Best Free SEO Tools for YouTube in 2023

Youtube is one of the most crowded platforms on the internet and a lot of people look for free SEO tools for help in growing on Youtube. Here are some of the best free SEO tools for Youtube in 2021.

The 15-year-old video sharing platform ‘YouTube’ has helped creators and audiences alike in sharing and viewing video content. Everyone from individual users to large video producing corporations has pitched their channels in the largest video sharing platform in the world for viewers to watch their uploads and subscribe for more content. 

With a recorded 1 Billion hours of content viewership per day, YouTube is a suitable hub for aspiring content creators to share their content among the majority of internet users as it stands second among the most popular websites in the world. There are viewers with varied interests in the video-sharing market for you to associate with based on the major themes of your videos. 

What is SEO and, why is it used in the video-sharing industry?

SEO is an abbreviation for the term ‘Search Engine Optimization,’ which is a technique used to gain an audience for your website through SERP (Search Engine Results Page). 

Based on the highlighted themes of your content, SEO helps you find the appropriate audience who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. 

Finding the right audience through the search engine results pages will eventually increase your audience. Thus achieving a high amount of traffic towards your content. 

Advertising is one of the most used techniques among SEO practices. But you can derive traffic organically as well.  Although these are terms commonly associated with websites, ‘Search Engine Optimization can be put to practice to leverage your video content’s performance on YouTube as well.

Making use of the video-sharing platform to the maximum involves adhering to the current social trends, finding the right keywords, and tracking your video rankings.  As daunting as it may seem, here are some of the best free SEO tools and tips at your disposal to help you with your SEO practices and creating performance-oriented content.

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Google Trends:

Google Trends is an SEO tool that gets you acquainted with the latest trends persisting in the social world. It derives information from Google’s search history and other native applications to provide you with data based on topics of mutual interest. 

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With Google Trends, you can: 

• learn about trending topics during a selected time frame by choosing to filter the rest. 
•  Conduct searches based on a particular region to identify the trends followed by people of that region.
• Compare trends by searching for five topics simultaneously and get a comparative analysis for each subject. 

You can avail of the services offered by Google Trends for free of charge. Thus, making this tool one of the best free SEO tools for optimizing your YouTube videos.

Other Alternatives

• SEMrush is another SEO tool that lets you search for current trends and run audits under a free account.
• SE ranking helps you find an ideal concept for your YouTube video and also track your keywords in terms of time and place.

Answer The Public:

You will need a broad set of keywords to set the title of your video based on its concept. Answer The Public comprises several keyword ideas and alternatives across different categories of alphabets and conjunctions. Unlike other keyword-generating tools, Answer The Public relies on queries and searches made on blogs, forums, and other social media platforms for producing broad keyword alternatives. 

It is one of the best free SEO tools, allowing you to run a limited number of searches but provides you with extensive results for every search conducted. 

Other Alternatives:

• Serpstat is an all-in-one SEO tool housing a keyword research tool that connects you with your audience’s research status to choose an appropriate keyword for your video title.
• SE ranking is another tool providing complete SEO facilities. Its keyword research tool lets you gain a deeper understanding of every keyword.

Tubebuddy:

Tubebuddy is a YouTube extension tool that helps in optimizing your videos for YouTube. You can find help in setting up titles, tags, descriptions, cards, and annotations for your content. 

Setting up this YouTube extension lets you see tags and SEO techniques of the videos you watch. You can direct traffic towards your content by adding relevant tags to your video with the help of Tubebuddy’s efficient tag configuration techniques. 

Receive efficient tips from this SEO buddy to boost your channel’s performance and also avail the benefits of audits conducted on your content by this tool to comply with YouTube’s algorithms.  

It is a free tool you can download as a YouTube extension for easy access. 

Other Alternatives:

• Tunics are an SEO tool with specified functions dedicated to YouTube videos. It has a YouTube keyword tool to assist you with assessing keywords. There is also a free version available for accessing this tool.
• VidIQ is your go-to platform for successful video optimization with keyword research tools made available with effective SEO solutions. It is another browser extension tool, allowing you to make a comparative analysis based on different channels on the YouTube platform. 

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 YouTube Creator Academy:

What if YouTube itself could help you establish your channel in its video-sharing platform? The question ‘What if’, no longer remains as YouTube is seemingly interested in encouraging you to start creating your content with its native SEO tool YouTube Creator Academy.

You can gain access to this tool from the official YouTube website by clicking on the YouTube apps icon on the top right-hand corner. 

This tool comprises of:

• Illustrated courses for beginners, who are looking forward to starting their channel.
• Illustrated guides for bringing recognition to your content and earning a remuneration for publishing your content.
• Learning Toolkits to keep up with the ever-changing online trends and run your channel.
• And other creator resources to avail additional benefits and awards.

It’s freely available for use. Thus, making it one of the best Free SEO tools for YouTube. 

