- How do I get my Fortnite content to rank on YouTube?
Find a trending topic, and do a live stream.
- [Player] We're going back to season 1.0.
Oh, it's pushing me away!
It's pushing me away!
No Way. - Yep.
That's a lot of viewers.
- [Man] vidIQ!
- [Woman] vidIQ!
- [Man] vidIQ.com.
- Hello, I am Rob, welcome back to vidIQ,
educating you on your YouTube journey.
And I have a question to kick this one off, as always.
I assume you're a Fortnite player.
If your answer is yes,
have you ever tried doing a live stream on YouTube?
Well, you might want to start doing it, and this is why:
I think it's fair to say that Fortnite
has been going through a downswing in recent months,
and we'll come back to that later.
But it is still one of the most popular games on YouTube
to make videos about.
And it helps that new items, and secrets,
and seasons are always being announced and released
that keep the Fortnite topic fresh
with new content on YouTube.
And Fortnite season 10 is being released today,
the 1st of August, 2019.
Now we have already talked about small YouTube channels
trying to find their niche in this huge Fortnite area.
And, once again, I have a perfect example.
There is something about Fortnite
and boosting frames per second
that YouTube viewers really get a kick out of.
And this enterprising video creator
with less than 500 subscribers
stuck a video on YouTube a month ago,
and now it ranks top of the list
with 50,000 views.
Now, it's probably a little bit of a creative license
with the title there, I mean,
how could you make this video
when season 10 wasn't released a month ago?
But it is getting positive engagement,
so the content must be providing value.
(dinging)
Also the second channel and video in the search rankings,
we've come across this chap before.
You might call him the YouTube authority
on frames per second boost on Fortnite,
because he pivoted his entire channel to the endeavor
and has gained tens of thousands of subscribers
and millions of views over the past 12 months from it.
And how do we know all of this?
Well it's because we did a case study
on the channel last year.
And you can watch it over here.
Now that was an example of Evergreen content.
It's designed to be relevant and valuable to viewers
for awhile, say, two or three months.
But what I wanna show you now are the extreme gains
you can potentially get from trending content
that may only have a shelf life of a couple of days.
Now I will confess,
I am not a Fortnite player,
so I don't know all of the jargon
and terminology in the game.
But when I did a search on YouTube for Fortnite,
this particular video and its title caught my interest.
First and foremost, it's a live stream
and the title suggests something is happening right now
in the Fortnite universe.
Interesting, yes.
But what is happening?
And what are people likely to be searching for?
Season 10 or season X I understand is a new release,
but what's this Nexus Orb thing mean?
That sounds like the most specific
key word phrase in the title,
so I decided to find out
what that was all about.
Now forgive me,
I'm probably gonna get this explanation
a little wrong because I don't play Fortnite.
But, as far as I understand it,
this orb is integral to the launch of season 10 of Fortnite.
People have been seeing it on teaser videos
in the last couple of days.
It's exploding,
it's giving you stuff,
it's melting stuff,
something along those lines.
The bottom line is,
for a very short window of time,
probably around about 72 hours,
everybody who's playing Fortnite wants to know
what this orb is and what's gonna happen
and they want as much information as possible
and they want it now.
And that's why that search term has gone through the roof.
Using vidIQ's own keyword inspector tool,
we can click on keywords video creators are using
and see how a term is trending over time.
As you can see, Nexus Orb didn't even register as a term
until a week ago,
and now interest is spiking
because of what's happening on Fortnite right now.
And remember, I'm not a Fortnite gamer.
I do not understand how that world works.
But with a little keyword research intuition,
I've been able to identify at least one keyword phrase
that looks particularly juicy and if I was a Fortnite gamer,
I would be making a video on it right now.
And you know what?
When I have a second look at this title,
there is another keyword of interest: Dusty Depot.
To be honest, I'm not sure what it means
because I'm a complete Fortnite noob.
But what I do know through vidIQ
is that this is another trending keyword phrase
So let's have a look at the keywords individually first.
We've got Fortnite at the top as your topic.
That's not going anywhere, it's been around for years.
Now we've got something of relevancy today: Season 10.
But a lot of other video creators are gonna be using that.
Then we're gonna go really specific with those two keywords
that started to trend in the last week because potentially,
people didn't realize they were gonna be trending
more than a week ago.
That's Nexus Orb and Dusty Depot.
And what happens when you start to put
those keywords together?
Well that's when channels of all shapes and sizes
can have viral moments.
Take this search that combines Season 10 and Dusty Depot.
It may be some way down the search results,
but this channel with its 250 subscribers
has had its own viral moment from a video with 3,000 views.
Of course, in the grand scheme of the Fortnite universe,
3,000 views on a video is not a big deal.
But it is for the channel itself.
If you are a gaming channel
that's trying to find its way on YouTube,
and you create a video that does 100 times better
than your previous video,
that's a signal to create more content on the subject,
which the video creator has done.
And hey, it may only be 200 views.
But for a channel with 250 subscribers,
that's still pretty good.
