It’s every YouTube creator’s dream to reach more people and eventually make money off of their content. Let’s be clear; reaching more people means gaining more views. How to get 4000 watch hours on YouTube is the biggest question in every YouTube creator’s mind. The good news is that YouTube also wants you to gain more views and does its best to make potential viewers see your videos.
Yet, it’s obvious that you can’t count on our last sentence and do nothing to improve your channel’s reach. Of course, creating a video and crossing your fingers to gain more views is not very realistic. As how many views your videos get is a determining factor of popularity, you just need to know how to get along with YouTube.
Purchasing watch hours from Views4You is the quickest and fastest way to get the success you have always desired. However, in this article, we will give you a magical guideline to get 4000 hours of watch time on YouTube and start monetizing your content! Let’s get into it.
How to Keep Track of the Watch Hours?
Beginners may wonder how to track their watch hours. Don’t panic, this is very easy once you start checking the analytics of your channel.
There is no need to check the analytics of your channel regularly because checking the metrics (especially the watch time) is the best feedback for you to see whether you’re on the right path or not.
All you have to do is:
- Open YouTube Studio and sign in,
- Click “Analytics”,
- Start analyzing your metrics.
13 Steps that Reveal the Secret of How to Get 4000 Watch Hours on YouTube
Now that you know what watch time hours mean and why you need to achieve the 4000 hours of watch time, it’s time to give you the magical guideline for the 4000 hours threshold!
Below you’ll find the fundamentals of an efficient video strategy that reaches the right audience, and brings you more subscribers, more views, and the 4000 hours you need! Let’s learn how to get 4000 watch hours on YouTube in no time!
Table of Contents
Make a General Keyword Research and Define Your Niche
For those who are struggling with how to get 4000 watch hours on YouTube, first things first: Make clear what kind of video content you want to produce. Then do thorough research on the trending topics in that field. You can make use of Google Trends to find out the popular subjects and keywords. This deep research will help you define your niche and will provide a great basis for you to build your content strategy.
In this phase, you need to focus on finding strategic keywords to make you reach the right audience, and eventually provide new viewers for your content. Don’t forget! The more you use strategic keywords, the easier it is to achieve those 240,000 minutes.
Find Proven Topics
Once you finish your keyword research, it’s time to find proven topics on YouTube. Write the keywords in the search bar and check out the most produced video topics. Once you determine the topics, check the channels with high numbers of subscribers and see what the top-performing videos are that they produce on that topic.
This will help you to see what people are watching. Don’t only check the contents but also analyze how those channels create their videos in terms of language, structure, and visual organization. These are highly important details that affect audience retention.
Make Use of Evergreen Content
Try finding content that stays fresh all the time. What do I mean by that? Well, it’s basically content that has a constant level of sustainable interest regardless of the seasonal trends.
So the good part is that your content will never be outdated and you will receive a lot of new viewers. If you produce evergreen video content, it means that the video continues to be active no matter how long ago you published that video. But, do not give up the quality in your video! Always strive for the best quality to produce good content.
Structure the Video
Don’t take chances. Plan your video’s structure ahead of time. Plan all the details in advance and produce the video accordingly. Before you start producing the video, define certain things to ensure a professional output.
Ask yourself these questions:
- How long do you want your videos to be? Check the top-performing videos of other channels in your niche and see what the ideal length is.
- What will be the commonalities with other videos on that topic? Make sure not to copy everything.
- What will make yours unique? Try to give added value to your video content and go one step further to attract potential viewers. This will help you increase audience retention.
- What will be your smart description, title, and thumbnail? Aim to attract the target viewers and make them watch your video.
Write a Detailed Script
The best strategy to create good content is to prepare a well-organized and attractive script for your video. I don’t mean writing text and reading it in the video of course.
But preparing a textual guide will help you focus on your content, not bore your viewers, but rather keep them interested in your content. It will also help you to remember to include keywords in your script.
Make sure to add sentences in your script that create curiosity about the video and say things like “keep watching to learn X”. This will create interest and incentive for the audience to keep watching the video and increase the hours of watch time.
Encourage People to Engage
We all know that the more people engage (like, comment, subscribe, etc.) with your content, the more your content will be shown to a wider audience.
Aim to encourage your viewers to engage with your content. Add CTAs (Calls to Action) within your content. Ask questions to them and lead them to respond to you in the comments. Make them take action to watch other videos on your YouTube channel.
Another convenient way to increase engagement is using a mediator such as Views4You. It will help you receive the engagement that your content deserves right away.
Make use of Live Streaming
Why don’t you spice up your content formats a little bit? Add live streams to your content strategy. In this way, you’ll have the opportunity to provide an interactive experience to your audience.
Live streams not only help add variety to your videos but also help increase the hours of watch time. Just keep in mind: The more you keep the audience interested, the more they will be motivated to continue watching.
Here’s what I recommend:
Try to make one-hour-long live streams every month. This way, you will create audience expectations, and motivate them to subscribe to your channel to watch more of your live streams.
The most important thing is that it’ll help you increase your YouTube watch time. Because longer videos provide more watch time compared to shorter videos, right?
