Are you a YouTuber who’s looking for the best YouTube keyword tools? Want to start a YouTube channel and get more views in 2023? You’re in the right place.
One of the most effective ways to increase your YouTube video views is to do keyword research.
Keyword research is the process of finding words and phrases that people use when searching for information on a particular topic.
The #1 goal of YouTube keyword research is to identify the most relevant and popular keywords that can be used to optimize your videos on YouTube to get more views.
In this post, we’ll talk about the following;
- Best tools for YouTube keyword research
- Their benefits
- Pricing plans and free trials
Are you ready? Let’s jump into the details.
10 Best YouTube Keyword Research Tools [2023 List]
1. TubeBuddy
TubeBuddy is the BEST keyword research tool for YouTube. It is one of the most popular browser extensions used by over 10 million YouTube creators to optimize their videos and channels.
If you’re looking for a powerful YouTube growth tool, TubeBuddy is a must-try. You can use it to find top-performing keywords, analyze your competitors and get more views on YouTube.
To get started, simply enter any topic or keyword and it will show you all the keyword data.
Have a look at the Keyword Explorer tool from TubeBuddy;
See that? You’ll get access to many things, including;
- The overall score for the keyword based on its popularity, searches, etc
- Related keyword terms
- Common video tags you can use and much more
Benefits of TubeBuddy:
- The “Insta Suggest” feature gives you YouTube video tag suggestions in real-time as you type
- Access to “Auto Translator,” which helps you translate video titles and descriptions into other languages
- Keyword Explorer helps you find long-tail keywords and trending topics for almost ANY topic
- Opportunity Finder enables you to identify keywords and search terms outside of YouTube’s website
- SEO Studio allows you to optimize your video’s metadata for your target keywords
- Search Explorer helps you discover search terms based on search volume, competition, and overall score
- Search Positions helps you quickly find where your video ranks in YouTube search
- Rank Tracking helps you track your YouTube video rankings for your target keywords
- Video A/B Tests & Title Generator helps you analyze your titles, meta description, thumbnails, etc.
- View and Copy Video Tags help you find what your competitor is tagging their videos with
How much does TubeBuddy cost?
TubeBuddy offers a free plan that comes with limited features. If you want to unlock all its powerful features, go with its premium plans listed below.
1. Pro: This is the cheapest plan from TubeBuddy, which costs just $2.80 per month (if billed annually) and offers features like Thumbnail Generator, Video Topic Planner, Advanced Video Embed, etc.
If you’ve less than 1000 YouTube subscribers, you can use RisingStarBuddy coupon on the checkout page to get 50% off on this plan.
2. Star: This plan costs $9.20 per month (if billed annually) and is suitable for YouTube creators who want to save more time. Here’s what you’ll get;
- Publish to Facebook
- Best Time to Publish
- Best Practice Audit
- SEO Studio
- Search Positions
- Insta-Suggest
- Keyword Explorer
- Search Explorer and more
3. Legend: This plan costs $21.20 per month (if billed annually) and is suitable for YouTube creators who want access to data-driven resources. You’ll get features like;
- Click magnet
- Competitor scorecard
- Competitor Upload Alerts
- Export Comments
- Retention Analyzer
- Brand Alerts and much more
So what are you waiting for?
2. KeywordTool.io
KeywordTool.io is an incredible freemium keyword tool that you can use to discover traffic-generating keyword ideas for YouTube.
KeywordTool.io uses Google Autocomplete to generate hundreds of long-tail keywords for any keyword or topic.
Just enter any topic or keyword term on their tool and it will show you a list of related YouTube keywords.
Have a look;
See the results generated by KeywordTool?
For the example seed keyword “blogging,” the tool generated a ton of relevant keyword suggestions. With the Pro account, you’ll also get access to Search Volume, Trend, Average CPC details, etc.
Benefits of KeywordTool.io:
- It helps you get over 750+ long-tail keywords from YouTube autocomplete
- Allows you to localize results to all countries
- It can also be used to find excellent keywords for YouTube video ads
- Find popular YouTube hashtags to use within your videos to get more views
- Get search volume data for 192 countries and 46 languages
- 100% accurate search volume from Google Ads or Bing
- Google Ads Competition Data
- Access to CPC data
- Competitor Keyword Analysis
- Bulk Search Volume Analysis
How much does KeywordTool.io cost?
