Answered keyword research broken?

[Zanet]

I've started using the keyword research, but the issue I constantly find unhelpful is a rating of 100 on keywords that have almost no traffic.
could it not be clearer that the 100 rating is not helpful for keywords that have little or no views?

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

There is a deeper rooted issue with this, and honestly it's not necessarily one that we want to fix.

This data comes direct from YouTube. What is happening when you see this is that the keyword is associated with another term that does reflect traffic volume.

When someone does a search for 'chocolate cookies' YouTube is going to look at a lot of variables in order to determine what video that viewer is most likely to watch. One of the variables that they take into consideration are the peripheral search possibilities. In this example YouTube is going to provide results for 'chocolate cookies' because that is exactly what you searched for. But they know your viewing habits and they know the videos you watch the longest. They also know that a lot of other people who search for 'chocolate cookies' also search for 'chocolate chip cookies.' So you are going to see results for chocolate chip cookies as well. Even though chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cookies are two different things YouTube sees a correlation between these two terms and as such they will have a tendency to feed off of each other.

This is the case with many keywords... but in your example the keyword that you are looking at is being associated with a keyword phrase that features a higher volume of traffic that your phrase is benefitting from.

 

[MattCommand1]

That explanation made my head hurt. I feel my brain was stretched here but not sure what will ultimately get inside my brain.

Context, context, context. It matters so much even in YT searches.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

So just to make sure I get this in the context...are you saying that the 100 rating is to be taken as a genuine green "go for it" keyword phrase as the traffic is there in search just not necessarily the small amount shown ?

Nope. Sorry, I can't give a definitive answer to that one. 90% of the time probably yeah, though you gotta understand in that circumstance you are really aiming for whatever that other term is. This is still a good one and I would personally go for it in most circumstances. I would check to see what the target score is (the barrier for entry) and if I can beat that I am more likely to go for this one. I would also consider things like the seasonality of the term.

My approach would be to continue doing my research, maybe try to uncover whatever term is driving the traffic for this one. When I do my research I keep a spreadsheet of about 20-25 terms that I am looking at and then I choose the best to optimize around. The best are not always the 100's though... I always try to include a couple that are maybe a 30 or a 40 overall but have a 100 traffic volume. Just because it's competitive doesn't mean you can't win the competition. Also a good idea during this process to do the search for some of these terms and see what videos you are competing against. I aim for 19-23 minute videos, and if my competition is a hundred five minute videos then I can beat them. I know I can get upwards of 50% retention on a 20 minute video, and that is going to smoke whatever these five minute videos are getting.