Many people have tried to run their YouTube channel, but they haven’t succeeded in becoming famous. I’ve seen some channels fail because their users had no idea how to effectively use YouTube. They thus underutilize the well-known video-sharing website. I’ve listed a few tactics below that you, as a content creator, might use to increase traffic on YouTube channel in an effort to be of assistance. For individuals with low subscriber counts on their YouTube channels, these guidelines and tricks can be helpful. We’ll talk about platform analysis and rating in this essay, not content.
Retention Is Important
The main goal of YouTube is to keep viewers on the platform for a longer period of time because the longer consumers watch videos, the more adverts they will see. This ultimately results in increased revenue for YouTube. It is logical to assume that YouTube values videos with strong user retention rates because of this. These figures are equally significant to the typical viewing time of a video. In light of this, retention is the primary factor to consider when attempting to assess the viability of a channel. You can quickly verify these stats using YouTube Analytics if your channel has some existing traffic. YouTube might not be the best option for you if your retention percentage is less than 35%. perhaps YouTube isn’t for you. You have a better probability of succeeding if it is more than 35%, though.
Moments to Decide
If you want to capture the interest of your viewer, the initial few seconds of your video are crucial. Each video should have a bumper, as well as a quick intro or outro, to increase retention. Due to poor execution, most videos lose 20% or more of their viewers. You can experiment with using brief sound clips, titles, and music at the beginning and finish of your video.
Let’s look at these two indicators in more detail below. Even if it seems like the views are declining throughout the entire video in the first instance, nothing to worry about. However, within the first three seconds of the second scenario, viewership drops by 50%. You must fully comprehend your audience if you want to avoid this loss. According to the statistics in the second situation, YouTube has concluded that your video is not worth viewing because viewers quickly closed it. These videos won’t be promoted on YouTube.
Minimising viewer loss
Limit the duration of your bumper to 3 seconds or less.
To persuade people to watch the clip, start the video with a preview of what will be discussed.
Invest in your channel by having a professional theme and format created for your video (Upwork offers freelance professionals who can create high-quality items for a few hundred dollars).
Knowledge of Users
You need to know where your channel’s visitors are coming from now that you have more viewers. Typically, there are four traffic sources that send traffic to a website:
- direct look
- request for a search
- appropriate videos
- Links
Remember that the theme of a channel may affect the traffic sources used. Let’s examine each source more closely:
Direct Lookups
Based on the number of video views in the new video feed and notifications section, the more subscribers you have, the more traffic you will experience. The ideal situation is for visitors to start viewing content on your channel. You must start by enhancing other traffic sources in order to do this.
Query Searches
Studying search requests is an excellent technique to drive traffic to your channel. Learn what your potential viewers are looking for, then start offering these videos. I advise keeping an eye on Google Trends so you can observe what is popular in searches. You may also utilise YouTube SEO tools like ahrefs.com to uncover keywords that potential customers in your market or sector are using to seek online. You can also utilise one of the numerous more specialised services, like kparser, to discover precisely what YouTube users are looking for.
Google Trends
The Google search engine is effective at providing term suggestions. Play around with the search location settings and other options to help you come up with a list of possible phrases that people might use to look for specific YouTube videos:
Ahrefs: To find keyword suggestions, use the Keyword Explorer area of Ahrefs.
Kparser: Remember to select the proper nation in Settings and make YouTube your preferred channel for search.
Your ultimate objective is to get search requests that are less competitive but still capable of generating quality traffic. Making a video that is not yet trending would also be a wise move. For instance, knowing that there will ultimately be an iPhone 11 will help you remain ahead of your YouTube rivals by preparing you for upcoming product releases.
Consider that you are developing a hiking-related YouTube channel. Here is a list of suggestions I quickly got from the aforementioned services:
- Scouting tunes for hiking
- finest men’s hiking shoes that are lightweight
- California’s northern pathways for hiking
- background music for hiking
Suitable Videos
Linking to videos with a related theme is one way YouTube promotes content. You can employ the next method to appear on this list of suggested videos:
- Make a video with a similar description, icon, name, and length to a clip with a lot of views. The key distinction is that you desire higher-quality content for your video.
- Invite users to watch your top-notch video by leaving a few comments in the comment section about the chosen video.
While there is no guarantee that your video will appear on YouTube’s list of suggested videos, if you stick with this strategy, you can anticipate that 10% of your videos will do so.
