After setting up your YouTube channel and publishing your initial videos, it’s essential to leverage real‑time analytics and free optimization tools to pinpoint your strengths and identify opportunities for improvement. Now it's time to unleash your secret weapon.
Disclaimer Klaxon! This post highlights vidIQ – the free Chrome extension designed to empower YouTube creators with intelligent tools and actionable data. So, if you haven't got it already, stop reading and download the free vidIQ extension to download it and install it on your computer. We know that you are just starting on your YouTube journey, so we're not trying to cash in on you as soon as possible. We want to give you that kickstart to help grow your channel and build an audience. Hey, it’s what we do.
Understanding YouTube Analytics
Let’s start with some YouTube numbers. With the new YouTube Studio, you get a snapshot of how your individual videos are performing. But what if you could get an overview of how your entire channel is performing? Well, that's exactly what the vidIQ real-time stats bar can help you with! With vidIQ’s real‑time stats, you can effortlessly monitor key metrics over intervals such as the last 60 minutes, 48 hours, and seven days – including detailed watch time and subscriber counts – ensuring you stay on top of your channel’s performance.
Of course, you can access Channel stats via YouTube Analytics, but vidIQ’s real-time stats bar allows you to see the data whether you are on the search page, on a watch page, or on a YouTube home page. We always show you the real-time analytics, and for someone like me who's got an analytics obsessive compulsive disorder, I always want to check those numbers, and I can see them wherever I am on YouTube. It’s a much-loved feature on the vidIQ Chrome extension - and it’s absolutely free. But we're not quite done there because if you like graphs as much as you like numbers, well, all you need to do is mouse over the real-time stats bar, and you get a breakdown of just how well your videos have been performing and your channel over the last seven days.
Also, for YouTube channels that haven’t yet reached the monetization requirements of 4,000 hours, we’ve also added an additional metric in the real-time stats bar, which tracks your Watch Time over the last 12 months. Once you've reached those requirements, this metric automatically disappears. So if you wanted this tool for no other reason than to find out just how close you are to monetization, this is why you should download vidIQ.
Maximizing Video Performance with Like/Dislike Ratios
When you install the vidIQ Chrome extension, you gain instant access to performance percentages for each video, allowing you to see quickly which content is resonating with your audience. This is essentially the likes-to-dislikes ratio on any video on YouTube. This data is invaluable for optimizing content, revealing which videos capture attention, and driving improvements in your channel strategy.
- You can find out whether an individual video is resonating with your audience or not
- You can determine how your videos are performing at the Channel level
For your Channel, this VidIQ feature will show when the likes ratio falls below 90%, and when the ratio falls below 70%.
Analyzing Trends & Keyword Research
The big gaming trend on YouTube at the moment is Fortnite, but what is the next game on the horizon? A lot of gaming creators are gravitating towards a game called Apex, or Apex Legends, and we know that to have a better gaming performance, you want to increase your frames per second, or FPS. So, let’s search for ‘Apex Legends increase FPS’ and see what the vidIQ extension can do with that.
The first awesome feature is the ‘subscriber count’ next to different Channels. This is hugely important as it can help identify windows of opportunity. Just having that little bit of information can let you know whether it’s worth producing content on as a gamer interested in Apex Legends. Another feature, ‘Search Companion’ will give you further data such as the average number of subscribers for the Channels that appear on these search rankings, and the average age of the videos. Both are very useful for finding current trending topics.
Then we have vidIQ’s legendary ‘YouTube Keyword Research’. This gives you a general indication of competition versus volume or supply versus demand. If there are a lot of people searching for a term and not that many videos being supplied, again, this tells us that we should be making videos on that topic. For in‑depth keyword analysis, take advantage of the ‘Enable Inline Keywords’ tool, which reveals the tags used by successful creators, giving you a solid foundation for your content research and optimization.
As a creator, you can use this feature to determine whether you still think there is value in this keyword, whether this game is going to become more popular, and if you can establish content in that search term before it gets more popular. That kind of insight is incredibly helpful in creating evergreen content. If you like the keywords you find, you can simply mouse over the keywords, click on the paperclip to the right, go to your video, and paste them in. Or you can use the keywords as a springboard for your idea generation.
Optimizing Your Video Metadata for Better SEO
Effective metadata is the backbone of YouTube SEO, and optimizing it can significantly boost your channel’s discoverability. In this section, we dive into strategies for enhancing your video titles, descriptions, and tags to improve search rankings. Start by conducting thorough keyword research to uncover terms that align with your content and audience interests. Incorporate these keywords naturally into your title and description to signal relevance to YouTube’s algorithm. Additionally, leverage tags to cover broader topics and related terms, ensuring they accurately reflect the video content. Don’t forget to update your metadata periodically based on performance analytics and emerging trends. By refining your metadata, you not only improve search engine visibility but also enhance viewer engagement, leading to higher watch times and more robust channel growth. This comprehensive approach to SEO empowers you to stay ahead of the competition and continually attract new audiences.