KeywordTool.io offers a free plan with limited features. It provides the following three premium pricing plans.
1. Basic: This is the cheapest plan from KeywordTool.io, which costs you $69 per month (if billed annually) and offers the following features.
- Access to search volume data
- One user access
- Competitor Keyword Analysis
- 7000 keywords per day (for bulk keyword search volume analysis)
2. Plus: If you want to unlock all the features, go with this plan and it costs you $79 per month (if billed annually) and offers the following features.
- All the features from the Basic plan
- Cost-Per-Click Data
- Google Ads Competition Data
- Five user accounts
- 35,000 keywords per day (for bulk keyword search volume analysis)
3. Business: If you’re an agency or business, go with this plan, as it offers multiple user accounts with more data. It costs you $159 per month (if billed annually) and provides the following features.
- All the features from the Plus plan
- Ten user accounts
- 70,000 keywords per day (for bulk keyword search volume analysis)
- API access with 50 requests per day
3. vidIQ
Want to quickly discover keyword, title and description recommendations to get more video views on YouTube? Want to find the best keywords for YouTube channel? Then, vidIQ is just for you.
vidIQ will give you all the tools you need to grow your YouTube channel and get more views on your videos.
It also offers a free browser extension which helps you improve your videos’ performance, subscriber engagement, and much more.
Here’s how the vidIQ keyword research works;
Simply enter a topic and vidIQ will show you all the keyword data, including related keywords, trending videos, interest over time, and much more.
Using vidIQ, you can also get reports on how many views-per-hour a competitor is getting on a trending topic, etc.
Benefits of vidIQ:
- Generate bulk YouTube descriptions
- Access to a powerful keyword research tool
- Find out “Most Viewed Videos”
- Quickly discover the top tweets for videos
- Discover what content your audience is searching for
- It gives access to channel audit, which shows you how your content is performing, what’s working well for you, and what issues your channel has
- Competitor tracking and much more
- Competitors Tool allows you to follow the competition
- The ability to promote your videos via Description Campaigns
- See how many times someone on Facebook, Twitter, etc
How much does vidIQ cost?
vidIQ offers a free plan which comes with limited features. If you want all the features, go with its premium plans listed below.
1. Pro: This is the cheapest plan as its pricing starts only at $7.50 per month, where you get up to 10 daily ideas, up to 6 competitors tracking, and more.
2. Boost: This plan starts at $39 per month, where you get access to all the features, including up to 50 daily ideas, up to 10 competitors tracking, and more.
3. Max: This plan starts at $79 per month, where you get access to all the features, including up to 50 daily ideas, up to 20 competitors tracking, and more.
4. YouTube Autosuggest
YouTube autosuggest or YouTube autocomplete is the easiest way to find what keywords people are looking for on YouTube.
As you start typing a topic or keyword into YouTube’s search bar, YouTube will automatically suggest popular keywords and phrases related to what you’re typing.
Here’s what it looks like;
As you can see above, when you enter a topic or keyword phrase, YouTube instantly shows you relevant long-tail keyword suggestions which can be used as YouTube keywords.
These automatic suggestions from YouTube searches can give you an idea of the types of keywords people are using to find videos on a particular topic.
As these keyword terms are directly coming from YouTube, you can definitely consider them and do further keyword research on those phrases.
Benefits of YouTube Autosuggest:
- It’s free and fast
- It gives you the up-to-date keyword suggestions that people use (as the data is directly coming from YouTube)
- You can find unlimited keywords
- It expands the suggestions as additional letters are typed
How much does YouTube Autosuggest cost?
It’s totally free to use. You can simply sign into your YouTube account and start typing keywords or topics to begin keyword research.
5. Google Trends
Are you looking for a free keyword tool from Google? Then, you should consider Google Trends.
Google Trends is a powerful keyword research tool that allows you to discover trending topics worldwide QUICKLY.
Enter any topic or keyword term to get started, and choose your target country. Make sure to choose “YouTube Search” from the filters, as shown below.
Now, it will show you a trend for the topic. When you scroll down, you’ll find a list of related queries.
