vidIQ was born in San Francisco on 1st July 2011, which makes us 9 years old today and we're in the mood to celebrate 🎉 But first, a little backstory....

YouTube can be an intimidating and confusing place for a beginner - let's face it, it can be frustrating for experienced users too. The Co-founders of vidIQ, Rob Sandie & James Cross wanted to build a suite of tools that would not only integrate seamlessly into the creator's workflow, but would decipher complicated data and analytics into stone cold actionable takeaways.

The dream was to create a powerful tool so creators could have real time stats at their fingertips

, and all the other insights they would need in one place. After 2 years of fiercely hard work, vidIQ launched to the public in 2013 with those goals in mind.

 like keyword research so creators could determine the type of content audiences were looking for, and what keywords creators should use to title their videos. There was also an optimization scorecard so no video would be published without ticking all the boxes YouTube used to identify what your content was all about, plus a way to track your competitors to identify what content was (and perhaps more importantly, wasn't) working for them.

 Now the vidIQ app and tool has over 20 different features geared toward saving the creator time and giving them invaluable insights into how their content is resonating with their target audience.

Now available in 17 languages, the vidIQ Chrome extension has over 1M active users. These are creators that are eager and hungry to grow their YouTube channel and audience are partnering with vidIQ to do it.

vidIQ: Insights for Every YouTube Creator

Rob & James also understood the importance of guiding the creator through the best possible research, video creation, optimization, and upload, and analysis process, so a whole toolbox of guides and informational resources have been built around that aim.

We're thrilled to confirm that, alongside the 

, the following educational resources are available:

 has 617K subscribers & 39M views and is PACKED with tutorials and guides about how to succeed on YouTube

 podcasts features expert guests on every online video topic

 is full of training courses that take a deep dive into subjects like keyword results, how to create the best custom thumbnails, and how to make money on YouTube.

 that has joined us in making vidIQ such a success. We are so invested in your journeys, and take immense pride in your own successes. We are humbled that you've chosen us to be your partner, and excited to bring you even more tools and resources to help you knock your goals out of the park. Here's to you 🎉🎉

If you'd like to know a little more about the vidIQ origin story, please take a look at the video below. It's pretty fascinating:

If you want more insights into YouTube then make sure to download vidIQ. Over 1 million creators use vidIQ to help with keyword and competitor research, channel audits, and so much more. 

And if you’re serious about growing your YouTube views and subscribers, sign up for exclusive access to the 

. Learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.

vidIQ is 9 years old TODAY! We'd like to thank each and every YouTube creator that has joined us in making vidIQ such a success 🚀🎉

Happy 9th Anniversary vidIQ!

Even the most dedicated YouTuber can feel like they are creating content in a vacuum without access to the data that lets them know how their videos are performing. Even if you create the most niche and specialist videos, you'll want to know how they are doing against similar content, so you can improve with every upload.

Luckily, along with a host of other incredible tools, vidIQ has just launched a '

' feature to its suite which will enable a creator to compare views against:

Yes - at last you can get real-time stats for view comparisons on YouTube for all of the above. Just think what a competitive edge that will give you as a video creator!

Compare Views of YouTube Videos After Uploading

The hours after you publish your video to YouTube are the most important time for any creator. The more velocity your video has in those first minutes and hours, the more chance it has of turning into evergreen content for you. Hey, it might even pick up the pace enough for it turn viral for you!

With our brand new ‘Compare Views’ tool you can track the velocity of ANY video on YouTube and then compare it to ANY video or ANY channel on YouTube. That's going to give you some invaluable insights - whether you're following fellow creators, or keeping a very close eye on a trending topic or news story. Understanding how many views a video is picking up in the first few hours after upload will tell you what the audience appetite is for that content, and how much the YouTube algorithm favors it over similar content.

How to Compare Views for Any YouTube Video

, you'll find out about the different options in the 'Compare Views' tool. But let's try it out on a real video to show you what it can actually do.

Let's take a look at one of the best performing videos that vidIQ has uploaded in the past few months - '

PewDiePie Vs T Series: Who Just Fooled Who?

'. This particular video has generated over 815K views to date, but I'm curious to see how it performed against similar content. You can select a timeframe from 0, 1, 2, 3, 7 or 28 days - for this example, as the video was uploaded to YouTube on the 1st April 2019, I'm going to select the 28 day view option.

