So you've set up your YouTube channel, cranked out a couple of videos, got your first few subscribers, some views, and you’re starting to get an idea of what all of the YouTube analytics data means. Now it's time to unleash your secret weapon.
Disclaimer Klaxon! This post is all about vidIQ, our Chrome extension. So if you haven't got it already, stop reading, and use this link to download it and install it on your computer. We know that you are just starting out on your YouTube journey, so we're not trying to cash in on you as soon as possible. We wanna give you that kickstart to help grow your channel, and build an audience. Hey, it’s what we do.
YouTube Channel Analytics: Access the Numbers in Real Time
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! Using this feature, you can access stats for the last 60 minutes, the last 48 hours, the last seven days, Watch Time for the last seven days, and subscribers in total on your YouTube channel.
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, or 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 analytics obsessive compulsive disorder, I always wanna 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 who haven’t yet reached the monetization requirements of four thousand 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.
YouTube Videos: Likes to Dislikes Ratio
You'll also notice when you download the vidIQ Chrome extension, that all of your videos will now have percentage numbers next to them. This is essentially the likes to dislikes ratio on any video on YouTube. This data can be useful for a number of reasons:
- You can find out whether an individual video is resonating with your audience or not
- You can determine wow 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%.
YouTube Research: Find Out About the Next Big Trend
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 do a 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 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 very useful for finding current trending topics.
Then we have VidIQ’s legendary ‘Keyword Score.’ 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. If you want to drill deep down into the keywords and research them further, we have another awesome tool called ‘Enable Inline Keywords,’ which highlights the video tags the creators have used on videos around this topic.
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 own video and paste them in. Or you can use the keywords as a springboard for your own ideas generation.
VidIQ Video Scorecard
The VidIQ video scorecard gives you all the information you need about every single individual 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 tags 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. It’s all incredibly useful stuff to make sure that your video is in tip top shape before you publish it.
VidIQ Channel Audit: Find Out How Your Video Content is Working
One of the most powerful tools we have here at vidIQ is the Channel Audit. On our 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 one 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 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 example, a viewer may thank you for sharing useful info and you’ll want to thank them in return. With the VidIQ comment template, we’ve created a long series of responses for all sorts of different questions we get here. One of more popular comments from us is responding “You’re Welcome” and automatically adding the viewer’s username. Automated responses means 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.
With regards to YouTube Channel management, another thing to keep an eye out for is this vidIQ utility button which you'll find on many different pages. 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 then 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:
Click on VidIQ's awesome YouTube Playlist for new tutorials on how to grow more YouTube views and subscribers in 2019!
Don’t Forget! Tune into the VidIQ live-stream every Tuesday on YouTube at 11 a.m. PST, 7 p.m. GMT.
Want To Get More YouTube Views?
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 click here to install now!
