Growing a YouTube channel takes more than just creating, uploading, and crossing your fingers that your videos will rank well in YouTube search results. You’ll need to track and monitor your channel analytics to know what is working well and what isn’t doing too well so you can stay on top of your YouTube SEO results.
A YouTube rank tracking tool will help you uncover what happens under the hood of your channel so you can develop the best strategy to rank your YouTube videos. But first, let’s see a few benefits of using a YouTube rank tracking.
Why Should You Use a YouTube Rank Tracking Tool?
Nothing grows a YouTube channel as fast as organic traffic. YouTube is now among the biggest search engines in the world, only second to Google. This means that YouTube will continue to get more competitive.
Therefore, understanding how your videos are performing in YouTube search results is critical if you are looking to grow your channel organically. Using the best YouTube rank tracking tools will give you an edge over your competitors by providing the right insights and metrics you need, which in turn informs your strategy to outrank them.
The Best YouTube Rank Tracking Tools For 2025
There are plenty of YouTube rank tracking tools available on the market, but we found three of the best tools that you can use to help you capture the key metrics for your channel and for your specific videos. YouTube rank tracking tools will also help you uncover trends in your niche that you can leverage to garner more organic traffic and outrank your competition.
#1 SE Ranking
SE Ranking was one of the early YouTube rank tracking tools and has since evolved into a full stack all-in-one marketing and SEO suite. Whether you are a freelancer, a small or big business, an agency, or an entrepreneur, SE Ranking now provides in-depth analytics and monitoring tools for just about any SEO need today.
One of SE Ranking’s well-known features is its rank tracking functionality. The module was, for a while, the company’s flagship product and one of the best-in-class rank tracking tools. But it now contains a full suite of easy-to-use SEO features.
Features
SE Ranking now provides a range of functionalities, including automatic daily updates on your keywords, accurate local rank tracking, and even monitoring of your competitors.
Some of the main features include:
- Rank tracker
- Keyword analysis tools
- Competitor analysis
- Traffic analytics
- Local SEO, Global SEO
- Mobile SEO
PROS
- Pricing: One of the biggest advantages of SE Ranking is its price to performance. It has struck a perfect balance between value and price, with some of its plans starting from less than a third of the price its major competitors offer.
- Scalability: SE Ranking allows users to keep the costs low at the initial stage. By allowing you to select how many keywords you want to check and your rank-checking frequency, you effectively avoid paying for any extra data you don’t need.
- Top-quality data: some tests have found SE Ranking’s data to be more accurate and reliable when compared to some of the industry leaders.
- Wide range of features: a true all-in-one SEO platform to grow your YouTube channel
- Well organized: SE Ranking has a simple user interface. The project dashboard is well organized, and there are no steep learning curves.
CONS
- Pricing Plans: They can seem a little complicated, especially when you need to use extra features
There are many YouTube rank tracking tools out there, but not all of them are convenient or accurate. Overall, SE Ranking is one of the best YouTube rank tracking tools, particularly if you are on a budget. You won’t have to sacrifice quality to fit your channel’s SEO goals to your budget. The flexible pricing options also make it ideal for just about any individual or business of any size.
#2 Nightwatch
Nightwatch It’s a stable and powerful SEO tracking platform built with geolocation in mind and prides itself on being the “most accurate YouTube rank tracker on the market.” According to its website, Nightwatch can track 50,000 more locations than any other platform.
The platform provides a YouTube rank tracking tool with several key features that make it stand out from its competitors. Unlike many YouTube rank tracking tools, Nightwatch gives you a “full picture” of your videos’ performance. It tracks the YouTube and SERP features and gives you an overall view of your video’s performance. You can then make data-driven decisions on how to grow your channel.
Features:
Nightwatch offers a number of key features, including:
- Keyword explorer tools
- YouTube Rank tracking
- Competitor tracking tools
- Nightwatch API
One of the distinct features of Nightwatch is the ability to simulate a search. That means you can go into a specific location and see how search results appear for all your videos. The tool can show you exactly what search engine users in that location are seeing, including tracking your YouTube channel’s rankings and providing accurate reports on rankings for different search terms in specific geo-locations.
PROS
- Simple and beautiful user interface: Nightwatch’s dashboard is well-designed and easy to navigate without some of the clunky sidebars and intrusive pop-up menus that are not uncommon in other SaaS platforms.
- Accurate YouTube rank tracking: provides accurate rank tracking data
- Pricing: Nightwatch offers a favorable price point for its starter plan, which has decent features.
CONS
- Nightwatch’s tiered pricing (based on the number of keywords, pages, etc.) can be costly for smaller businesses or individuals on smaller budgets since you have to pay more for extra features
Nightwatch’s extensive features, accurate ranking data, and range of high-powered capabilities can help you grow your YouTube channel. Its tiered pricing can help you manage your costs according to the growth and needs of your channel. Nightwatch stands out among other YouTube rank tracking competitors with its ability to provide instant and real-time insights into video rankings.
#3 LenosTube
Lenostube, or Lenos, has established itself since 2018 as one of the best platforms to grow YouTube channels organically. It’s a social media service that builds, grows, and promotes YouTube accounts. It also provides video creation services as well as a powerful YouTube rank tracking tool.
While Lenostube is a relatively recent entrant into the YouTube rank tracking market, it provides an accurate rank tracker that you can use to get valuable insights into your videos.