First, let's see how this one video compares against our YouTube Channel average. As you can see, with 815K views within the first 28 days, it's one of our best performing videos by a mile.

We know our vidIQ YouTube viewers have loved our 

 uploads to YouTube over the past view months because most of these videos have soared past the 500K view mark. I'm interested to see how the video above compares to our most viewed in the series - '

'. This particular video has garnered over 1.1M organic views for us did it really perform better than the video we're checking?

Our video actually performed nearly as well as our most viewed video on the PewDiePie shenanigans. Whilst our video generated 555K views in 3 days, the 'Mr Beast' upload was a little more of a slow burner, only overtaking our video in comparable views around the day 25 mark.

OK - so what does that tell us? Well, by the time we published the 'Who Just Fooled Who?' video, we'd already established the vidIQ YouTube channel as an authority on the subject. By putting in the heavy lifting, YouTube rewarded us with visibility for every PDP vs TS video we subsequently published, meaning we gained substantial video velocity in just a matter of hours. Analysing your content this way will provide insights into what's working and you can easily feed that data into your video strategy around a trending topic - just like we did.

While we're on the subject of PewDiePie, let's see how our video channel compares against his in terms of views over the past 28 days:

With 96M subscribers compared to just over 353K for the 

, of course Pewds is going to generate much more views than we are, but it's fun to compare a video view against an entire channel once in a while.

 and dive right in to the 'Compare Views' tool and start finding out insights for your own video content. We guarantee that the insights will be informative and fascinating!

Want To Get More YouTube Views & Subscribers?

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

Have you ever wanted to compare a video to any other video, channel, or Playlist on YouTube? Now you can - and it's going to give any video creator a true competitive edge!

How to Compare YouTube Views with Any Other Video, Channel, or Playlist!

I’m Liron Segev and I’m the Director of Customer Success here at vidIQ, which basically means I speak to creators of all sizes. I speak to YouTube creators with two subscribers, 1000 subscribers, a million subscribers, or 9.8 million subscribers, and all within one day. It means I have a helicopter view of what's going on, on YouTube so that I can help you. I know what's working. I know how to give you help. I know how to strategize with you using the vidIQ tool so that you could do YouTube well.

Typically, this training is usually for our internal customers, but we know everybody really wants to understand their YouTube journey, where they're going, what they're doing, and how they can get better. So, we’re sharing this knowledge with everyone, because we're here to help you. Please check out the 

 where you'll find a huge range of resources about succeeding on YouTube. Live webinars for YouTube and the vidIQ tool can be found at 

 - the sessions are held every Wednesday at 10am PT.

If you're new to vidIQ and you've never used it before, please download the 

 to all users if you want to access even more features. We have a 30 day free trial of our Boost package available so you can try out the full range of features - 

YouTube is a search engine, which means people go there to do searches for the content they want to watch. They want to be entertained, they want to know how to do things, they want to understand things about the project they're about to do, or the product they're about to buy. They go to YouTube to research. YouTube has a very clear mission, and that mission is to marry up your videos with what people are searching. If you do random stuff that nobody is searching for, you're simply not going to get those views.

Many of us at vidIQ actually own our own YouTube channels, and we use those channels to understand what you guys are going through, because we are going through the same thing. We know that when you randomly do stuff, it never comes out as expected. This is what happens with YouTube. We grab a camera. We randomly shoot a whole bunch of videos. We come home. We edit frantically. We think, we have a point to be made. We throw up a title, throw up a description, upload it, and go, "I hope this one works." But that really isn’t the right way to do it because no formula, or ‘recipe’ is actually being followed. It’s no wonder that the results are often random or very disappointing.

There's three D's when it comes to YouTube:

. People need to discover your content - if people don’t know about you or your content you’re never going to be seen by lots of people because you didn't make it easy for YouTube to discover you.

. Are you delivering? When somebody watches your video, are you delivering value? Are you giving them what they came here to find? Because if you are, you'll unlock the third D.

. People that love your content will share it, and YouTube is going to see that people are loving your content and will distribute your video for you. It's all about the three D's, but you've got to be discovered in order for you to deliver on your promise and in order for your videos to be distributed.

