vidIQ Review: Is it the best YouTube SEO tool?

As a YouTube content creator, you need to know what your audience wants to see, what’s trending, and what competitors are doing to continue uploading engaging and high-performing videos.

I recently discovered vidIQ, an all-in-one YouTube analytics, content, and SEO tool, and it seems packed with keyword tools, competitor insights, and channel auditing features that content creators can use to boost their videos.

However, what’s it like to use vidIQ? I’ll share my vidIQ review about its features, cons, pricing, and other aspects to help you decide if this tool will help you rank on YouTube.

What Is vidIQ?

vidIQ is a YouTube analytics tool creators use to develop content, keep up with trends, analyze competitors, and improve their online presence.

Rob Sandie and Todd Troxell founded vidIQ in 2011 and got it verified in 2013 via the YouTube certification program.

After the hacker group OurMine hacked multiple YouTube channels in 2016 and used the tool to change video titles and descriptions, vidIQ took the breach seriously by pausing its activities, resetting passwords, and implementing multi-factor authentication for editing video titles and descriptions.

Today, the platform provides video tutorials on utilizing their tools and growing your channel. Plus, it offers a vidIQ Chrome extension, making it easier and faster to pull data from your browser.

VidIQ Review Overview

Pros

• AI Coach
• Get Important YouTube Insights
• Generate Your Next Best Content Idea
• Research and Use Relevant Keywords
• Keep Track of Competitors
• Connect With Other Content Creators
• VidIQ Chrome Extension

Cons

• Offers Expensive Plans

vidIQ Pros

Below are the advantages of using vidIQ for your YouTube channel.

VidIQ AI Coach

With the growth of ChatGPT, you might have seen many YouTubers start to use AI tools to boost their YouTube channel views. So VidIQ has integrated ChatGPT4 and launched a built-in 24/7 AI Coach function with two modes, basic and advanced.

You can chat with your AI coach directly to get more perspectives and new ideas, such as video strategy, channel analytics, audience engagement, and more. If you don’t know what to do with your AI coach, VidIQ also provides a variety of AI prompts to help you accelerate your YouTube growth.

Plus, VidIQ also provides an AI toolbox for YouTubers to get more ideas, you can try them for free.

• YouTube title generator
• Channel name generator
• Content generator
• YouTube video ideas
• Keyword generator
• Video script generator
• YouTube description generator
• YouTube tag generator

Get Important YouTube Insights

Using vidIQ’s Scorecard feature, you get a quick view of necessary analytics about the YouTube video you’re watching. You’ll see the vidIQ score, the number of views per hour, total engagements, top devices, top countries, social media engagement, and SEO score.

While using the extension, I find the Scorecard convenient since I can view my video’s current stats and check my competitor’s performance. Having comprehensive data at a glance made it easy to see which videos I should improve and which ones I should create.

The Scorecard also includes video tags and tag suggestions, which allows me to optimize my videos and reach the right audience.

Generate Your Next Best Content Idea

vidIQ’s Daily Ideas tool uses machine learning to analyze channels and suggests similar content you can create. I find this feature extremely helpful, especially when I don’t know what content to produce next. Even if some suggestions don’t pique my interest, it helps spark a new topic for my channel.

Aside from this, it predicts how many views a topic might get. I’ve always been unsure if my audience will like a specific topic, so this extra detail ensures that I invest my time and effort in videos that will surely perform.

Depending on your plan, you get three to 50 suggestions daily.

Research and Use Relevant Keywords

Using the right keywords is crucial to enable your videos to reach their intended audience. With vidIQ’s keyword tool, you can check a keyword’s demand and performance and see related top-performing keywords you can use.

Some stats you’ll see when searching a keyword on YouTube include the number of monthly searches, average view count, the top creator, and related queries, among many others.

I use these keyword data to optimize content, create related content, and check what competitors are doing.

Keep Track of Competitors

If you want to get ahead of the competition, vidIQ provides a detailed feature to spy on your competitors. By clicking on the Competition link of your vidIQ extension, you can see how your channel compares against others, the number of view counts, averages per day, and subscriber growth.

Besides this, I specifically like the top keywords since they give an overview of what keywords my competitors use. The data also allows me to identify which keywords or topics I have yet to explore for my niche.