Now if Dusty Depot, when, who thought I would ever say
Dusty Depot in a YouTube video,
if Dusty Depot is an interesting keyword,
then Nexus Orb is a fascinating keyword.
First of all, the average age of videos
appearing at the top of the YouTube search results
is just nine days.
This is extremely rare,
and it means two things.
Not only is the search term very hot,
but it also means that YouTube
is recycling content frequently
because there is a lot of fresh stuff
coming onto the platform.
Now I have a question for you.
What do a lot of these videos have in common
as I scroll through these search results?
(techno music)
Have you spot it yet?
Yep!
I notice that too.
A significant number of these videos
are actually live streams.
And when I tweak the search term to Nexus Orb event,
every single video in the search results was a live stream.
Yeah, this isn't a trick,
I'm not filtered by live stream only videos.
And I'm not sure I've ever seen this before.
What all of this tells me from a YouTube perspective
is that this Nexus Orb event,
was so important to Fortnite gamers
that Fortnite video creators wanted to stream the event live
to capture as many people as possible
as they were searching for this new release.
And, when you do a live stream,
YouTube favors that in a search term.
So while you're currently live,
you will find yourself higher up in the search terms.
And we've actually discovered this with our own content.
Every Tuesday at 11 A.M. PDT for around about an hour,
we do a live stream channel audit.
You're welcome to join us next time we're on.
And every time we have that live stream running,
for the hour,
we rank much higher in the search term
How to Get More Views.
Because that's part of the title of our live streams.
If you don't believe me, next Tuesday, 11 A.M.,
search for how to get more views
and you should find us near the top of the search rankings.
Now in all fairness,
there's never going to be a surge of interest
for the search term
How to Get More Views.
But, when there is a trending event
that has a very small window of opportunity,
24, 48 hours, perhaps even less,
it might be more advisable
to do a live stream to capture that event,
and then you could take the best bits of that live stream
and create a smaller, dedicated, specific video
a couple of hours later.
Now, let's step back for a second.
Why am I advising you to go after trending topics
and potentially do that through live streams?
Well remember,
Fortnite is a huge gaming topic on YouTube
with channels that have tens of millions of subscribers.
And you've got to find your own little edge
to compete against them.
All of which brings me back to the video
that first caught my attention.
At nearly 200,000 subscribers,
by no means is this a small channel.
But it's not a huge one either
in the Fortnite grand scheme of things.
But by creating a super keyword-rich video,
and making it into a live stream,
this channel finds itself at the top of the search rankings.
And because it's at the top of trending search rankings,
there are thousands of people watching it
which is pretty incredible for a channel of this size.
Now, on closer inspection,
something isn't quite right about this stream.
This live stream started on July the 30th
which feels a little early for this event.
And when I watch the video for a little longer,
I discovered that the video creator has actually
recorded maybe 15-20 minutes of game play
and then looped it over and over again
and put it in a live stream.
So yeah, that channel is being a little cheeky
and gaming the system.
So let's find a legitimate live streamer
on the topic of Nexus Orb right now.
This is a channel of interest,
it has 20,000 subscribers
so it's an even smaller channel
and it has 100 people watching it,
which isn't too shabby for it's size.
And when I click on the video,
there does look to be a human being playing the game
and reacting to the live audience.
- [Gamer] Mystics- Mystic five times bro,
what is good, man?
- So yeah, if you are gonna go after a trending topic,
and do it as a live stream,
make sure you're doing it for the right reasons
and you're giving your audience something of value.
Now we have used Fortnite as the example here,
but you could apply this to any topic on YouTube.
For example,
the announcement of a new piece of technology
such as the next iPhone.
A reaction to the latest movie trailer release,
or indeed, a wrestling event.
We always get reactions to the latest pay-per-views
such as Summer Slam.
Can you tell I'm a wrestling addict?
Yeah, you can smell what I'm cooking.
I think ultimately,
the question you need to ask yourself is this:
do I need to know this information
as soon as it's available?
Do I crave it?
Do I need to find out before anyone else?
If the answer is yes,
then there's probably thousands if not millions of people
who feel exactly the same way,
and that's where a live stream
might be advantageous to your content.
And here's a fun little fact to finish off this video:
as we said at the beginning,
Fortnite's popularity has been in decline throughout 2019.
And was recently overtaken in YouTube search volume
by Minecraft.
And there's pretty much one person responsible for that.
(popping)
It's PewDiePie.
And we've done a video all about it if you're interested.
But with the Fortnite world cup
that just took place last weekend,
and all of this season 10 craziness
that's just kicked off,
Fortnite has edged ahead once again.
If you need help researching Minecraft or Fortnite,
analyzing any video on the YouTube platform,
auditing your own channel
and receiving actual steps
that will help grow your channel,
then download vidIQ.
You've seen some of the tools in this video,
it is free to download.
There is a link in the video description.
As for my own gaming preferences,
well you can forget your Fortnites,
forget your Minecrafts,
I am having myself a bit of this type of action.
And if you can name that game in the comments below,
the first person to do that,
will get 3 months worth of vidIQ boost
for absolutely free.
Enjoy the rest of your video-making day.