Links Have Value
Even though this kind of traffic is much simpler to comprehend, it can take longer to implement. You must frequently submit links to your channel and cross your fingers that they won’t get removed. If your channel, for instance, focuses on web development, you should locate several popular blogs and add a link to one of your videos in the comments section of each.
You can quickly locate your visitor information with this straightforward plugin, which will help you determine whether you should keep putting in effort or whether you need to make any improvements:
Another strategy is to collaborate with these websites and occasionally provide articles because everyone enjoys reading free, excellent information. Don’t forget about the channels used by your rivals. Frequently stop by to observe what they are doing. Studying your competition carefully is one of the best strategies you can use to experience growth.
Videos are Investments in Money
Spending a few bucks promoting each video within 24 hours of its publication is a very efficient way to boost traffic. Budget between $5 and $20 for this. This technique is often utilised because, when applied properly, it is incredibly successful. You must promote your videos from the beginning because YouTube needs to know when a video is interesting.
I advise promoting at least 20%–30% of the videos you think will do well in terms of traffic in the first few days after they are posted. The most significant signs for YouTube are the initial few hours. Your chances of making the recommended videos list on the front page rise if you follow all the rules and have quality content. Additionally, if you continue to be well-liked, your metrics will significantly increase.
To increase clicks
Your video has been added to the list of suggested videos because you followed all the instructions above. Your videos are quickly eliminated from the list since nobody is clicking on them. Now what? In order to make your material more engaging and instructive, you must first spend some time reviewing and editing it. You can achieve this by experimenting with the symbols, colours, and other design elements that viewers initially see when your video appears in a search.
Consider this channel, Gearist, as an illustration. It contains fairly generic icons that are used online quite frequently. Let’s try to redesign its iconography.
Which image would most quickly capture your attention between the two?
Publish often
If you choose to truly focus on YouTube for a lengthy period of time, the quantity of posts you publish is crucial. Do not undervalue this indicator because it has the power to make or destroy the success of your channel. You must establish a timetable for how frequently you will upload videos to your channel and adhere to it. Try to be as consistent as you can if you decide to post two videos every week to keep your audience. If you publish seldom or for extended periods of time, viewers will lose interest in your channel.
Favourite, Share, and Comment
Social media is arguably the most significant metric of all. Comments on YouTube demonstrate how popular your videos are with users. YouTube won’t respect your videos if consumers don’t like them. Attempting to reply to every comment is a simple technique to boost the number of comments. Don’t forget to ask viewers to rate and comment on your videos, of course. To increase the number of likes, re-posts, and comments on your videos, you may also organise competitions, offers, and other inventive engagement possibilities.
Set Facebook aside
Don’t advertise your videos on Facebook because that tactic is ineffective right now. Facebook now prioritises its own videos while downplaying those from YouTube, a rival. By publishing a video from Facebook and one from YouTube, users experimented on their Facebook sites. What took place? 20% fewer people watched the YouTube video than the Facebook video.
Lessen the Ads
You will probably maintain high levels of retention if you upload an advertisement every few minutes of your video. Even though it might be advantageous in the future, I wouldn’t suggest doing this until you have a sizeable number of devoted subscribers who won’t mind the ads. An ad in the middle of a video will encourage viewers to stop watching it right away if they don’t like it.
Technical Aspects
Give each video as much information as you can by selecting a category, adding tags, specifying the language, etc. Give each video a title that corresponds to its subject matter. Never steal content from the internet; instead, create a unique description that includes the keywords you want people to find when searching for that video. As we’ve demonstrated below, make a content list for each video and pin it in the description. You will distinguish yourself from your rivals thanks to all of these elements. When content producers do these things, YouTube loves it. They’ll therefore gladly advertise such flicks.
Playlists Are Pleasant
By making playlists, you can lengthen the time that people spend on your channel. Create playlists with videos that have a similar theme so that they can play one after the other. Give these playlists catchy names incorporating your keyword targets. Then, add distinctive descriptions that are discovered during video searches to these playlists.
Expand Your Knowledge
Due to its affiliation with Google, YouTube adheres to the same standards as the well-known search engine. I suggest reading What is SEO to get a foundational understanding of how Google searches operate. You may learn the rudiments of how YouTube works from this page. Additional inquiries and comments are welcome below; I’ll reply to each one.