YouTube Analytics:

You have set up your channel, and now you must research your audience to produce desirable content. Here’s another native SEO tool of YouTube that introduces you to your audience and lets you connect with them. This tool is popular among creators with pre-existing channels who wish to keep tabs on their progress. It’s one of the best free SEO tools by YouTube, YouTube.

This tool lets you:

• Find out your target audience.
• Figure out what your audience prefers to watch.
• Understand your audience’s level of engagement with your channel.

Other Alternatives:

• Quintly is a reporting featurette that combines all the necessary data based on subscribers, subscriber engagements, viewing duration, etc.

RivalIQ:

RivalIQ is here to help you understand your competitors who are striving in the same field. At RivalIQ, they believe that SEO must not rely solely on your performance alone, and analyzing your success with other popular brands of a similar industry has its significance.

After the integration of competitive data, you can craft a suitable SEO strategy for your channel’s success.

Here is what RivalIQ can do for you:

• Send you alerts based on your competitors’ actions.
• Identify your most and least popular content with the help of their tools and metrics.
• Keep you up to date with your competitors’ strategies with their efficient line of accessories.

This SEO tool houses free tools and comes with a free trial version. 

Other Alternatives:

• sprout social allows you to track and analyze engagement efforts, publish content and hold campaigns as a team, and observe social media conversations to strategize a perfect plan. It comes with a free 30 days trial. 
• Brandwatch is an intelligent strategist who keeps you up to date with contemporary trends and lets you act accordingly. 

Awario:

Keeping track of the level of engagement your content receives on YouTube and elsewhere is essential. Awario should be your go-to tool to learn more about your content’s performance and mentions about your videos and keywords on other social media platforms. 

Type in your video’s URL and Awario gets you acquainted with all you need to know regarding your audiences’ response to your video. 

Awario assists you by:

• Sending you alerts every time your video gets mentioned anywhere.
• Providing you with facilities to run specific search operations, integrate keywords, add language, and regional filters to acquire your desired results.
• Letting you respond to your subscribers’ comments and reviews from Awario’s dashboard.

A free trial is made available.

FotoJet:

A thumbnail of a video is the first thing a user sees before choosing to watch your video. Hence it is necessary to create a content-based thumbnail to appeal to your audiences. FotoJet is one of the best free SEO tools to be used for creating thumbnails for your videos. It is a photo editor and a graphic design tool that is designed specifically for creating thumbnails for YouTube videos.

This graphic design tool has an ‘advanced thumbnail creator’ tool, which lets you crop, rotate images, and resize them. You can also add filters to create an eye-catching thumbnail. With over 500 templates for collages, it is one of the leading tools for creating graphic-induced YouTube thumbnails. 

You can avail of the services of this tool for free of charge. 

Other Alternatives:

• Canva is one of the leading graphic designing tools in the market which scores of free-stock images and templates to assist you in creating a thumbnail. It follows a drag and drop format which resorts to a user-friendly experience. You can utilize most of its features for free with the exceptions of some paid features and elements.

• Snappa is another graphic designer tool intended for beginners with its simplistic interface and step-by-step instructional methods to let users get acquitted with creating innovative graphic designs. 

iMovie:

iMovie is a video-editing tool, exclusively for iMac users to edit their YouTube videos with ease and efficiency. It lets you make specific alterations and desirable additions to your videos before publishing your content. With its plethora of functions and editing possibilities, it becomes one of the best free SEO tools (for iMac or iOS device users) to be utilized for editing your content.

With iMovie you can:

• Re-arrange portions of your videos with cropping and trimming possibilities.
• Rectify shaky and blurred videos.
• Add titles to your videos and make your videos attractive with brilliant visual effects.
• Manage audio files of your videos. 
• Publish your videos directly to YouTube and other social media platforms.

iMovie is a free video editing tool for iMac and iOS device users.

Other Alternatives:

• Blender is a relatively advanced video editing tool capable of handling 3D, Animations, VFX, and game creating solutions. It has a complex theme of functioning suitable for professionals and requires some duration for beginners to get accustomed to the designing tool.

• Corel VideoStudio is a Windows exclusive paid video editing tool. Its double-screen interface allows you to add multiple videos and edit them simultaneously. You can also perform traditional functions such as trimming, cropping, resizing, and adding animations to your videos. 

DrumUp:

For more eyes to watch your videos, you must reach out to them with your content! The best way to ensure that happens is by utilizing social media applications where people spend time browsing their field of interest. Let DrumUp help you make the best of this opportunity. 

It lets you integrate all your social media accounts such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to let you communicate with your target audience across all these applications from a single platform. You can also schedule the time for your posts to go live on different social media platforms. The tool shows you a preview of your post before it is being promoted and allows you to create a message that helps you promote your posts by the social auto-posting tool.

It is one of the best SEO tools for YouTube marketing as it comes with a free trial and a free follow-up version forever if you choose to pick the same.

