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Our Verdict

VidIQ is a viable tool for and provides YouTube creators with what they’ll need to succeed.

It can help YouTubers to perform keyword research, channel audit, stay ahead of the competition, find trending & viral videos, and gain more views and subscribers

Image of VidIQ

In this review, we’re going to take a look at the all in one YouTube SEO Tool – VidIQ.

If you’re a YouTube creator, then I’m sure you will agree that keywords research and competitor analysis is key to growing on YouTube.

And getting more view? Very hard!

This extension claims to help you grow your YouTube channel and get more views and subscribers.

So in this VidIQ review, I’m going to dive in and show how VidIQ works and help you decide if it’s actually worth it.

Here’s what I’m going to cover in this VidIQ review:

Table of Contents

What is VidIQ?

VidIQ is a browser extension that helps you grow your YouTube channel and get more views and subscribers.

Unlike other YouTube tools, VidIQ pulls data directly from YouTube API which shows exact search volume results and exact results for competition and other things which will tremendously help you grow your YouTube channel and gain more views & subscribers.

You can use VidIQ for:

  • Keyword research
  • Staying ahead of the competition
  • Gain more views & subscribers
  • Discover trending and viral videos

And much more!

Basically, you are getting everything you need to grow your YouTube cannel and gain more views and subscribers.

And people are using VidIQ with great success.

VidIQ Review: Pros & Cons

Pros of VidIQ

#1: Has a forever free plan

Yes, you can use VidIQ for free.

Of course, there are many limitations.

The free plan lets you do competitor tracking, gives you access to video scoreboard, live stats bar and VidIQ Academy.

#2: The built-in included training (VidIQ Academy) is really good

Want to level of as a YouTuber? Then the VidIQ academy is a good resource. This course teaches you from how to create a YouTube channel to growing into a successful channel.

You should definitely take advantage of this training

#3: It has a nice affiliate program

VidIQ offers a really nice affiliate program. Their affiliate program starts you off at 20% recurring commission for every referral you make.

With the VidIQ free plan, it makes it super easy to make money with the VidIQ affiliate program.

#4: Has a mobile app

VidIQ has a mobile app that is available on both android on Google Play Store and IOS on Apple store.

The VidIQ app lets you manage your YouTube channel, including video SEO and real-time YouTube analytics.

#5: Available as an Extension on both Chrome and Firefox Browsers

Another cool thing about VidIQ is that is available for both Chrome and Firefox browsers.

Cons of VidIQ

#1: You Can’t Export Keywords

The VidIQ keyword research tool lacks the feature to export keywords directly to csv/excel sheet.

I find this a bit frustrating because you have to manually copy your keywords and paste it into spreadsheet when ding keyword research. This can be a bit time consuming especially if you are doing a lot of keyword research

#2: Can be quite confusing at first

VidIQ is packed with lots of features; this makes it quite confusing at first when you are not familiar with it.

For example, I got confused the first time I tried to find videos tag and even thought it was not available for the video I was doing research on, until later that I found it when scrolling down.

VidIQ Pricing Plans

This is how the VidIQ pricing is:

VidIQ Pricing

VidIQ Basic Plan

This is the free version of VidIQ and has lot of limitations. The free version allows you to add only one channel and gives you access to the following features:

  • Competitor Tracking (up to 3)
  • VidIQ Academy
  • Video Scoreboard
  • Live Stats Bar
  • Basic Email Support.

VidIQ Pro Plan

The pro version costs $7.50/month and lets you get more analytics and perform keyword research.

This plan lets you add 1 channel, track up to 6 competitors, receive 1 trend alert and provides Email and chat support.

In addition to what the basic Plan offers, the pro plan gives you access to:

  • YouTube Description Campaigns
  • Keyword Research Tool
  • Historical Data Analysis
  • Top Tweets for Videos
  • Top Trending Videos
  • Keyword Research Tool
  • Best Time of Day

VidIQ Boost Plan

This plan costs $39/month and lets you:

  • Add up to 5 channels
  • Track up to 20 competitors
  • Get up to 15 trend alerts
  • Email and chat support

In addition to the pro plan, the boost plan also gives you access to

  • VidIQ Keyword Engine (up to 200 videos/month)
  • SEO Title & Description Recommendations
  • Inline Tag Recommendations
  • Video Archival
  • Bulk SEO Optimizations
  • Dedicated SEO Analytics
  • Channel Wide Tags

VidIQ Boost+

This plan cost $415/month and is the highest VidIQ Plan and gives you access to all VidIQ tools. In addition to what the boost plan offers, this plan gives you access to:

  • Priority Email & Chat Support
  • Monthly Coaching
  • Analytics Deep Dive

Personalized Tips and Tricks

Features of VidIQ

Feature #1: VidIQ Scorecard

VidIQ Scoreboard

This feature gather all your channel data like views per hour, views, average view time duration, top devices, and top countries.

This will be useful for channel optimization and click through rate optimization.

Feature #2: Social Engagement

VidIQ social Engagement Bar

This shows all the engagements your video received on social media. Engagements are sorted from social media site with highest engagement to lowest. And also shows engagement rate in percentage (%).

Feature #3: SEO Feedback

This feature lets you see which hashtags are performing best against the most popular ones on YouTube which is good for YouTube SEO. You can use this feature to make quick changes o your video.

