Building a YouTube channel can be done in just a few clicks. But, establishing an audience is another story. Every YouTube content creator aims to reach a wider customer range. In that case, using tools to improve your YouTube SEO becomes handy.
If you have been YouTubing for the past few years, you know that boosting YouTube SEO is quite hard. Fortunately, there are innovative tools designed to help you reach your goals. Two popular tools designed for boosting YouTube SEO include TubeBuddy and VidIQ.
Although VidIQ and TubeBuddy can add relevant information to your YouTube content, they still have a few differences. If you are stuck between TubeBuddy and VidIQ, you have just landed in the right place.
In this post, we will compare TubeBuddy and VidIQ to help you decide which of the two tools can help you with your YouTube SEO. So, without further ado, let’s get started!
TubeBuddy: Overview
If you think that YouTube marketing does not do anything with your business, you should think twice. YouTube marketing is a great way to promote brand awareness since the number of individuals spending most of their time streaming on YouTube is continuously increasing.
In line with that, TubeBuddy is a great tool you can use for successful YouTube marketing. This is an all-in-one video marketing tool that lets you scale, manage, and oversee your YouTube channel’s success. Beyond that, it is also equipped with numerous features that will significantly impact your business growth.
Furthermore, you can access all these features on your YouTube dashboard. Thus, it is known for being flexible and handy. Because of this, you can easily establish customized video marketing campaigns since all these tools are placed in a single location.
What Can TubeBuddy Do for Its Users
Many TubeBuddy users claim that this tool has helped them grow their YouTube channel subscribers. They also added that they couldn’t reach a wider customer range across different states without this YouTube SEO tool.
To use TubeBuddy, all you have to do is install it directly to your browser. Once done, you can easily access TubeBuddy features directly on your dashboard. You can use this chrome extension safe and sound as it is certified by YouTube.
It is worth noting that this extension also works with other browsers, such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. TubeBuddy allows you to manage and publish YouTube contents that support SEO optimization. SEO-optimized video content is a great way to boost the number of subscribers to your YouTube channel.
Did you know that TubeBuddy can drive more traffic to your YouTube channel because it can handle cards and annotations? This means that you can easily update the current cards available on your YouTube channel.
Aside from that, it is also designed to help you improve your video marketing strategy, build tubular insights, and collect video optimization analytics.
TubeBuddy Key Features
TubeBuddy is packed with countless powerful features designed to help you improve YouTube SEO. You need to install the extension to your browser to access these features, particularly on Chrome. The tool offers premium functionalities for video promotion, SEO, productivity, bulk processing, and data and research.
Some of the outstanding features you will love with TubeBuddy include the following:
Keyword Explorer
Like Google, you also need to use the best keywords that internet users will most likely type on their YouTube app. But take note that the number and length of keywords you need to include in your YouTube description will vary depending on its authority and size.
But, once you find the right keywords that fit perfectly on your content, there is a high chance that your YouTube video content will rank higher and give you tons of views.
Fortunately, TubeBuddy comes with a Keyword Explorer feature. You can access this handy tool in the TubeBuddy menu directly on your YouTube dashboard. This feature will give you a list of keywords relevant to your video content.
All you have to do is plug a keyword and wait for the tool to generate the most suitable keywords for your video. These keywords are usually “unweighted” or based on the keyword competition and search volume and “weighted” specifically relevant to your YouTube channel.
Suggested Tags
Another feature that made TubeBuddy an ideal YouTube SEO tool is its Recommended or Suggested Tags. This feature is readily accessible in your YouTube dashboard’s “video details” tab. As its name suggests, this feature gives you keyword suggestions about the related tags you typed for your video.
Videolytics
When you add TubeBuddy to your browser, it will show you useful analytics about the current video you are watching. These statistics cover the overall summary of your content’s channel, social, and SEO statistics. TubeBuddy can also help you determine how your tags affect the content standing and performance.
Pros and Cons of TubeBuddy
To further understand how TubeBuddy can help you with YouTube SEO, we have listed its advantages and disadvantages below.
Pros
- Equipped with a bulk editing tool feature
- Offers an excellent A/B testing feature
- Beginner-friendly
- A YouTube-certified tool
- Offers most recommended related tags even you are using the cheapest plan
Cons
- One license is equivalent to one channel
- Restrictions in the keyword search
- Old-fashioned user-interface
- Slow-running website
TubeBuddy Costs
TubeBuddy offers four pricing plans: free, pro, star, and legend.