Here’s what the Google Trends keyword research looks like;
See that? You’ll get a list of highly relevant keyword terms that are searched mostly on YouTube.
Benefits of Google Trends:
- Quickly discover the trends for any topic on YouTube.
- Identify if a YouTube keyword is just a fad or growing strong
- Check seasonality for any keyword phrase. For example, Black Friday searches usually happen during the month of November
- Free tool for keyword research
- Search relevant and trending keywords for most topics
How much does it cost?
Google Trends is 100% free to use. You don’t even need to sign into your Google account to use it.
6. Semrush
If there’s only one keyword tool that you need to use for YouTube keyword research, use Semrush.
Semrush is the MOST powerful SEO toolkit in the world, used by over 10 million people.
Semrush has a HUGE keyword database that contains over 23.5 billion keywords and is extremely useful in finding YouTube’s top search keywords.
Here’s how the Semrush Keyword Magic tool works.
Once you’re on the tool, enter any topic or keyword. Choose your preferred country (where your target audience is mainly from) and click on the “Search” button.
Bingo! It instantly generates a ton of keywords.
Have a look;
See that? For our example keyword, Semrush generated nearly 8000 keyword ideas along with the following data;
- Keyword intent
- Search volume
- Trend
- Keyword difficulty, CPC and more
From newbies and small teams to agencies and enterprises – anyone can use Semrush to grow their overall website search traffic.
Want to know more? You can check out our unbiased Semrush review 2023 to find all the details and tutorials on Semrush.
Benefits of Semrush:
- Semrush offers 55+ tools and reports for ONE price!
- It provides a 30-day free trial, so anyone can try it to see how it works.
- You can find keywords based on search volume, intent, keyword difficulty, number of results, CPC, etc
- You can quickly discover what your competitors’ keywords are
- It offers a keyword tool called “Keyword Magic,” which you can use to generate thousands of keywords from one seed keyword, and it has a database of over 23.5 billion keywords for 130 countries
- You can use its “Keyword Manager” to create and manage your keywords to get real-time metrics for up to 1000 keywords at once
- Provides you with accurate keyword data, including search volume, CPC data, etc.
- You can easily find low competition yet highly profitable keyword ideas within minutes
How much does Semrush cost?
Semrush offers the following THREE pricing plans.
- Pro
- Guru
- Business
Let’s briefly discuss these plans so you can pick the right one that suits your needs.
1. Pro: This is the starter plan from Semrush, which costs you $99.95 per month (if billed annually) and is suitable for beginners and bloggers. It offers the following list of features.
- Results per report: 10,000
- Reports per day: 3,000
- Projects: 5
- Keywords to track: 500
- Pages to crawl: 100,000
2. Guru: This plan costs $191.62 per month (if billed annually) and is suitable for agencies and mid-size businesses. This plan offers the following limits.
- Results per report: 30,000
- Reports per day: 5,000
- Projects: 15
- Keywords to track: 1500
- Pages to crawl: 300,000
- Content Marketing Toolkit
- Historical data
- Multi-location and device tracking
- GDS integration
3. Business: This plan costs $374.95 per month (if billed annually) and is suitable for large agencies and enterprises, and it offers the following limits.
- Results per report: 50,000
- Reports per day: 10,000
- Projects: 40
- Keywords to track: 5000
- Pages to crawl: 10,00,000
- Share of Voice
- API Access
- PLA analytics
- Free migration from third-party tools
Semrush also offers a 30-day free trial which you can access using the following link.
Try Semrush 30 Days Free Trial
You can also check out our Semrush pricing plans to find in-depth details about Semrush plans.
7. Keywords Everywhere
Keywords Everywhere is a widely-used keyword tool. It offers a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox to perform keyword research on the go.
It is known to provide accurate keyword metrics and is extremely fast.
It gives you access to related keywords and their monthly search volume, CPC, and competition data.
Here’s what it looks like;
As you can see, you’ll get a list of all the trending and related keywords along with the monthly searches for any topic.
Benefits of Keywords Everywhere:
- It is incredibly affordable as its pricing starts only at $10 and you can pay as you go (as your credits expire)
- It offers a browser extension, which helps you find related keywords as you search the web
- Provides a ton of keyword data, including CPC, monthly volume, etc
- Keywords Everywhere pulls the “People Also Search For” and “Related” keywords which can be extremely helpful
How much does Keywords Everywhere cost?