Feature #4: Video Optimization Checklist

VidIQ video optimization checklist

This checklist is vital for optimization. There are basically 15 checklists to help you optimize your videos. The checklists items include:

  • Title
  • Tags
  • Description
  • Cards
  • End screen
  • Thumbnails
  • Captions
  • Reply to recent comments
  • Social Share
  • Monetization enabled
  • Added to playlist
  • Pinned comment
  • Hearted comment

Feature #5: Controversial keywords

I haven’t used this feature, but according to VidIQ, it helps you to avoid demonetization based on the keywords you use.

Feature #6: Video Tags

The video tag feature lets you see the tags a video is using, and how high they are ranking on YouTube. It also lets you copy video tags directly.

Feature #7: Historical Data

VidIQ Historical data bar

This is one of the most important features of VidIQ. It shows you how a video has performed since it was uploaded.

This is very useful for finding rending videos, because you will be able to see if the video views are either declining or increasing. If it’s increasing, you can go ahead and create a similar video and optimize it to get suggested views from that it.

Feature #8: Trending

This section shows videos related to yours that are currently trending. This is also an important feature, because you have chances of going viral when you catch trend when it is still hot.

Feature #9: Achievements

This lets you celebrate you wind by allowing you to download and share your achievements like top performing month, top performing videos, based on subscribers, views , likes etc. directly on social media.

Feature #10: Channel Audit Tool

As the name implies, this tool audits your channel and show you what is working, what is not working, and what urgently needs your attention.

This tools contains five features

  1. The first feature shows you how your videos are performing for in the last 30 days.
  2. The second feature shows you what is working on for your channel based on views per hour (VPH).
  3. The third feature shows your wprst performing videos based on lowest watch time, lowest like ratio, lowest retention, videos leading to losing subscribers.
  4. The fourth feature gives you recommendation to fix issues on your channel like thumbnails, description, title tags, etc.

Feature #11: Competitors

This tool helps you confirm your competitors and lets you see what is working for them so that you can model and implement it on your channel.

This tool lets you:

  • Add competitor channels to keep eye on them
  • Sort your competitors’ views by date, views per hour, and more
  • Export top keywords

Feature #12: Most Viewed

VidIQ most viewed section

This is a very useful VidIQ feature. This helps you understand the most view videos on YouTube at any time. This is vital for growth and finding trending videos.

You can use the sorting options o sort videos based on

  • Views per hour
  • Videos within the last 48 hours, 7 days, 30 days, or 6 months

This tool also has search filters that let you discover only the video content you are interested in. For example, you can search for a keyword to see most performing videos. This is also useful in finding trending videos and staying ahjead of the competition.

Feature #13: Trend Alerts

This tool notifies you when a video on a particular keyword you set has started taking up. It lets you set an Email alert for the top trending videos on any topic to give you a head start on creating content around the trend.

With this tool, you can also set it to alert you when a video on a keyword has reached a number of views (example, get Email notification when there is a video on a keyword that has reached 100 views per hour)

Feature #14: Productivity Tools

This tool contains 3 set of tools make things easier for you and to help increase your productivity. The tools are

  • The first tool allows you to bulk copy/edit cards & end screen
  • The second is the comment productivity tool. On this tool, there are comment templates to help you in responding to comments and answering questions. This is very useful especially if you have a very big channel and want to respond to your viewers’ comments and answer their questions.
  • The third one allows you to bulk download your meta data which is useful for making backups. It even let you export the meta data information to spreadsheet and sort it the way you want.

Feature #15: Real Time Stats Bar

This bar makes YouTube stats and data more accessible to help you quickly get the information you need. This tool also shows you how close you are to meeting YouTube’s requirements for monetization and other high level stats.

This bar also lets you see minutes watched in the last 7 days which is one of the important ranking factors. Also shows you how many total subscribers you have.

Feature #16: VidIQ Keyword Research Tool

VidIQ keyword research tool

This is one of the most important VidIQ tool. It lets you perform keyword research and provides you with useful information like search volume, competition, and other information.

One of  thing about this tool is that it gives you overall score for a keyword. VidIQ all the data about a given keyword and gives you the overall score.

So if a video has a high overall score, then that means it is a perfect keyword to go for.

Feature #17: VidIQ Keyword Inspector Tool

This tool displays related terms, keyword score, related videos, and interest over time which is useful to determine whether a keyword has stopped performing or trending.

Feature #18: Inline Keywords

This feature allows you to see what tags your competitors are using on search results. It also let you to copy them to help you generate ideas for your own content.

Feature #19: Keyword Translator Tool

Sometimes, you may find channels/videos that you want to model, but find out that it is in different language.

This feature let you to translate video titles, descriptions, an tags that were written in another language.

Feature #20: Tag Auto Complete

Upload a video and start typing tags and this tool will start suggesting ideal tags for your video.

Feature #21: Keyword Templates

This lets you create keyword templates based on the core words you might use in a series of videos, thereby saving you time.

VidIQ Alternatives

TubeBuddy is the only real alternative to VidIQ. They are all great tools and both have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Conclusion

So is VidIQ worth it?

The answer is “Yes”

I think this tool can add a lot of value to your YouTube creators, especially if you frequently upload videos on your YouTube channel.

As of right now, VidIQ is the best YouTube tool I’m aware of. There are lots of features that can help your channel grow into a successful big YouTube channel.

So take advantage of this amazing tool and start using it to grow your YouTube channel today.

Rufai Amale

Rufai is a blogger and a digital marketing specialist. He enjoys helping others learn about different marketing tools and helping people achieve success online.