A study of popular YouTube videos in 2019 reveals which keywords are associated with the most views.
Pew Research Center published an analysis of every video on YouTube created by high-subscriber channels in the first week of 2019.
For the purpose of this study, a high-subscriber channel is defined as one with at least 250,000 subscribers. There are at least 43,770 channels with that many subscribers.
Analysis of the study is broken down into three parts, but I will only be going over the third part as it’s the one most closely related to SEO.
The third part of the report focuses on keywords in video titles and descriptions that were associated with more views.
YouTube Keywords With the Most Views
Pew Research Center narrowed down a list of 20 keywords in YouTube video titles that are associated with the largest increase in median views.
Here are the top 20 keywords in order:
- Fortnite
- ASMR
- Slime
- Rainbow
- Prank
- Worst
- NFL
- Makeup
- Moment
- Wrong
- Eating
- PubG
- NBA
- Ultimate
- Hack
- FIFA
- Player
- Mystery
- Insane
- Roblox
In particular, the keyword “Fortnite” was associated with the largest increase in views out of all of the words examined in the study. It was also the most common of the top 20 most-viewed words.
In examining keywords used in YouTube video titles and descriptions, the study discovered another common practice amongst high-subscriber channels.
Seven-in-ten videos cross-linked to other social media platforms. The most commonly referenced social platforms were Twitter (58% of all videos), Facebook (51%), Instagram (50%), and Snapchat (9%).
Based on that data, the study concludes that mentioning other social media platforms is associated with higher view counts overall.
For more data, see the full study here.