First things first: Keywords Everywhere offers a “Credit System,” in which one credit gives you the search volume, CPC competition and 12 month trend data for one keyword.
For example, if you import 100 keywords into their “Bulk Keywords Data” tool, you will use up 100 credits.
Here are the various packages offered by Keywords Everywhere;
- $10 package gives you 100,000 credits and the credits expire after one year.
- $50 package gives you 500,000 credits and the credits expire after 1 year.
- $100 package gives you 1 million credits and the credits will expire after one year.
- $200 package gives you 2 million credits and these credits will be gone after one year.
- $500 package gives you 5 million cedits and the credits expire after one year.
- $1000 package gives you 10 million credits and the credits will expire after a year.
As you can see above, it follows a “Pay as you go” method and there is no monthly subscription. You can purchase credits as you use them.
Read: Best Keywords Everywhere Alternative Tools that Are Mostly Free
8. Ahrefs YouTube Keyword Tool
Ahrefs is a popular SEO tool that offers a YouTube keyword tool that helps find YouTube top search keywords easily.
Ahrefs has an extensive keyword database that contains more than 7 billion keywords.
The best part about Ahrefs is that it offers keyword data from TEN different search engines and can estimate keyword volumes for YouTube, Google, Amazon, Bing, Baidu, etc.
Here’s what it looks like;
As you can see, Ahrefs’ YouTube keyword tool gives you keyword ideas for your seed keywords instantly, for FREE (along with the search volume).
You can also click on the “Questions” tab next to Phrase Match keywords to see a list of question-based keywords related to your topic.
Benefits of Ahrefs Keywords Explorer:
- Quickly discover search volumes for any keyword on YouTube for 170 countries.
- Save your keyword ideas in lists.
- Discover thousands of great keyword ideas for almost any topic
- It offers an exclusive YouTube Keyword Tool to help you find popular keywords related to your topic
- Get ideas for new video topics
- See how well your videos are performing in terms of views and engagement.
How much does Ahrefs cost?
Ahrefs offers the following four pricing packages.
1. Lite: This plan is excellent for beginners and hobby projects. It costs $83 per month (if billed annually) and gives you the following limits.
- Create up to 5 unverified and unlimited verified projects
- Get up to 2,500 results per report
- Track up to 750 keywords
- Up to 100,000 site audit crawl credits per month
- Create up to 5 keyword lists
2. Standard: This plan is suitable for SEO professionals. It costs $166 per month (if billed annually) and gives you the following limits.
- Create up to 20 unverified and unlimited verified projects
- Get up to 30,000 results per report
- Track up to 2000 keywords
- Up to 500,000 site audit crawl credits per month
- Create up to 50 keyword lists
- Six months of history
- Position history chart
- SERP updates and more
3. Advanced: This plan is suitable for growing businesses and costs $333 per month (if billed annually), giving you the following limits.
- Create up to 50 unverified and unlimited verified projects
- Get up to 75,000 results per report
- Track up to 5000 keywords
- Up to 1.5 million site audit crawl credits per month
- Create up to 100 keyword lists
- Two years of history
- Site Explorer and more
4. Enterprise: This plan is suitable for large agencies. It costs $833 per month (if billed annually) and gives you the following limits.
- Create up to 100 unverified and unlimited verified projects
- Get up to 150,000 results per report
- Track up to 10,000 keywords
- Up to 5 million site audit crawl credits per month
- Create up to 250 keyword lists
- Unlimited history
- Access management
- Pay by invoice
- Directory Listing
- Audit log
- API and more
So what are you waiting for?
Read: Top Ahrefs Alternatives to Use in 2023
9. Keyword Tool Dominator
If you’re looking for a free keyword suggestion tool to find popular YouTube keywords, try Keyword Tool Dominator.
You can simply enter a video topic, channel, or keyword and click the search button to find great keywords.
Here’s what it looks like;
See that? It will instantly generate many YouTube keywords based on your seed keyword and source, country, and keyword relevancy score.
Benefits of Keyword Tool Dominator:
- Find unlimited keywords directly from YouTube
- Access to long-tail keyword search terms
- Quickly discover niche keywords for any video topic, title, and description.
