down what to look for in a YouTube keyword tool, the best free and paid options, and a practical workflow to find topics that actually drive views.
What a YouTube keyword tool does
A YouTube keyword tool is useful when it answers three questions:
What are people searching for on YouTube? (demand)
How hard is it to rank or get suggested for it? (competition)
What should the video look like to satisfy intent? (format)
In practice, the best tools combine multiple data sources:
YouTube search suggestions (autocomplete) for real query phrasing
Trend signals (seasonality, spikes, growing topics)
Competitive analysis (what currently ranks, who owns the results, how fresh the top videos are)
Content angle hints (common titles, thumbnails, video length, chapters)
If your tool only outputs a long list of keywords without context, it’s not enough. On YouTube, the “winning topic” is usually a keyword plus an angle plus a format.
Free YouTube keyword research methods
You can find excellent topics without paying for anything. The trick is to use the free sources that are closest to YouTube’s real demand.
YouTube autocomplete
Start typing your seed idea in the YouTube search bar and capture the suggestions. These are often the most valuable long-tail queries because they reflect how viewers actually phrase searches.
A simple way to expand faster:
Type your seed keyword
Add a space + a letter (a, b, c…)
Repeat with modifiers like “for beginners”, “2026”, “without”, “best”, “vs”, “how to”
You’re looking for phrases that sound like a real problem or decision.
YouTube Studio Research
If you have access to it, YouTube Studio includes a Research feature that surfaces searches on YouTube and labels some as “content gap” opportunities. This is one of the most direct “from the source” ways to validate topics.
YouTube documents this feature in its Help Center under the Research tab in Studio: YouTube Studio Research.
Google Trends (filtered to YouTube Search)
Google Trends can be set to YouTube Search, which is a powerful way to:
Confirm whether a topic is growing or declining
Spot seasonality (peaks during specific months)
Compare two topics head-to-head
Use it here: Google Trends.
Manual SERP review on YouTube
This is underrated and often faster than any tool.
Search your keyword on YouTube and note:
Recency: are top results mostly from the last 6 to 12 months?
Channel dominance: is it all huge creators, or are smaller channels ranking?
Format match: are results tutorials, reviews, shorts, podcasts, livestreams?
Unmet need: do thumbnails and titles look repetitive, generic, or outdated?
If the results feel stale, you’ve probably found opportunity.
Paid tools to speed up wins
Paid tools are worth it when you need scale, competitive intel, or repeatable workflows across many videos.
Here’s a practical comparison of popular options.
Tool | Best for | Typical strengths | Watch-outs |
YouTube-first workflows | Keyword ideas, competitor insights, optimization checklists | Metrics can feel abstract if you don’t validate in YouTube search | |
In-workflow optimization | Tag suggestions, A/B testing support (plan-dependent), channel management utilities | Not a substitute for intent research | |
SEO teams doing YouTube + Google | Strong keyword discovery mindset, competitive research | More SEO-oriented, verify YouTube-specific intent manually | |
Broader marketing teams | Keyword and competitor tooling across channels | Can be overkill if you only care about YouTube | |
Fast long-tail expansion | Pulls lots of autocomplete-based suggestions | You still need to prioritize and validate difficulty |
A good rule: use YouTube-native tools (vidIQ, TubeBuddy) for execution speed, and SEO suites (Ahrefs, Semrush) for broader market intelligence and topic expansion.
A simple workflow to find topics that drive views
Tools don’t create views, good topic selection does. Use this workflow to consistently pick winnable topics.
Start with the viewer job
Write the viewer intent as a sentence:
“I want to do X, but I’m stuck because Y.”
“I need to choose between A and B.”
“I’m trying to avoid mistake Z.”
Then turn it into search language. That becomes your seed.
Expand into keyword clusters
Don’t hunt one keyword at a time. Create a small cluster around a theme:
Core query (head term)
Specific variants (long-tail)
Comparison variants (“vs”, “best”)
Fix variants (“not working”, “error”, “how to fix”)
Beginner variants (“step by step”, “for beginners”)
This matters because YouTube rewards channels that build consistent topical signals over time.