Free Plan
Signing up for the free pricing plan of TubeBuddy will allow you to use its basic functionalities designed for video optimization, data and research, and content production. In other words, the free plan enables you to use its full features designed for YouTube promotion.
On the other hand, video templates in the free plan are edited. Aside from that, it is not also an ideal plan for editing and processing videos by batch. Furthermore, this plan does not include other essential video editing tools, including the A/B Split Testing and Publish to Facebook.
Pro Plan
TubeBuddy’s Pro plan costs 9 US Dollars per month. Using this plan allows you to use some of the productivity tools offered by the platform. Beyond that, its mobile app version will also help you optimize your videos.
This plan will also give you limitless access to TubeBuddy’s tools and other important features, including the Search Explorer, Tag Lists, and Keyword Explorer. The only disadvantage we see in this plan is that it cannot test your video copies and does not allow you to publish your videos on Facebook.
Star
The Star plan will cost you $19 US Dollars per month. For less than $20 bucks, you can access all TubeBuddy tools designed for the bulk processing of video content. This is a great plan to start with if you want to save time editing and publishing your videos. This plan will also send you Brand notifications, allowing you to monitor YouTube videos that talk about your brand.
Legend
Legend is the highest and most expensive pricing plan offered by TubeBuddy. It requires you to pay 49 US Dollars per month. Despite being expensive, this plan will allow you to access the full features and functionalities offered by the tool. The only drawback of this plan is that some of its features may load slowly.
VidIQ: Overview
Most of us like watching videos on YouTube and other streaming platforms. With that in mind, you may be wondering how these video content creators gain millions of views and subscribers. Some YouTube creators are lucky enough to make viral videos without special tools.
On the other hand, most YouTubers, especially those who consider it full-time work, create detailed strategies and plans. For example, keyword research is an essential YouTube strategy to increase your videos’ visibility, discoverability, and search rankings. In addition, other YouTubers achieve a higher number of subscribers by integrating several tactics.
Even though YouTube itself offers robust features, several content creators still use external services and products to achieve better channel management, strategy, and planning. One of the most useful tools available is VidIQ. VidIQ is a software that helps YouTubers achieve higher views and subscribers.
VidIQ is a California-based company founded in 2012. This platform is a great help for agencies, marketers, and content creators as it is packed with features designed to improve brand awareness, ad channels, and subscribers.
Its notable features include channel analytics, tag management, keyword research, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) scores, and many more. You can access these tools by adding VidIQ to your browser. This platform is also available in a web app version that contains charts and dashboards to monitor your channel and video metrics. Like TubeBuddy, VidIQ has a free plan that will allow you to access its basic features.
What Can VidIQ Do for Its Users?
VidIQ is an extension tool you can install on your browser. It is a great browser extension to optimize and manage your channel better. This tool is designed to boost the number of subscribers and your channel visibility by providing you with powerful insights and accurate YouTube analytics, helping you make more informed decisions.
As we mentioned earlier, this is a YouTuber-friendly tool with a free plan allowing you to use its basic features. On the other hand, if you want to access its more advanced functionalities, we recommend you subscribe to its pro plans so you can get all the great features and benefits.
Compared to TubeBuddy, VidIQ is composed of special features designed to boost your YouTube SEO. Beyond that, it can also help you make appealing and SEO-friendly tags, descriptions, and video titles.
When you add this extension to your browser, you can easily find keywords and topics relevant to your channel and videos. Some of the features offered by VidIQ are the following:
- Competitors
- Subscriber analysis
- Videos
- Embed URLs
- Number one playlists
- Know the right and the ideal time to post your videos
- VidIQ analytics
- YouTube keyword search
VidIQ Features
To better understand if VidIQ is the right browser extension tool for you, we have listed some of the prominent features offered by VidIQ.
Scorecard
First on our list is the VidIQ’s Scorecard. This feature can be found on the right side of the YouTube app which consists of video and channel statistics and analytics. It serves as an overview section that contains video duration, total views per hour, and total score.
This Scorecard offers you important data to help you determine the likelihood of your video appearing on recommended and related videos and in YouTube search results. The ratings you can see in VidIQ’s Scorecard are based on social engagement, views, and velocity. It is better to achieve scores closer to 100.