The First Key to Success on YouTube: Keyword Research

Almost every successful YouTube video starts with the creator knowing what the audience is searching for. For the purpose of this video, let’s assume they are searching for ‘chocolate cake’. With the vidIQ Chrome Extension installed, let’s go to YouTube and type that term in. You should see this screen:

’ score. Chocolate Cake is a solid 100, which is the highest it can be. What does that mean? Essentially, lots of people are looking for chocolate cake, which is great, there is no point making a video nobody's even searching for. Now we've told you the search volume is nice and high. Perfect. Do we go ahead and just make this video now? No, not yet.

The next thing we got to look at is something called the ‘

.’ What does that mean? Well, we have a high search volume, but look at the competition! Look how many other people are delivering value on this keyword, and how many videos are being made. The ‘Competition Score’ is a solid 89, which means the odds of your ranking amongst these major videos are going to be pretty slim if you only title your YouTube video with the words "chocolate cake’.

 Ideally, find a keyword with lots of search volume, and very little competition. It's rare, but when you find it, it's amazing.

How to Know YouTube Content is Still Relevant?

For many people, the amount of views a video has generated indicates how successful it has been. For instance, this video from Tasty has generated 6.5M views to date so we can assume it has done well, right?

Yes, because it has an impressive number of views since being published in October 2017. But how many views is it still getting after all this time. With the vidIQ extension installed, you can check how many views per hour any video is still generating. Zero views per hour would strongly indicate there is no interest in this video content right now, and that’s something to bear in mind while researching content to create. While total views tell one story, views right now tells another. The 'Views per Hour' (VPH) score for the Tasty video above is 395.8, which is still very good.

There is more. Click on the ‘Historical’ tab and it will show you the video’s views over time. This will instantly show you the amount of viewer interest in the topic over time. Are people still watching? Is there still a demand for this keyword? Remember, we haven't picked up our camera yet. All we're doing now is the research. We want to be discovered, so we've got to do that research before we touch that camera. Here I can see very clearly, it's still on the up and up. People are still 

 interested in chocolate cake, and that’s already a good sign.

 You win on YouTube by making content that's relevant today.

How to Find the Best Keywords for YOUR Content

‘Chocolate cake’ is still a hugely competitive keyword, so I wouldn't create a video without further research on the topic. Let’s talk about narrowing your search down using YouTube’s own algorithm. Its ‘auto-complete’ feature is basically YouTube's way of saying, "Hey, so many people have searched for chocolate cake, but they've also searched for whatever it is." Let me show you what you do.

You type in ‘chocolate cake, and you press A. Look at these titles that are coming up. Chocolate cake ASMR. Good, that's a thing now. ASMR no talking. Twice. Chocolate cake and kool aid. Just rinse and repeat using all the letters of the alphabet for this trick.

Look at all these titles that it is suggesting to us for ‘chocolate cake A’. Essentially, it's YouTube's own algorithm that says, "Look, so many people have searched for '

'. Well, isn't that a perfect title for you to make your video?" You see how I'm honing in on the perfect title, and the perfect direction for my video before I even pick up my camera?

YouTube is showing you what people are searching for. Therefore, the odds of you being discovered suddenly start to skyrocket because you're marrying up your videos with search intent. Win win.

But that’s not the end of it. YouTube is a search engine and what do we do with a search engine? We ask questions. Type ‘chocolate cake’ into the search bar, but this type preface it with ‘which’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘who’, ‘how’, ‘when’ or even ‘why’. Look at the suggestions that pop up that tell you what viewers are searching for!:

Solid keyword research is how you get discovered. You need to make sure that YouTube knows your video is going to answer a specific need and what better way to do it, than understanding the search volume, and competition, then immediately using the YouTube algorithm to understand what's working and what isn't working. That really is the way you start.

 Don't just pick up your camera and start shooting. Always, always, always start with keyword research first.

Optimizing Your YouTube Videos for the Right Keywords

Let’s take a look at how you should be optimizing your video before you publish. The first thing we look at is the title. The title is arguably the most important thing for YouTube discovery right now. If you're going to hit anything right it's the title, then description, then tags.

Think of it this way, YouTube is a search engine, and the more you can feed the search engine information about your videos it can only help. The most important thing is not to clickbait, not to mislead YouTube engine in any way because it will know. Let’s take a look at how we optimized one of our own videos for a particular keyphrase: ‘

We added that keyphrase in the tile, description and tags to tell YouTube in three different ways what this video is about. Basically, we’re showing YouTube via metadata what this video is about and if anybody is searching for it marry us up to that search.