Features
Lenostube YouTube Rank Tracking 100% Free
Lenostube YouTube rank checker and tracker is a free tool that you can use to track your videos’ rankings from any location in the world. The tool can also track your channel’s ranking over time to check if your marketing efforts are paying off.
The rank tracking tool provides 100% accurate tracking since it uses YouTube’s official API. When you click “check rank,” Lenostube’s server will connect to YouTube’s API and fetch the ranking of the specific video at that particular moment in the selected country. You can even automate your videos’ YouTube rank tracking.
Growing a YouTube channel, particularly if you want to monetize it, isn’t a walk in the park. You need views (at least 4000 watch hours) and a minimum of 1000 subscribers. Lenostube also provides a service that can give your channel some momentum in those early days. The options include:
- Buying monetized YouTube channels
- Buying YouTube views
- Buying YouTube subscribers
PROS
- Accurate results: Lenostube uses YouTube’s API to fetch accurate and updated data at any moment.
- Clear pricing: No hidden fees or complex pricing options. Lenostube lays out pricing models for all its services.
- Specialization: Lenostube has focused on YouTube alone, which guarantees authority, expertise, and commitment to quality.
CONS
- Limited to no discounts: there are hardly ever any discount codes
- Slow support: their support team can be a bit slow in responding to queries, which can be quite an inconvenience if you have an urgent matter
While LenosTube may not have some extensive range of features that SE Rankings and Nightwatch have, it stands out for its simplicity, relatively lower cost, and ease of use. The fact that Lenostube, as a platform, has focused exclusively on YouTube gives it an edge over its competitors. Coupled with its rank tracking features, users can drill down into video performance metrics and create the right strategies to optimize their channels.
Factors Affecting the Rank of a YouTube Video
While the exact formula for ranking on YouTube is still largely unknown to the public, there are certain factors that significantly boost your rankings. They include
- Keywords: YouTube favors a 1:1 match when it comes to search queries. Always ensure your keywords match the users’ search terms word for word.
- Watch time: YouTube’s goal is to keep users on the platform for as long as possible so as to run ads and make money. If your videos help YouTube achieve that, then you will be rewarded.
- Video title: metadata is just as important on YouTube ranking as on SEO blogs. Your video title gives the first impression on viewers, YouTube, and search engines. Place the keywords in your title and keep it short (five words or less).
- Video description: on-page SEO is also a crucial ranking factor on YouTube. Since YouTube doesn’t extract information from within your videos, having a relevant, catchy, and genuine description will improve your results in the SERP and, consequently, your rankings.
- Video quality: this almost goes without saying. Besides being an immediate buzzkill, virtually no one will tolerate watching a low-quality video till the end. YouTube often ranks HD videos higher than poor, low-quality ones.
- Engagement: One of the ways YouTube evaluates the quality of your videos is through engagement. Likes, comments, and shares indicate high value and relevant video content, and YouTube will rank such videos higher than those with little to no engagement.
By remembering these factors, you can optimize your YouTube videos (especially keyword-wise) so that they will rank better on YouTube search.
FAQs
Are YouTube rank tracking tools accurate?
The short answer is yes. Most of the third-party rank tracking tools available on the market provide accurate results.
How do YouTube tank tracking tools work?
YouTube provides rank tracking tools within the platform. However, checking your videos manually can be tedious and time-consuming. Third-party YouTube rank tracking tools such as SE Ranking, Lenostube, and Nightwatch make it easier to organize and even automate rank tracking for your videos and video analytics by plugging into YouTube’s API. They analyze the SEO performance of your channel and generate actionable reports for your channel so you can establish where and when to direct your efforts to achieve faster and better results on YouTube.
How can I improve the rank of a YouTube video quickly?
The short answer would be to focus on ‘YouTube optimization.’ Take time to understand the platform’s algorithm and ranking factors, which, as you will discover, are much simpler than you think.
Focus on the audience and the keywords (search queries) since YouTube prioritizes videos that best answer a user’s specific query. Finding and targeting the right audience is more important than creating a “great” video.
You can also use your social media pages to share, discuss, and promote your videos to garner more views. An alternative way is to embed your videos on your blog or page on your website and then share that specific page.
What can I do if a YouTube video’s ranking falls down?
If this is a new video, then it’s worth noting that whenever you upload a new video, YouTube often gives it an unusual bump in traffic to collect data. Therefore, you may experience an unusual spike for a few days, and then it will begin to grow or flat-line depending on the response on the platform. It can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months for your video to rank.
For much older videos, you may want to review your video. Check the title and edit it to ensure it is five words long or less, is catchy, contains the keyword, and answers the user’s query. Recreate your thumbnail and make it stand out, compelling, and irresistible so as to increase your click-through-rate (CTR).
Final Thoughts
YouTube rank tracking tools are absolutely critical if you are looking to get the kind of data and insights that will help you grow your channel. There are plenty of tools on the market at the moment, and if you are unsure about which one to try, we recommend all of the three platforms discussed in this article: SE Ranking, Nightwatch, and Lenostube if you are looking for a 100% free option. Selecting the right YouTube rank tracking tool will depend on your specific needs, budget, and ease of use, so try a few of them to see which one you like best.
So, here you have out list of the 3 best YouTube rank tracking tools. And since you surely want to improve the ranking of your YouTube video, let’s have a look at the factors that affect YouTube ranking. This way, you know what to optimize and focus on, in order to achieve higher rankings with your video.
