Debra Mastaler mentioned the YouTube keyword tool again recently, and I don’t think I’ve been this excited about keywords in, well… ever. I confess to only now realizing how much of a help it can be.

Never mind the awesome fact that you can get keywords and easily import them into Google AdWords for your PPC campaigns. What’s really fantastic for me is that you can generate the truly random and crazy search terms that help you find those hidden gems on the Internet — the sites that might not yet be inundated with link requests or spammed up with paid links. You can find a void and fill it.

At first, as I was discussing this tool with my link builders, I thought being shown a keyword with an associated “Not enough data” message would be one that we might want to avoid using, but then I realized that those were the opportunities. Whereas you might think since most people aren’t using YouTube to sell products, the data you get from this tool would be useless, I think that it’s actually a giant hot mess of opportunity.

Let’s say that you were working with a site that sold fishing equipment. The keyword [fishing] has over a million searches a month but the keyword [fishing accidents] doesn’t have enough data.

Let’s Look Those Keywords Up In Google

[Fishing] shows me around 375 million results. The idea of wading (sorry) through those SERPs in order to find a good site that we’d reach out to depresses me.

[Fishing accidents] shows me less than 25k results. To me, that says I’ll spend less time finding good sites (hopefully!), and maybe I won’t be contacting the same ones that have been contacted by every other person trying to build links for sites selling fishing equipment. Definitely opportunity here (maybe some content to be written about ways to avoid certain common fishing accidents, interviews with people who have survived truly horrific fishing accidents, etc.), but I want something that’s even less competitive.

Let’s Look At Another Relevant Keyword

[Antique fishing equipment] has not enough data. In Google, I see 5,760 results for that phrase — amazing opportunity, in other words. I’d see this as something to create content for: perhaps a Pinterest board, or a cool video series where each video went into detail on a piece of equipment that was once used but now has a much better replacement (and that replacement would obviously be something my client’s site sold).

On the landing page for that product, I’d write some content about the evolution of the product and include a link to the video. I’d try to find a piece of antique fishing equipment and use it as the prize in a contest for something like the 50,000th person to like the company’s page on Facebook, or the 5,000th Twitter follower.

Now, obviously you could find these ideas through any keyword tool, but what I like about the one from YouTube is that it’s specific to a medium that in itself has great marketing potential, as people love video. Therefore, information that comes out of video searches is definitely valuable, right?

A search on YouTube for [“antique fishing equipment”] gives me 30 results. One without the quotes gives me close to 25k as it brings in loads of other related results. Let’s look at the exact match results:

First, note the dates of the videos. The most recent one is 3 years old. To me, that says there is a void to fill, as there’s not a lot being produced about the topic currently. Of course, it also could say that there’s not much interest… but let’s look at the number of views on each video. The least popular one still has around 15k views, and the most popular one has over 121k views.

Here is the problem that I found with this, though: after watching the videos (well, skimming them) it seems that they aren’t truly about “antique” fishing equipment at all. No matter. If I’m using this information in order to find something that isn’t all over the place and create it, this doesn’t really bother me.

My concern is with finding something unique to create, and maybe I’ll decide videos about this narrow topic aren’t the best way to go but Pinterest is — or interviews with antique dealers who specialize in antique marine products is a good plan. Maybe through watching the videos that aren’t exactly about the topic, I’ll get some other ideas. Maybe I’ll think more about how annoying it is to be led to a result that doesn’t match what I’m actually searching for, and it will help me write better content that matches up with how it’s marketed. That’s never a bad thing.

I’ll admit this is a very random and vague way to get ideas for content to create, but I’ll also admit that running into the same thing being done everywhere is annoying as heck. If everyone’s trying to do the same thing — create great sites for users and engines — then we all need to find the thing that sets us apart, don’t we? Sometimes, random, vague, and/or roundabout methods are what get you to that point.

Quick Guide For Example Plan



Type a general search into the YouTube keyword tool. Look for longer-tailed phrases with “not enough data” listed. Check those phrases in Google and look for the ones with the least amount of results returned. Check those phrases in YouTube. (Yes, you can just skip Step 3 and go straight here, but I like to do the Google bit. Call me crazy.) Look at the dates and views to help you determine whether there’s a need for new content surrounding the phrase. If you find that trifecta of “old + many views + low results,” try creating something with it.

Found Your Idea? Then Try:

Create a video about the topic, posting it on YouTube and embedding it/linking to it from your site. If you send out an email newsletter, include a link to the video there. Post it on other video sites as well. Create a landing page for the content, even if it’s just a new blog post telling your readers what’s new on the site. If you did sell fishing equipment but not antique fishing equipment, you could still easily create a landing page about the antiques because it might interest your users. I would advise that you don’t do this for tons of micro-topics, of course, so don’t go crazy creating a gazillion pages where the content could be condensed into one or just a few pages. Otherwise, you’ll dilute your site with nonsense and probably start running into internal duplicate content issues. Socialize it and show it to people who might be interested. Check the people who’ve liked the related videos on YouTube and see if they list their social information, for example, and point out your new content to them. Use Followerwonk to find people with related interests in their Twitter bios and interact with them so they can see it. Keep an eye on the stats for whatever you produce. See where you’re doing well (is it from Twitter? Organic search? Referrals?) and use that information to help you with your next project so that you know what to focus on first. Thank anyone who helps you promote your content.

The basic idea of this weaving path to content ideas is this: everyone has the same dilemma of finding something that will generate interest but not be the same thing everyone else is doing. One key to that is finding something that isn’t being overdone and connecting it to whatever it is that you need to promote. Happy fishing!

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