You do not need a paid keyword tool to find what people search on YouTube. Here is the autocomplete method step by step, how to read trending signals, and how to get keywords into the video instead of a spreadsheet.
Most keyword tools estimate YouTube search volume from web search data and guesswork. The best free signal is sitting in the YouTube search bar: autocomplete only suggests phrases with real, current demand. Here is how to mine it properly.
Step 1: seed with your niche's vocabulary
Start with five to ten short seeds a viewer in your niche would type: model names, techniques, problems, comparisons. For an automotive channel that might be "AMC Pacer", "carburetor rebuild", "cold start", "barn find". Type each into YouTube search in an incognito window so your own history does not skew the suggestions.
Step 2: expand with the alphabet trick
After each seed, add a space and a letter: "carburetor rebuild a", "carburetor rebuild b", and so on. Every letter surfaces a different set of long-tail phrases. Also try question prefixes: "how to", "why does", "what is", and comparison suffixes: "vs", "or", "better than".
Step 3: check trending in your category
Sort search results by upload date and look at what has gained views fast in the last week or two. A phrase that is spiking now will be worth more than an evergreen one with slightly higher volume, because there is less competition for it today.
Step 4: get the keyword into the video
This is where most research dies. A list in a spreadsheet does nothing. The phrase has to end up in the title, the first line of the description and a tag. Do it while the research is fresh, or automate it.
ReeLoop runs steps one through three continuously for your niche, keeps a bank of the phrases that actually made it into applied videos, and writes them into the next draft. The keyword research page explains how the seeds and the keyword bank work.