Since this info is readily available on the browser, you can access it anytime and anywhere while browsing YouTube.

Connect With Other Content Creators

vidIQ is one of the few YouTube analytics tools connecting content creators to other global talents. Their My Coach gives access to exclusive group coaching where you can ask expert coaches how to improve your videos and grow your channel.

This premium feature includes access to live and on-demand coaching sessions and a private Discord channel. Although this feature comes with their most expensive plan, it’s highly recommended for beginners who need expert guidance on growing their YouTube channel.

VidIQ Chrome Extension

Like other SEO Chrome plugins, VidIQ Chrome extension is like a Swiss Army knife, which can help you discover the secrets to success behind viral YouTube channels and videos. With a suite of powerful tools, you can do:

• Niche Research: VidIQ offers a function called VidIQ Score(0~100) based on volume, competition, and other factors. With this function, you can choose your niche by doing keyword research or competitor analysis.
• Channel audit: The YouTube channel audit tool is like your video marketing reporter to tell you how your videos perform, and what actions you should take.
• Check video performance: This function can help you do video analytics with accurate data like views, views per hour, duration, VidIQ SEO score, video tags, and more.
• Analyze social data: Video engagement is an important measure for viral videos, and it can help you know what content will be popular for different traffic channels.

vidIQ Cons

Here’s a downside you should consider before using vidIQ.

Offers Expensive Plans

Although vidIQ offers complete and impressive tools, I think it leans toward the expensive side. They have affordable plans available, but they can be limiting, especially if you’re looking for a powerful tool. So, if you’re on a budget, you can’t maximize vidIQ, unless you get their highly recommended Boost plan.

vidIQ Pricing Plan

The cost of vidIQ subscription depends on the type of plan you choose.

I recommend getting their Boost plan since it provides access to most of its features.

If you want to test the tool, choose the vidIQ free plan. However, note that you have limited access to most features, so you don’t get the full experience. Also, try to cancel the free plan before it expires, as it’ll automatically charge your account.

As of writing, there’s no vidIQ promo code on their site.

vidIQ Payment & Refund Policy

vidIQ accepts various payment options, such as debit and credit cards, Apple Pay, and PayPal. According to their terms of service, they’ll suspend or terminate your account if you fail to pay on time, which is a reasonable action.

They don’t provide any refund when you cancel your account. So, I recommend only committing to a plan you can pay monthly.

vidIQ Customer Service

In my experience, they have decent customer service since you can contact them via email or chatbot. I received a reply within a few hours from an actual representative when I needed help with billing.

However, I find that the chatbot doesn’t help, especially if I need an urgent response to a specific concern. Also, the response time from the representative could be faster.

vidIQ Alternatives

vidIQ vs. TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy is a YouTube optimization and management toolkit that provides data and insights to improve your YouTube ranking.

Compared to vidIQ, TubeBuddy comes with more affordable plans and offers a mobile app for quick access on your phone. I recommend this for content creators who are on a budget and always on the go.

vidIQ vs. Biteplay

Biteplay is an ad-targeting tool for YouTube. It enables you to advertise relevant videos your audience watches at the right time.

Although it includes analytics, tracking, and optimization tools like vidIQ, Biteplay focuses on putting your ads at the right place and time to grow your channel. I recommend this if you prefer spending on ads to promote on YouTube.

vidIQ vs. Social Blade

Social Blade tracks user statistics to provide audience data and insights to content creators. The analytics are simplified and easy to understand, making them an excellent tool for beginners.

Unlike vidIQ, Social Blade provides analytics for Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram, giving you a more comprehensive understanding of your audience and industry trends. This tool is ideal for people who want an in-depth tool to track audiences and trends on multiple platforms.

FAQs

Final Thoughts

Most YouTubers find it difficult to create fresh, high-performing content that their viewers will like. Fortunately, analytics tools like vidIQ offer content creators data and insight into their audience and help them optimize their videos for better online ranking and visibility.

vidIQ does an excellent job of providing relevant analytics to help you improve your video content and ranking. Also, it’s one of the few tools that offer tips, tutorials, and community advice for growing your YouTube channel, making it highly useful for beginner creators. 
Ultimately, I think it’s worth a try, especially if you have the budget. Check out the vidIQ plugin or website to learn more about how this tool can help you rank above your competitors.