Keyword Research vs. Topic Research: Which One Gets Better Results? [Ep.#265]

You're likely doing keyword research all wrong on YouTube. In fact, when we start working with a YouTube creator and they tell us how they're doing keyword research, all I usually have to do to make my point is ask, "That sounds great. How's that working for you so far?" and typically they chuckle and say that it's not.

It's not surprising because the whole idea of keyword research is based on an outdated understanding of how YouTube's search and discovery systems work. The idea is that if I can find keywords that have a lot of search volume with low competition, then there's a greater chance that I could rank for that keyword and thus get a lot of that traffic.

But just because there's high competition and high search volume doesn't mean you can't outrank everything that's there. It happens all the time! Maybe you've experienced it yourself with a video that performed well for years, but now suddenly isn't. Someone else's video took over.

Furthermore, there's no such thing as ranking number one for anything anymore. Search results are so personalized based on each viewer's history, viewing habits, the type of content they gravitate towards, even the channels they're subscribed to. It also makes a difference what kind of device you're searching from, your geographic location, and what age YouTube thinks is making the search query.

Keyword research assumes that YouTube's search and discovery systems are positioning videos based on the keywords in the title, description, and the tags. However, YouTube announced they were switching away from this keyword matching system on August 10, 2012. Almost 10 years ago! Instead, they favor viewer signals to learn which videos to position, where to position them, when to position them, and for whom.

So, here at Video Creators, we don't actually talk about keyword research. Instead, we talk about "topic research," which is a different approach and produces different results.

Today, Lennon, D'Laina, and I are going to talk about how the two differ, and hopefully, by the end of this episode, you'll be equipped with a better process for researching your video ideas.

LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

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