- It offers a one-time payment and costs just $7.90!
How much does Keyword Tool Dominator cost?
It offers a free version with limited features. If you want unlimited keyword suggestions, go with its paid plans. It provides the following two pricing options useful for YouTube keyword research.
1. YouTube Keyword Tool: It costs you just $7.90 (a one-time payment) and offers the following features.
- Free Updates
- Unlimited Keyword Suggestions
- Unlimited Keyword Searches
- Unlimited Keyword Downloads
- ZERO Subscriptions Fees
2. Keyword Tool Suite: With this plan, you’ll get access to all nine tools from Keyword Tool Dominator. It only costs $19.90 (a one-time payment) and offers the following tools.
- Amazon Keyword Tool
- Bing Keyword Tool
- eBay Keyword Tool
- Etsy Keyword Tool
- Google Keyword Tool
- Google Shopping Keyword Tool
- Home Depot Keyword Tool
- Walmart Keyword Tool
- YouTube Keyword Tool
What else are you waiting for?
Grab Keyword Tool Dominator Now
10. YouTube Keyword Tool from TubeRanker
If you’re looking for an affordable keyword tool for YouTube, you should check out TubeRanker.
Its pricing plans start only at $19 per month, and you can perform 50 keyword tool searches and 20 tracked keywords per month.
Here’s what it looks like;
As you can see above, when you enter a seed keyword like “real estate”, the tool will instantly give you many keyword suggestions along with monthly search volume.
Benefits of TubeRanker:
- Generate lots of relevant long-tail keywords
- It is extremely affordable
- Get monthly search volume data for each keyword
- The ability to download in various formats, including CSV, PDF, Excel, etc.
- Generate unlimited tags for your videos
- Generate unlimited titles and meta descriptions for your YouTube videos
How much does TubeRanker cost?
TubeRanker offers the following two pricing plans.
1. Basic: As the name suggests, this is the basic plan from TubeRanker, which costs only $19 per month and offers the following things.
- Unlimited Tag Generator
- 50 Keyword Tool Searches / Month
- 20 Tracked Keywords
- Unlimited Channel Audits
- Unlimited Tag Extractor
- Unlimited Hashtag Generator
- Unlimited Title Generator
- Unlimited Description Generator
2. Advanced: If you want higher limits, this plan is for you, which costs $49 per month and offers the following things.
- Unlimited Tag Generator
- 250 Keyword Tool Searches / Month
- 100 Tracked Keywords
- Unlimited Channel Audits
- Unlimited Tag Extractor
- Unlimited Hashtag Generator
- Unlimited Title Generator
- Unlimited Description Generator
FAQs | YouTube Keyword Research
Here are some of the most commonly asked questions about YouTube keyword research.
What is YouTube keyword research?
YouTube keyword research is the process of identifying the words and phrases that people use to search for videos on YouTube.
Why is YouTube keyword research necessary?
By finding and analyzing the RIGHT keywords, you can optimize your titles, descriptions, and tags to improve the visibility of your videos on YouTube. It ultimately helps you generate more video views and money.
What is the best YouTube keyword research tool?
The Keyword Magic tool from Semrush is one of the best tools for finding YouTube keywords. It gives you over 23.5 billion keywords and thousands of variations for most topics.
How do I choose keywords for my YouTube channel?
You can use keyword tools such as Semrush, Ahrefs, etc, to find better keyword terms for your YouTube videos. Also, consider what your audience might be searching for and target long-tail keywords.
For example, instead of using the keyword “fitness,” you might use a long-tail keyword like “beginner’s home workout routine.”
What are the best free YouTube keyword tools?
Here are some of the free YouTube keyword tools.
– YouTube autocomplete
– KeywordTool.io
– TubeRanker
Related Resources:
Final Thoughts on YouTube Keyword Tools
There are a ton of tools available that can help you identify popular YouTube keywords and phrases related to your topic.
Few are free and others are paid tools. Use a combination and free and paid tools (like Semrush and YouTube autosuggest) to discover hidden keywords on YouTube.
What are your thoughts? Which YouTube keyword tool did you like most? Did we miss any tool bloggers and YouTubers should use in 2023? Share your thoughts in the comments.