Other Alternatives;

• HootSuite is a paid social media management tool that is used by corporates to initiate relations with their potential clients. Using this tool goes beyond merely responding to your clients to introducing them to exclusive offers and products offered by its users.

Buffer:

With every YouTube upload, you need to ensure that your video is published in different social media outlets to let your friends and audience know about your content uploads. It could be a hassle if you choose to manually sign-up into every account and make your uploads.

Buffer is a social media engagement tool that allows you to queue up your uploads to publish them across all your social media accounts from a single platform, according to your desirable time and order. You can do this by integrating your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest accounts with your Buffer account for simplified publishing.

This tool also includes specific Instagram marketing solutions with scheduling provisions for updating your Instagram stories which helps you serve the purpose of sharing your YouTube content. Buffer has got you covered with everything you need to create an intuitive Instagram post for users to take notice. 

Buffer is an amazing tool to make a collaborative effort alongside your team, allowing you to coordinate and build resourceful posts for your audiences and clients which are useful for corporate functions. You can also track your post’s performance across all the social media platforms on your Buffer account for a deeper understanding of your audience’s engagement. 

It is undoubtedly one of the best tools for social media marketing as it allows you to manage one Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn account and post ten updates as per schedule by just signing in for free.

Other Alternatives:

• eClincher is a paid social media management tool that makes it easier for you to handle your social media presence with matters concerning the promotion of your YouTube videos. Never miss the dates for publishing your content as eClincher will do it for you.

YouTube Comment Moderation:

Having a YouTube channel and promoting your videos on social media means an overwhelming amount of comments and reviews which you need to keep tabs on and configure. Here’s another native YouTube SEO tool that helps you to sort out appropriate and positive comments from the numerous of them you receive. 

With the YouTube comment moderation, you can:

• Choose to block comments which you don’t want to show up on your video’s comment section.
• Block links and URLs which appear on the comments of your YouTube videos.
• Decide upon approving content automatically or manually after your review.
• Type in a list of words to block or set aside comments with similar wordings for your review. 

Being a tool powered by YouTube, it is free for use.

Other Alternatives:

• TubeBuddy is an SEO tool also used for handling comments received on your video. This tool brings your attention to positive, negative, and engaging kinds of YouTube comments. It also prompts you to answer or reply to comments in the form of questions. Thus, ensuring that you maintain an interactive relationship with your audience. 

• Smart moderation is a paid tool to handle comments on YouTube and other social media platforms like a pro. This tool automatically erases inappropriate comments and reviews posted on your content. It can also set aside such YouTube comments for you to review. The accuracy at which it conducts this operation is similar to a human’s supervision. 

Pro Tips for YouTube Optimization:

Here are some tips for you to follow and successfully upload your videos on YouTube, looking forward to achieving what you intended in the first place.

• After ruling out a keyword for your YouTube video from the SEO tools in the list, you should consider replacing your video file’s name with the chosen keyword before you upload. As YouTube reads the name of your video file, it becomes a gateway to top the list of videos that appear when the particular keyword gets searched on YouTube.

• Include your researched keyword in the title of your YouTube video before uploading it. It clarifies the central theme of your video and drives the right audience to your content.

• Utilize the tagging opportunity YouTube provides by adding relevant tags to your content. You can seek help from RapidTags and TagsforYouTube for generating the right tags for your videos.

• Add a description for your video for users to better understand the context of your video. It appears alongside your video on the search results page. Begin your detailed description by linking a website and don’t write beyond 150 characters.

• Create relevant thumbnails for your YouTube videos using Canva or Fotojet. These graphic and image editing tools contain several templates for you to choose from for your thumbnail.

• Don’t undermine the power of encouraging viewers to like, comment, and subscribe to your channel. It goes a long way in terms of gaining more views and rankings on the video-sharing platform. The last thing you would want is for viewers to watch your amazing video and forget about its existence. This prevents the scope of your viewer’s further involvement with your channel.

• Add links to your YouTube channel with your uploads. This prompts your users to check out your channel for more content.

• You can use the scheduling features of social management tools to share your videos on social media platforms. Reach to your friends and other reliable people in your lives by sharing on social media.

Conclusion:

With a staggering 400 hours worth of content being uploaded on this video-sharing platform in a single minute, to serve 1 billion hours of viewership every day. YouTube has become the modern medium of entertainment that benefits both the creators and viewers. Unlike before, it’s relatively easy now for people to create their content and stream them for the world to see with minimum investment. 

Since scores of individuals and businesses are utilizing this medium for various purposes, it is necessary to follow some guidelines before your debut in this video-sharing platform to carry on with a successful establishment. 

SEO forms the crux of these guidelines. It understands and adheres to YouTube algorithms to yield solutions for gaining the upper hand in this video-sharing and streaming platform. It also studies viewers’ preferences and ever-changing social trends to help you produce contents that appeal to your audiences. 

Thus, practicing the use of SEO tools and tips will help you gain higher rankings on the results page of YouTube.