Cutting-edge professional cameras, fancy ring lights, and the latest tripod models are a YouTuber’s dream. But they’re not the only tools you need to churn out high-quality, engaging videos your subscribers will love. It’s just as important to find and use third-party YouTube tools for creators at your disposal.
With creative tools, you can enhance your videos and make them 10 times better. And with technical, analytical tools, you can strategically optimize them to get more impressions, likes, and views.
But what are the best tools for YouTubers to use? Here’s the crème de la crème of video editors, SEO tools, and thumbnail generators that can improve your YouTube presence.
The 10 Best Tools for YouTube Creators
There are plenty of third-party tools out there you can use to enhance your YouTube presence and video performance. There are so many, in fact, that it can get overwhelming to choose which ones to use. To help you out, we’ve narrowed down the best tools for YouTube, depending on your goal. Here are the 10 tools you can’t sleep on as a YouTuber and what they can do for you.
1. Adobe Premiere Pro: For Top-Notch Video Editing
Video editors are arguably the most popular third-party tools creators use to improve their YouTube videos. And perhaps the most popular and widely used editing software is none other than Adobe Premiere Pro.
This editing program has a wide range of features that allow you to create the best videos for your channel. You can trim and stitch together clips, add sound effects and background music, and even add transitions to your video. You can even license a music track straight from the program to use in your video!
Some of the other features of the program include:
- Color grading for raw footage
- Adding text overlays
- Recording voiceovers
- Green screen (or chroma key)
- Slow motion and time lapses
- Stabilization for shaky videos
Adobe Premiere Pro isn’t just useful for your run-of-the-mill YouTube video. It’s also super helpful in creating YouTube Shorts. It’s a fantastic all-in-one video editor for anything from regular vlogs to bite-sized vertical videos!
2. DaVinci Resolve: One of the Best Color-Grading YouTube Tools for Creators
Want your videos’ color grading to be as good as those in the movies? Use DaVinci Resolve—the post-production color correction and grading program every creator is raving about. This tool makes your video’s colors and resolution rich, vibrant, and more enjoyable for viewers!
This color grading tool isn’t just a favorite among YouTubers. It’s also used for post-production in Hollywood and is a staple in Marvel movies and James Bond films. If you want your videos to look as high-quality as the world’s favorite movies, go for this application.
Aside from color grading, DaVinci Resolve also has other video editing features like motion graphics, noise reduction, and visual effects. And don’t be intimidated! Even with such advanced features for video production, its interface is still super easy to navigate, even for beginners.
3. YouTube Studio: The Ultimate Video Analytics Tool
YouTube Studio is YouTube’s in-app video analytics and management tool. Think of it as the back-end of your channel, where you can build your profile, edit video descriptions, and more. It’s also where you’ll see any violations your channel has incurred or ad revenue you’ve received from YouTube.
On this page, you’ll see the most important performance metrics for your videos. These include views, impressions, average watch time, and viewer demographics. You’ll even get to see the top searches your viewers have been looking up on your channel!
These valuable insights help you gauge your videos’ strengths and weaknesses, as well as your subscribers’ top interests. Gleaning this information can help you improve your YouTube strategy moving forward.
4. TubeBuddy: Your One-Stop Shop for Analytics, SEO, and Comment Management
TubeBuddy is a program and browser extension specializing in YouTube analytics, search engine optimization (SEO), and community management.
Let’s start with TubeBuddy’s biggest strength—video analytics. YouTube Studio is awesome at giving you topline info on your videos. But TubeBuddy delves deeper into how your content is performing.
With a feature called Videolytics, it provides actionable recommendations to improve your videos based on their metrics. Meanwhile, Channelytics audits your top competitors’ channels and helps you strategize how to be better than them.
Next up, we have SEO. According to the Search Engine Journal, YouTube is the second biggest search engine on the internet today. So, planning for search is a must if you want to succeed as a YouTube creator.
Remember—the YouTube algorithm prioritizes videos that contain relevant keywords and tags. TubeBuddy has robust keyword research tools to help you optimize your videos’ titles and descriptions. That way, your videos always come out on top on Search.
Lastly, TubeBuddy also has a comment management feature. This allows you to streamline the process of replying to every single comment on your videos. Through canned responses, customized formatting, and comment filters, TubeBuddy makes interacting with your subscribers a breeze, even when you’re busy.
5. Canva for Creative: Customizable Thumbnail Templates
Canva is most popular for its creative templates for social media content, such as posters and banners. However, the platform also has thousands of templates for eye-catching thumbnails for YouTube videos.
You can choose from a huge library of thumbnail options from their collection. Then, you can customize it later with your channels’ signature colors, fonts, and design elements. It’s the perfect way to still make creative, attention-grabbing thumbnails, even if you’re only a beginner in photo editing.
