Hello Reader,

If you've been reading my newsletter for a while now, you know I have a pretty dire outlook for Google.

The company, though still dominant in search, is facing challenges left and right. I won't harp on about it, except to say this:

If we want to remain competitive in the world of search, we need to be thinking way, way bigger than Google.

Which is why I'm actively training myself on other algorithms in the search landscape.

I want my SEO strategies for my clients to be flexible and long-term, but also realistic and manageable. So I am studying up, to make sure I can make sure they're connecting with customers not just on Google, but on every search platform their customers use.

I've already written my big blog about future-proofing your SEO strategy for AI. Now, I'm moving on to YouTube... which is technically still Google. But it's definitely its own beast.

There are three reasons I'm focusing on YouTube:

1. Youtube is the 2nd most popular search engine, after Google. And it has been for a long, long time.
2. Youtube has a big impact on your search visibility on Google, and so optimizing there is like feeding two birds from one scone.
3. I have a fledgling Youtube channel, my video editing skills are improving, and I'm ready to make myself more known on there.

To get started, I wanted to know how to come up with ideas for video content that would actually get people's attention and have a fighting change in YouTube's algorithm.

That involves looking up the topics and keywords people are using---something I do every day for my clients. However, YouTube keywords aren't featured in Semrush or any other tools that I pay for, so I needed a workaround. Here's a few methods I'm testing:

Help me autocomplete, you're my only hope

One of the easiest ways to come up with ideas, I've discovered, is to use YouTube's autogenerated search function to look for concepts. Since these are pulled from things people have actually searched, it makes sense to use these titles as inspiration for content you might want to create.

For example, when I go into YouTube and type in "content strategy," I see a whole list of potential ideas:

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You can also just type in the keyword and then use advanced filters to search for content with the highest views. But neither of these is the most elegant solution, since you can't extract that data. The only way to keep it, it appears, is to manually type it into a content calendar. Not ideal. So what else do we have?

Using your existing search data

Another suggestion I found works well if you've already got a YouTube channel up and running. You can look at the data in your YouTube Studio to see what keywords have already helped people find your content.

I'd be very keen to try this out on a customer who has more than a handful of videos live. But for someone like me, it's not exactly the most useful strategy, since my keyword list from YouTube studio is pretty limited:

However, as I continue to expand my video library, and optimize my videos using other techniques I'm researching, this list should grow and give me a better idea of what topics are resonating with my audience.

Using Semrush or Ahrefs to identify keywords

I know I already said Semrush doesn't show you a list of keywords for YouTube, which is true.

However, you can use the tool to find out:

1. Which of your existing keywords feature a video on the search results page (SERP)
2. Which keywords you are targeting would benefit from video content

If you're a Semrush or Ahrefs user, the best way to do this is to look at either your list of existing or target keywords, and then use the filter to single out keywords that feature videos in the SERPs. Like this on Semrush:

Then, voila, you have a whole list of keywords that Google deems worthy of having a video on the results page. And if that's the case, it's likely that Google thinks that video is worth being served for similar keywords on its other platform, YouTube.

And if you don't have a Semrush account? Well, you could always reply to this email and ask me for help. 😉

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One of the joys of working in Search, at least for a nerd like me, is figuring out how all this stuff works. So I'll be continuing my deep dive in to YouTube and other platforms, and I'll be keeping you updated along the way.

Why not subscribe to my YouTube channel and see how things turn out?

Until next time.

- Liam

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