Using YouTube Keyword Tags for Extra Research

Now, here’s a neat trick we want to show you. On the upload page you can add tags and see how they might perform for you in real time. With the Chrome Extension enabled, let’s type in ‘Valentine’s Day’ as a search term. The tool will start to suggest other terms, each with their own vidIQ score:

Now, if we click on the 'Valentine's Day' tag we've just added a new page opens with a new list of related keywords that immediately tell you what you should be using.

On the same new page, in the ‘Interest Over Time’ report, you can choose from the last 30 days (not recommended for once-a-year events like Valentine’s Day if you’re searching in September), from the last 365 days, or by all time.

When you add a keyword that's so highly searched for, always look at all time because it gives you a much more realistic overview. Because Valentine’s Day is a tentpole event, every single year since 2008 it's been a thing on YouTube, so the odds of it being a thing next year are pretty good. If you didn't make a Valentine's Day video, be sure that it's going to trend again next year so be prepared.

Going back to chocolate cake content, I’d be thinking about content like ‘how to make a chocolate cake for Valentine's Day for your boyfriend’, or wife, or husband or girlfriend 2020 or 202.. That’s evergreen content that will live forever, and interest and traffic will spike every single year at that right opportunity.

 Search for tentpole events you can create evergreen content around.

Views Per Hour: The Best Time to Publish to YouTube

Remember how we mentioned how important Views Per Hour (or VPH) was? One of the key signals that YouTube is looking for when you launch a video is what's the audience like? Do people care about this content? Are they watching a little bit or are they watching a lot? Are they sharing? Are they leaving comments? Are they giving it thumbs up? All of these are nuggets of information for YouTube to work out which video to promote. YouTube wants to help you, and show your video to lots of audiences, not just your own. It wants to discover new audiences for you, but you've got to send it the right signals. This is where the initial velocity is really important, which is why the vidIQ tool suggests the best time to publish videos to your channel.

Staying on the upload page with vidIQ install, just select the date, and you’ll automatically see the best times. In this example, we chose a Monday, and the tool suggests that peak traffic occurs at 3am and 12pm PT. To ride the wave of the 12pm spike, we suggest posting your video between 3am and 5am PT. (Don’t worry, the tool adjusts the time zone based on your location).

Why it's important to launch just before the best published time? It's because that's when your audience is online, and that’s the best opportunity you have for your video as you launch. That is beautiful signals for YouTube in watches that video takeoff because a lots and lots of people started to watch.

Optimization Checklist: Give YouTube the Information it Needs

On the upload page with vidIQ installed, you’ll also find the optimization checklist. Ticking off everything you know your video needs to send the right signals to YouTube is a huge time-saver so please make sure you use this tool every time

Recommended Tags & Videos to Gain Views From

Staying on the upload page, scroll further down and you’ll see sections called ‘Recommended Tags’ & ‘Videos to Gain Views From’. Recommended tags offer up extra suggestions for you, and if you scroll over you’ll get a pop-up that shows the competitor score and other metrics. Just click on any keyword tag to add to yours.

When we researching something on YouTube, we tend to watch more than one video, and the platform knows this and will serve up extra content on the subject for you. The ‘Videos to Gain Views From’ section suggests other amazing creators doing similar content to you, and whose videos are likely to be served up to your audience. You can see the keyword tags being used on these videos and add to your own.

With the vidIQ Chrome Extension installed, you’ll find a section called ‘Competitors’ on the left hand side of the upload page. Competitors are other creators publishing the same type of content as you - it’s good to know who these are so you can learn from them! You can see from the screenshot that we keep a very amicable and loving eye on our friends in the online video space and have added their channels to understand what’s working for them and what gets their audience excited. This feature really allows you to confirm if you’re on the same track because, again, YouTube is a search engine and people are definitely searching for similar content.

The Competitors tool is sorted by different time frames, and by views, views per hour (VPH), or by date uploaded, so you can really take a deep-dive into the data.

For instance, sorting by VPH will tell you what’s really working at the moment. If you keep an eye on competitor content sorted by VPH by past 48 hours, this week, this month or all time, you’ll really get an idea of what type of content is working for them.

What sort of thing should you be taking notice of here? Do their thumbnail pop? How can you make your thumbnails even better? Are there video titles long, or short? What type of content is working for them - how to’s? listicles? What trends are they jumping on that you should be aware of?