Using Data to Drive Your Channel’s Success
In today’s fast-paced digital world, data is more than just numbers—it’s your guide to creating content that truly resonates. This section is all about tapping into your channel’s analytics to understand what works best and where there’s room for improvement. By tracking key metrics like view duration, click-through rates, and audience demographics, you gain real insight into your viewers' habits and preferences. With these insights in hand, you can fine-tune your video titles, tags, and descriptions to better align with your audience’s interests. We share practical tips drawn from successful YouTube creators, demonstrating how a keen eye on data can uncover new content opportunities and refine your overall strategy. Whether you’re identifying content gaps or tweaking your keyword strategy, using real-time data can help you create videos that not only attract clicks but also keep viewers engaged for longer periods.
Using vidIQ Tools for Detailed Channel Audit
VidIQ Video Scorecard
The vidIQ video scorecard gives you all the information you need about every single video on YouTube. As well as data on social engagements, you can take a deep dive into the search engine optimization generated around the video, such as tags, titles, and descriptions. There’s also a video optimization checklist so you can see if the creator has missed any important steps. If you look at your own videos through this video scorecard, you can see even more information.
Did you know the vidIQ tool can help you with editing and uploading? Straight off the bat, we've got character limit features. Did you know that you can only have a hundred characters in your title? Also, it’s good to know you can have five thousand characters in your description and five hundred characters in your tags. Why YouTube doesn't alert you that you’ve gone over your limit by default is beyond me, but we're helping you out there. Oh, and we also help you add emojis to your title (but If you are going to do this, just make sure that you add them towards the end of your titles so that it doesn't mess up the keyword indexing from YouTube). You can also use vidIQ to create a tag template or organize your tags.
vidIQ can also help you evaluate whether your tags, titles, and descriptions are effective for your video. It’s called the ‘SEO’ score and marks your video out of 50. and the higher you can get to 50, the more potential your video has to reach an audience. The tool will also prompt you in terms of ensuring you’ve added cards, end screens, and closed captions. Ensuring that every element of your video is optimized before publication can significantly enhance its visibility and performance on YouTube.
VidIQ Channel Audit: Perform Better
One of the most powerful tools we have here at vidIQ is the YouTube channel audit. On our vidIQ YouTube Channel, we do a live stream every Tuesday where we audit people's channels, but as a creator, consider this feature your very own 24/7 YouTube channel audit expert, which tells you all sorts of information about your channel.
For example, it can identify the general health of your channel and the type of content to double down on if it’s consistently doing well for you. It will also give you information about Watch Time, audience retention, YouTube Playlists, top search terms, end screens, card clicks, and so on.
As for how badly your channel is doing, we give you that information as well. So, content that could use work, the ones with the average lowest view time, the ones with terrible likes to dislikes.
VidIQ YouTube Channel Management: Invaluable Features for Creators
As you start to upload content on your channel, people will start to perceive you as an expert and will want to ask you questions. If you're focusing on a particular topic, you may be asked the same question over and over again, and you kind of want to respond to that but not type out this response over and over again. Auto-generated responses can help you a lot.
For instance, responding promptly and personally to viewer comments not only builds community but also increases engagement – a key metric in YouTube’s algorithm. With the VidIQ comment template, we’ve created a long series of responses for all sorts of different questions we get here. One of the more popular comments is responding “You’re Welcome” and automatically adding the viewer’s username. Automated responses mean you can work through more comments more quickly, especially if you're getting hundreds of comments a day. I use this for at least one or two hours a day, responding to as many comments as possible. This one tool, which is free of cost, has saved me hundreds, if not thousands, of hours managing the vidIQ channel.
When managing your YouTube channel, be sure to utilize the versatile vidIQ utility button, available across multiple pages, to streamline common tasks such as copying cards, editing thumbnails, and optimizing end screens. It does many different things depending on where you are. For example, on the video manager page, for an individual video, if I click on the button, it allows me to do things like copy cards or end screens to then put them onto other videos, saving you time there. You can also use the thumbnail editor (if you're not yet proficient with professional programs such as Photoshop) to start you off with creating custom thumbnails.
More Resources for YouTube Creators:
Don’t Forget! Tune into the vidIQ livestream every Tuesday on YouTube at 11 a.m. PST, 7 p.m. GMT.