But hey! Don’t let this sentence fool you. Avoid making long videos just for the sake of receiving watch hours. Because if you produce boring videos and can’t keep the viewer’s attention until the end of your video, your audience retention will drop! So, focus on providing added value in your videos.
Optimize Your YouTube Videos Before Publishing
There are some other little tricks to consider before you upload your video. We already mentioned that using the right keywords is highly important to be able to appear in the search results. Appearing in the search results will help people to notice your videos and thus increase your watch hours.
For this aim, make sure to use the keywords in the file name before you upload your videos. Another tip is to use tags that include your keywords. This is a great way to give information about your video content. And the last trick is defining the right hashtags for your videos. What do I mean by that? If you write a hashtag that just a few people have uploaded a video about, then it won’t work. Go for the hashtags that are more competitive but right for your niche. This will help you reach more people and increase your watch time.
Beware of Your Publishing Time
Knowing who your viewers are is really crucial. Think about it this way: Let’s say you are from Spain, but most of your viewers are from Australia (you can see this data from YouTube Studio). What should you do? Before publishing videos, check the Australian time and make sure to publish your YouTube videos when your Australian viewers are most active.
Let me tell you why. When you upload and post a new video, the initial views are highly important for the algorithm to determine if the video will perform well or not. Accordingly, it shows your videos to more people, or not. So don’t underestimate the power of initial views!
Promote Your YouTube Channel on Other Social Media Channels
Social media is a great catalyst for you to promote your YouTube videos and gain 4000 hours of watch time. Many creators are not aware of how important it is to promote their videos on other platforms. But let me tell you, you won’t believe how quickly you’ll get those 4000 hours of watch time!
Make sure to create interest and curiosity in people while promoting your new video on your other social profiles. Try to give an incentive to your followers to go and watch the entire video. If they watch one video, they’ll most likely watch the next one.
Don’t Aim to Make a Viral Video, Aim to Be Better Than Yesterday
Viral videos are great, right? It’s possible to reach thousands of people in just one day. Most people think that if they make a viral video, they can boost their YouTube watch time easily. But what if they fail to go viral? This case is awful because they may end up producing a cringe-making video just for the sake of being viral.
Let me tell you this: If you aim to produce a viral video, it is most likely that you’ll end up not being viral. These videos become viral through the course of their lifecycle. Keep this in mind: Viral should not be a strategy. It is just an outcome. If this happens, wow you’re lucky! But if it doesn’t, don’t get discouraged.
Just aim to create better videos than those you made yesterday. Only then will you keep your viewers watching your videos and increase audience retention. Don’t forget; good content + smart video strategy equals always watched.
Use a Mediator
Achieving the watch time required is a real challenge, especially if you don’t know how to get 4000 watch hours on YouTube. No matter how much you trust your content, you may still need an extra push to get those 4000 hours. So, if you want to join the YouTube Partner Program and place ads on your videos, you should consider using Views4You.
Views4You is a great tool to give you what you need to grow your YouTube channel. This tool will be a great relief if you’re fed up with counting how many views your videos get daily. It has various benefits, from giving you more watch time to delivering more leads or receiving more subscribers. Your content is worth having a little boost, right?
If you want to get those 4000 hours, just try it. I tell you; you’ll have no regrets! Views4You is all you need to help you with receiving the 240,000 minutes that your channel deserves.
Create Playlists and Use End Screens
Creating a playlist is the best way to increase your watch time. Because with a playlist, you lead your viewer to other related videos of yours. This is a great way to bring videos on the same subject together and create an urge in the viewer to watch the next video.
With a playlist, you don’t just make it easier for your viewer to find related videos of yours. You also receive extra watch time by making your viewers watch your videos in bulk.
Another way to lead your viewers to the next video is by using end screens. An end screen enables you to include another video that you want your viewers to watch. If this is the first video of yours that a person is watching, this is a great opportunity to make them get acquainted with your videos and your channel. But of course, the most important part is that it helps you to increase the watch time of your channel.
Get Ready to Reach Your Watch Time Goal
Now that I have revealed the guaranteed 13-step guideline for how to get 4000 watch hours on YouTube, it’s time for you to get going! Now just brace yourselves and start practising.
Don’t forget, practice makes perfect. If you want to monetize your channel, this is what you need to do. Go follow your dreams and master your YouTube channel!
Why Are 4000 Watch Hours Important?
If you want to monetize your YouTube content, achieving 4000 hours of watch time within the past 12 months is a requirement. The videos shouldn’t be uploaded within 12 months, but the watch hours should be achieved within that period.
If you’re wondering what exactly 4000 watch hours is, think very simply: One hour is 60 minutes. 4000 hours X 60 minutes = 240,000 minutes. Let’s say you get 1000 views per video; you may need to produce 250 videos (approximately 10-15 mins) to reach your 4000-hour goal.
What happens once you achieve the required thresholds in both the subscriber count and watch hours? You’ll be eligible to join the YouTube Partner Program (YPP).
The YouTube Partner Program gives creators greater access to YouTube resources and monetization features. With YPP, YouTube allows creators revenue sharing from ads that are shown in their videos.
Keep these two things in mind:
- Make sure your videos are public. Because the watch time of private, unlisted, and deleted videos are not counted.
- The watch time of YouTube shorts and stories is not counted.