 DO NOT COPY your competitors - it's one of the biggest mistakes that people often make on YouTube. They compare themselves to a competitor, and they copy everything that creator does and 99% of the time it just doesn't work. We advise understanding what similar creators are doing then confirm anything in your video strategy that might be missing or could be improved.

Trend Alerts: Get Insights into What People are Watching on YouTube

Talking of trends on YouTube, in the same left-hand column you’ll find a feature called ‘Trend Alerts’. Using this feature is really a golden ticket for YouTube creators because instead of keeping an eye on the trends, you can say, "Hey, trends come to me!"

Let’s use ‘Fortnite’ as an example. Add that term as a keyword, and select a VPH Threshold of 100 views per hour. Then select how often you want to be notified of any Fortnite-focused video on YouTube that’s achieving that view metric.

Why should you care? Because you are going to get a report that confirms how content around a certain keyword is performing, and if you see a topic going from 100 views per hour to 500 views per hour and then the same videos hitting a thousand views per hour the following day, guess what? It's a trend! Keeping an eye on videos that are generating significant VPH gives you an opportunity to create your own content - and quickly.

 Load up those trend alerts, and let us do the work for you. We'll let you know when something hits those milestones.

Discover the Most Viewed Videos on YouTube Right Now

In the left-hand menu bar you’ll also find the ‘Most Viewed’ tool. This gives the user some insights into what’s happening on YouTube right now, but sorted by VPH, not just what’s trending on 

. At the exact time of writing, Disney’s official trailer for ‘Frozen 2’ is the top result on its Trending page:

Using the vidIQ most viewed tool, it’s also the top result but we can go one step further and confirm how many views per hour it’s actually generating in real time - an incredible 337.5K! How awesome is that?

This tool is great for research so you can truly uncover what videos are getting the most views on YouTube right now as the results sometimes differ from the official Trending page results. But you can also determine what content is most viewed over 48 hours, 7 days, 30 days, and in the last 6 months.

You can also filter the search results by keyword, engagement, category, location, duration and YouTube channel size. The latter is a great feature as you can choose to sort by ignoring all channels with 1 million subscribers and above, or those that have between 10 and 100,000 subscribers, which might match your channel size more closely.

YouTube Channel Audit: Find Out How You Are Really Performing

Sticking with the left-hand menu, take a look at the ‘Channel Audit tool, which does exactly what it says on the tin. You’re making videos but what’s really working for you and what isn’t? This is where the Channel Audit tool comes into play, as it’s going to give you an insane amount of information.

The first thing you're going to see is how you are performing month over month? Are you growing or shrinking? Are you getting more subscribers? More YouTube views? More Watch time? Those are the important metrics you should have at your fingertips.

Then comes ‘Content to Double Down On’ which you can confirm by VPH, engagement rate, views, and subscribers gained. Double down is an American term, and it basically means do more of this, it works!

The vidIQ tool will do this for your own channel by taking a look at your published content and confirming which of your videos are giving you new subscribers, plus other invaluable information.

As you scroll further down on the Channel Audit dashboard you’ll also discover which search terms viewers are using to find your content, what your End Screen and Card click through rates are, as well as a host of other metrics over 30, 60, or 90 days.

Going back to the vidIQ YouTube Channel, are we hitting those milestones? Are you hitting yours? We have something called Achievements that goes out, fetches your information that says, how are you doing, and allows you to share those milestones. Here’s a snapshot from our current achievements - pretty good, right?

In the tool, just pick an achievement, and open it up to reveal a new certificate that you can share it with your audience. This works especially well on social media, because your audience want to be part of your journey. How many of us do this at the moment? We see a big creator who is celebrating another milestone and we like that tweet and we retweet it. We reply back to the creator, "Hey, I was with you when you had 400 subscribers. Look how well you've done now."

Our audience loves it, why not share it your achievement with you? You should be proud of what you're doing on your channel.

Join Us Every Week for Live vidIQ Training

Join us every Wednesday for a live webinar that takes you through every feature, including those we’ve just released. Download the free vidIQ Chrome Extension and take advantage of the 

 to really explore what it can do for your videos, your content strategy, and your YouTube channel.

Want to know how to use vidIQ's famous tool to help you generate more YouTube views and subscribers? Here's an in-depth look at all the awesome features you need to help you win.

Posts tagged with "vidIQ"