---
title: 'YouTube SEO: How I Rank #1 on YouTube in 2026'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=-uE4WxFX5XY'
video_id: '-uE4WxFX5XY'
date: 2026-07-28
duration_sec: 388
---

# YouTube SEO: How I Rank #1 on YouTube in 2026

> Source: [YouTube SEO: How I Rank #1 on YouTube in 2026](https://youtube.com/watch?v=-uE4WxFX5XY)

## Summary

The video presents the KVS (Keyword, Video, SEO) strategy, a five-step blueprint used to rank over 1,000 videos and achieve 140 million views. It emphasizes researching keywords before creating content, ensuring low competition, good search volume, and no exact matching title. The process includes using VidIQ for keyword research, analyzing competition, and optimizing video title, description, thumbnail, and tags.

### Key Points

- **KVS Strategy Introduction** [0:00] — KVS stands for Keyword, Video, SEO. It's a five-step blueprint used to rank over 1,000 videos and achieve 140 million views.
- **Keyword Research First** [0:14] — Research keywords before making the video. The biggest mistake is deciding keywords at upload time.
- **10/10 Keyword Criteria** [0:29] — A perfect keyword has low competition (no big channels), good search volume, and no matching keyword in titles.
- **Using VidIQ for Keywords** [0:56] — Use VidIQ's research tool, search a broad keyword, then click 'matching terms' to find specific, low-competition keywords.
- **Validating Keyword Potential** [1:48] — Copy the keyword, search on YouTube, check competition (subscriber counts), views per hour, and if any video uses the exact keyword as title.
- **Video Creation** [3:25] — Watch all ranking videos, read comments for feedback, and improve upon existing content to make a better video.
- **SEO Optimization** [4:05] — Include the exact keyword in the title, description, and tags. Use related keywords in description. Thumbnail must be better than competition.

### Conclusion

The KVS strategy—Keyword, Video, SEO—provides a systematic approach to ranking #1 on YouTube by focusing on low-competition keywords with no exact title match, creating superior content, and optimizing metadata.

## Transcript

anyone can rank number one on YouTube
you just have to know about the what I
like to call KVs strategy a freestep
blueprint that I've used the last 4
years to rank over 1,000 videos on
YouTube resulting in over 140 million
views Decay stands for keyword before
you make your video you need to know
which keyword you want to rank four the
biggest mistake you can make is
recording your video and then deciding
your video keywords at the moment of
uploading instead you want to research
keywords to analyze if you can rank
number one and then make your video now
here is what a 10 out of 10 keyword
would look like first of all low
competition there shouldn't be big
channels ranking everywhere for this
keyword number two good search volume
you don't want to rank for a keyword
that no one searches for because that's
not going to get you views anyway number
three no matching keyword this is the
key to ranking number one quickly even
with a small Channel what this means is
that there's no other video that has the
exact keyword that you search for as
their title here's how I find keywords
like that for this I use vid IQ I go to
research and then I start off by
searching for a main broad keyword in my
Niche let's say I make videos about
editing I can search for editing as that
main broad keyword then hit search you
want to ignore all of this and click on
matching terms what this will do is that
VI Q will now show you more keywords
that include the initial keyword that
you search for so I have an entire list
of keywords that include editing scroll
through and find something that looks
interesting to you to me right now that
is reals video editing click on this and
then once again click on matching terms
this is now going to show you even more
specific detailed keywords that we can
potentially make a video about and rank
for 3D reals video editing once again
matching terms and there we go right now
we're very specific 3D after effect
video reals editing once you found a
keyword that looks interesting copy it
Go to YouTube and search for it then to
do research properly you want to make
sure that you've got the vid IQ
extension installed we're now looking at
competition search volume and the
matching keyword number one ranking
videos from a Channel with 10 ,000
subscribers that is pretty decent but
it's not insanely big then we've got
16,000 subscribers in number two 20,000
subscribers 27,000 so overall the
competition for this keyword is not
extremely big then you want to open up
all the videos that are ranking in the
top four or five spots in a brand new
tab once you've done that with VI IQ
you're able to see how many views per
hour this video is getting as of right
now you want to confirm that for the
ranking videos the number of views per
hour is pretty significant which is an
indication of people are still actively
searching for this keyword which for
this keyword is definitely the case this
video is at 50 views per hour this one
close to 100 the third video is also
around 50 views per hour and the lowest
ranking one is at 16 views per hour
we've now confirmed the competition is
not crazy the search volume is good as
well these videos are getting good
traffic which means all there's left is
to see whether someone is actually using
our keyword as their title so you want
to copy the keyword then crl F paste the
keyword in there and then you'll see how
many results there are which in this
case is is just one which is our search
phrase right here which means there's no
one that is using this exact keyword
phrase as their title which means we
have just found a keyword that we can
easily rank number one for simply
because there is traffic the competition
is not big but mainly there's no one
that has this exact keyword as their
title which means that if we make that
video with that title we're going to
show up when people search for this
which brings us to the second letter of
KVs the v stands for video and this is
where 99% go wrong having a good keyword
is only the beginning your video needs
to be good you have to make exactly what
the viewer wants to see so here's what I
recommend you do to increase your
chances of ranking your video first of
all research the currently ranking
videos watch all of them for the entire
video to see what they're doing and what
you can improve then you want to read
the comments for feedback that you can
Implement on all of those videos you can
learn a lot from the comments under a
video yet no one is doing this someone
has already made a video there's
feedback given on that video in the
comments which if you apply that to your
new video yours is going to be better
than the currently ranking ones which
brings us to the final letter which is
the S stands for SEO first of all we
must make sure that the exact keyword
that people are searching for makes up
the majority of our title which means
that if I want to rank for 3D after
effect video reals editing I'm going to
make my title look like this this
includes the entire keyword that people
search for and I've just inserted
tutorial at the end so that the title is
still natural and easy to read you can
also add brackets to make it more
enticing to click that might include the
year or something like stepbystep to
help them understand that this is going
to be a full step-by-step tutorial all
right title done now we need to do the
description first of all what I always
do is I simply copy the keyword in my
title and then I put it at the top of
the description next up I want to
include a few related keywords to our
main keyword in the description how we
do that is I go back to vid IQ I click
related keywords and I'll get to see a
list of other slightly related keywords
that people search for and I want to
include the relevant ones in my
description we do this to tell YouTube
what our video is about but also to
potentially rank for these other
keywords so I've selected these four
keywords which I'm going to use in my
description so here's what I've got in
this after effects tutorial I will show
you how to do 3D after effects video
reals editing even if you're a beginner
this will help you make Motion Graphics
and overall be better at video editing
so I've just included these four related
keywords naturally in my description
next up is our thumbnail all this needs
to be is better than the competition
make sure it's clickable and easy to
understand once again go back to the
keyword see which videos are currently
ranking and make sure that yours is
better what you'll see here is that all
of them are very similar 3D viral reels
3D viral reels 3D viral reels 3D viral
reels no I'm not bugging they're just
saying that on every thumbnail which
means it's proven to work but you should
probably slightly switch it up all
that's left now is the tags now this
doesn't really matter at all so what I
always do I take the keyword that I want
to rank for I copy it I go to a website
called rapid tags.io I paste in my
keyword I search these are the results
that show up I copy this and then I
paste it directly into my video I've
actually made a step-by-step Word
document describing how you can rank
number one following all the steps I
just gave you I'll leave a link down
below for you to download it and also if
you want my full 1hour breakdown of how
this works and see me do it live on
camera click the video on the screen
right here it's probably the best video
I've ever made so I'll see you there