Validate intent by looking at the results
Before you commit, search the query and identify the dominant format:
If results are mostly 8 to 12 minute tutorials, a 45-minute podcast likely won’t rank.
If results are mostly Shorts, a long tutorial may struggle (unless you intentionally target Browse and Suggested).
If results are mostly reviews, a generic explainer may underperform.
Match what YouTube already understands, then improve it.
Score opportunity with a quick checklist
Use a lightweight scorecard so you can decide quickly.
Signal | How to check | What “good” looks like |
Demand | Autocomplete, Trends (YouTube Search), Studio Research | Clear suggestions, stable or rising trend |
Competition | Scan top results | Mixed channel sizes, not only mega-creators |
Freshness | Dates of top videos | Opportunity if top results are old or outdated |
Format clarity | What types of videos rank | One dominant format you can execute well |
Differentiation | What’s missing in top videos | A clear gap (updated version, clearer steps, better examples) |
If you can’t articulate your differentiation in one sentence, don’t make the video yet.
How to spot “easy” YouTube keywords (without being misled)
Some keywords look easy because they have low reported difficulty in a tool, but the YouTube results are dominated by:
Channels with massive subscriber bases
Videos with very high watch time and engagement
Topics with strong “Suggested video” loops
Instead of trusting one metric, look for these real-world opportunity patterns:
Pattern 1: Old winners
If the top results are 2 to 5 years old, the topic may be underserved or due for an update (especially for software, AI, marketing, finance, and anything policy-driven).
Pattern 2: Weak thumbnails and vague titles
If the top results are generic (“How to Use X”) with unclear thumbnails, you can often win with clearer packaging.
Pattern 3: Format mismatch
If viewers are searching for a quick fix but the ranking videos are long and rambling, a tighter video can outperform even without a huge audience.
Pattern 4: Too broad, then go narrower
Instead of “email marketing”, target:
“email marketing for Shopify abandoned cart”
“email deliverability SPF DKIM setup”
“Klaviyo flows for beginners”
Narrow topics build trust and watch time, then you can expand.
Turn keywords into titles that get clicks
A YouTube keyword tool gives you phrases, but your title needs to do two jobs at once:
Communicate relevance to search
Sell the click to a human
Practical title formulas that keep the keyword but add a hook:
Keyword + outcome: “Notion Calendar: Set It Up in 10 Minutes”
Keyword + mistake: “ChatGPT Prompts: 7 Mistakes Killing Your Results”
Keyword + comparison: “CapCut vs Premiere Pro: What I’d Use in 2026”
Keyword + constraint: “Build a Landing Page Without Coding (Fast)”
Keep titles specific. If your title could fit 50 other videos, it’s probably too broad.
Don’t ignore the “topic chain”
The fastest-growing channels often publish in sequences where each video naturally leads to the next.
When you find one strong keyword, immediately map:
A beginner version
An advanced version
A troubleshooting version
A comparison version
This improves:
Returning viewers
Session time (viewers watch multiple videos)
Suggested video performance
It also makes your content calendar far easier to maintain.
Use YouTube keyword research to grow your website too
A high-intent YouTube topic is often a high-intent Google topic. If you already have video momentum, you can turn that into compounding traffic by publishing supporting articles that:
Summarize the video with clear steps
Include screenshots, templates, and links
Target long-tail variants you did not cover fully in the video
Internally link into your product pages or lead magnets
This is where many teams lose time: they have great topics, but turning them into a consistent publishing engine is manual.
If your goal is to scale content beyond YouTube, BlogSEO can help you operationalize the research-to-publish loop by automating article generation, internal linking, scheduling, and publishing (while matching your brand voice). If you want the broader keyword strategy behind this approach, see BlogSEO’s guide on keyword analysis for SEO and how to turn lists into hubs with keywords to clusters.
A practical next step
Pick one niche theme you can publish on for the next 4 weeks. Use your YouTube keyword tool to build a cluster of 10 to 20 queries, then commit to a weekly sequence (not random one-offs). Validate each topic on YouTube search before you hit record.
If you want to turn those same topics into SEO articles that publish on autopilot, you can try BlogSEO’s 3-day free trial at BlogSEO or book a walkthrough with the team here: schedule a demo.