Comment Management
VidIQ also offers a special feature that will let you control the comments. It comes with comment templates that will let you create standardized responses to each comment and question posted by your subscribers and viewers. You can even include another link to your video in the comment section to gain more viewers.
Competitor Research
Another good thing about VidIQ is that its web application and browser extension offers a competitor tab. This will let you compare your YouTube channel with other content creators in terms of cumulative and total uploads, subscribers, and views.
This feature works with the tool’s Scorecard that displays ratings, statistics, and insights according to each video available in your channel. For instance, this competitor research feature will allow you to compare the total views of your video to other channels, playlists, and content within one month.
Pros and Cons of VidIQ
VidIQ is not perfect. It has its flaws. So, to help you decide whether this platform is what you are looking for, we have listed its pros and cons.
Pros
- It is certified by YouTube
- Easy to use and extensive analytics
- Helps you to find new video ideas
- Packed with multiple tools designed to optimize your channel
- It comes with almost everything necessary for optimizing your YouTube channel
- Easy to navigate and user-friendly interface
- It comes with a free plan to access basic functions
- You can watch your competitor’s videos while analyzing their video analytics
Cons
- You can only access its pro features when you subscribe to its paid plan
- It lacks intuitiveness
- Its keyword research feature is only available in paid plans
VidIQ Costs
VidIQ is available in four plans: Basic, Pro, Boost, and Boost+. The Basic plan allows you to access basic features free of charge. This is ideal if you want to check the capabilities of this software before upgrading to paid plans.
Basic Plan
The basic plan is perfect and free for those starting on YouTube. Unfortunately, this is only limited to a single channel and one user. The basic features you can use in the basic plan include VidIQ academy, basic email support, limited trend alerts, and more.
Pro Plan
The Pro plan starts at $7.50 US Dollars per month. This paid plan allows you to use the research keyword feature and provides you with more video analytics. This is only limited to one channel and one user like the basic plan. Some features included in the pro plan include tracking top tweets trending videos and analyzing videos of your six competitors.
Boost Plan
This plan is popular among successful YouTubers. This paid plan helps you increase the total views of your videos up to two times. It requires you to pay $39.00 US Dollars per month and works with up to five channels.
Boost+ Plan
The Boost+ plan is the most expensive plan offered by VidIQ. This is available at $415 US Dollars per month. The good thing about this paid plan is it offers personalized coaching useful for content agencies and creators. This plan allows you to use the exclusive features offered by VidIQ, including its monthly coaching calls and priority chat and email support.
TubeBuddy vs. VidIQ Comparison
TubeBuddy and VidIQ are two SEO tools designed to help YouTubers boost YouTube SEO. Although they are almost similar, they still come with slight differences. Here are some of them:
- TubeBuddy’s paid plan is more expensive than VidIQ. The former starts at $9.00 US Dollars per month while the latter starts at $7.50 US Dollars per month.
- Although TubeBuddy and VidIQ offer video analytics, the former offers more advanced data while the latter is more basic.
- VidIQ is equipped with more advanced features than TubeBuddy.
- VidIQ is an extension browser that works only for Chrome, while TubeBuddy works with different browsers, such as Safari, Firefox, and Chrome.
Which is Better?
Here are the reasons why VidIQ is better than TubeBuddy:
- The Boost+, the priciest paid plan, offers a monthly coaching call to help YouTubers achieve better YouTube SEO.
- This is ideal for agencies searching for better content niches.
- The Boost paid plan offers tools designed for better channel analytics.
- It is specifically designed to help YouTubers find new growth opportunities and competition analysis. These include notifying you about the best time to upload, keyword optimization, trending videos, and competitor comparisons.
The following are the reasons that made TubeBuddy better than VidIQ:
- Designed to help individual YouTubers find better topics to use as content.
- Comes with a basic plan designed for small YouTubers
- Equipped with more features you can use free of charge.
- Comes with reusable templates you can use for multiple videos. These templates can be used for easy thumbnail creation, end screens, tags, and more.
Conclusion:
Overall, between TubeBuddy and VidIQ, we can say that VidIQ has the number one spot for the best SEO YouTube tool. This software is easy to use and comes with affordable paid plans. Since this is YouTube-certified software, rest assured that it is safe to use.
VidIQ is designed to help you grow your YouTube subscribers and viewers by giving you the most recommended keywords relevant to your topic. We highly recommend you subscribe to its paid plans to access its exclusive features.