Remember—your thumbnails are your secret weapon to getting more views on YouTube. The more enticing and aesthetically appealing your thumbnail is, the more people will want to click on it. That leads to more views for your videos and potentially more subscribers for your channel!
6. TubeRanker and SEO Studio: For Quick and Easy Hashtag Generation
Keywords are one thing, but hashtags might be even more powerful for boosting SEO and video discoverability on YouTube. Hashtags categorize videos into specific topics, allowing the algorithm to recommend them to people likely to enjoy them.
There are two main ways to do SEO for YouTube Shorts and videos using hashtags. The first is by inserting those hashtags into your video’s title. Ideally, the tags go at the end so as not to distract from your main title’s point. The second way is to incorporate the hashtags into your video description. There, you can add even more tags that might not fit within your title.
No matter which route you choose to take, it’s a terrific idea to use a third-party YouTube hashtag generator. These tools show you the best-performing tags related to a specific topic that will improve your video’s discoverability.
Two of the most popular hashtag generators today are TubeRanker and SEO Studio, which work very similarly. On these websites, simply enter your video’s main topic. Then, the tools will generate popular, high-performing hashtags aligned with that topic. Feel free to copy and paste these into your video titles and descriptions to get more traction for your content!
7. Vidiq: Top Content-Generating AI Tools for YouTube Creators
Running out of video ideas for your channel? Use AI tools to get you out of your creative block! And when you’re looking for AI tools to help you get your creative juices, there’s nothing better than VidIQ.
VidIQ has many AI-powered content generation tools that can help get you back on track on YouTube. These include a title generator, a thumbnail creator, and an SEO-friendly description writer. It even has an AI chatbot—kind of like ChatGPT—dedicated to churning out relevant, original, entertaining ideas for videos!
8. Movavi: For Your Screen-Recording Needs
Are you filming video tutorials and step-by-step guides for processes on your laptop or phone? If so, allow us to introduce you to your new best friend—Movavi.
This tool helps you record your device’s screen and capture it in videos and screenshots. You can even draw on these videos, highlight your cursor and keystrokes, and draw on your screen in real time. It’s the perfect tool for videos that require you to share your screen and everything on it!
9. Patreon: Another Stream of Income Outside of YouTube
There are many ways to earn cash from being a YouTube creator. You can monetize your Shorts and videos or work with brands willing to pay you for collabs. But if you want another income stream, you can use Patreon.
Patreon is a platform where creators post exclusive bonus content for fans willing to pay a monthly subscription fee. It’s a strategic way to leverage fandoms that support you and diversify your income streams as a creator.
Patreon is also awesome for building a community of people who can participate in discussions and polls about your videos. This fosters a sense of belonging among your fans, strengthening their loyalty to you as a group.
10. Pexels: For Stock Footage for Your B-Roll
Lastly, we’ve got Pexels—a platform that houses free-to-use, royalty-free stock footage. YouTube creators can use these clips as B-rolls for their videos, enhancing their content’s storytelling prowess. It’s a convenient way to fill in visual gaps in your videos with clips that are impractical to film yourself.
Using stock footage from Pexels is especially useful when you need clips of the great outdoors. Let’s say you’re creating a video about camping. It’s easy to record videos of yourself packing your camping essentials or going on a road trip to the campsite.
However, it’s incredibly difficult to get aerial shots of the woods. Thankfully, there are plenty of shots like those in Pexels’ collection of stock videos. Just download them and use them for free in your YouTube video’s B-roll!
Optimize Your Videos With These Tools and Get More Likes and Views!
Sure, out-of-the-box video ideas and engaging with your subscribers are the keys to success on YouTube. But if you want to go far and consistently upload high-quality videos that perform well, you need third-party tools, too. They can help you edit seamless videos, create visually appealing thumbnails, and optimize your content to get more views!
Already exhausted your efforts with the YouTube tools for creators above and still not getting the views you want? It might be time for GoRead to step in. We help push out your content to viewers, boosting its visibility on YouTube. Likes, views, subscribers—whatever it is you need, we’ve got you. Grow your YouTube channel and get more eyes on your videos with GoRead today!
Frequently Asked Questions
What are YouTube creation tools?
Third-party video creation tools help YouTubers record, edit, and enhance their videos to make them more engaging and high-quality. These include video editors, creative idea generators, and thumbnail creation tools.
What is the best tool to create videos for YouTube?
It depends on what you’re trying to do. If you want to edit your clips, Adobe Premiere Pro is among the most popular programs today. If your focus is more on thumbnail creation, you can utilize templates from tools like Canva.
What software do YouTube creators use?
Some of the most popular tools creators rave about today include DaVinci Resolve, Pexels, Movavi, TubeBuddy, and YouTube Studio. All these tools play a specific role in a YouTuber’s daily operations, from SEO to content creation.