YouTube is one of the biggest search channels after Google. People upload various videos on their channels. Their goal is to get as many views as they can.
But here is the thing – it is not quite easy.
Your video content should cover interesting and engaging topics. Otherwise, no one will watch them. The second element of how to get more views is to make your video content optimized properly.
In this post, you will find our ten methods that will help you get more views on YouTube.
Let’s start!
Table of Contents
Split Videos per Categories Related to Your Niche
One of the most straightforward ways for YouTube to earn money is via ads. Hence, it is up to YouTube to keep people retained on the platform by showing them related video material.
Eventually, users see topic-related video content in the sidebar menu.
And when the user explores the video on this topic, he or she might be interested in another topic-related video – how to create a middle part of two overlapping circles.
What’s more important, the videos in the sidebar menu can be suggested from the same channel. And it makes sense in terms of acquiring more video views.
How to get your videos shown there?
First of all, when you create a video, make sure it is a hundred percent related to the niche. Therefore, don’t create a channel that would cover martial arts in general. Instead, dedicate it to karate or jiu-jitsu.
This method will help you increase the chances to get videos shown in the sidebar menu. And it promises more views.
For instance, one YouTube channel offers video content that covers various mods for the old-fashioned game “Doom.”
Follow this method, and extra views are in your pocket.
Cover Topics That Your Audience Would Explore
First of all, don’t focus yourself on creating videos on the topics that reflect your personal thoughts. Especially if your channel is still unpopular yet. Nobody cares about your preferences. People don’t know you. They want to get information on the topics that they explore.
Instead, you should target topics that have a high level of traffic. To find these topics, go to the YouTube Keyword tool from Ahrefs. Type your keyword and pay attention to the metric called – search volume.
If you want to find lots of topic ideas, review the “Phrase match” report there.
You can see, there are 54 topic suggestions you can use for your benefit.
Don’t Forget to Rank Your Video Content on Google
You probably noticed YouTube video suggestions on Google.
Unfortunately, you can never predict whether Google will rank the videos per certain topic. Fortunately, there is a solution.
Go to Content Explorer tool and use this formula
site:youtube.com inurl:watch title:topic
Now, sort the results by applying the “Page traffic” metric.
Voila, you know what topics are worth your time.
Create Compelling Titles to Boost a CTR
Don’t delude yourself by thinking something like “if my videos takes the first spot, I will get all the views” – it is the wrong way.
If nobody clicks your videos, you won’t get any views.
And if you want people to click your videos, you should create compelling title tags for them. Here is a couple of pieces of advice to remember:
- Add your target keyword right to the title of the video
- Make short titles for the videos
- Include a power word to make the video title more enticing (best, top, free, secret…)
- Try to understand why people should watch your video, not the other ones
Period.
Work on Catchy Thumbnails
Title of the video provides the general information about what your video is (avoid click-baiting technique). But one thing that catches people’s attention is a video thumbnail.
As you already guessed, video thumbnails should be designed properly. Like the example below.
Cool, right?
Are there any tips on this?
Sure.
Here are they:
- Don’t use some episode from the video as a thumbnail – it looks unprofessional
- Thumbnail should reflect the idea of the video
- Use contrast colors in your video thumbnails
- Add descriptive text for each thumbnail
That’s all.
Work on Writing a Powerful Description
Video description is a core part of overall YouTube video optimization. It should be catchy and force people to click the video.
Video description allows you not just to tell people what the video is about. It gives you an opportunity to encourage people to subscribe to your channel, leave comments, and many more.
What should a perfect description look like?
Here is an example of a video description that embraces all critical elements in one place.
If you need a sort of guide on this, then check out these tips:
- To entice the click, you need to use 1-2 sentences
- Create a subscription link (add ?sub_confirmation=1 to the channel URL)
- Place links to the related video content
- Write a comprehensive description of the video (500 – 1000 words)
- Create timestamps
- Links to your social channels
Done!
Experiment With Endscreens and Cards
Have you ever noticed the other suggested video thumbnails at the end of the video?
These are endscreens. And if the user clicks one of them, this video will be displayed automatically.
Cards are short notifications you can add at any phase of the video. They allow you to add links, polls, playlists, etc.
Add Timestamps and Get Featured on Google
There are cases when you type your query on Google, it suggests a video with “key moments” of the topic.
These key moments help users choose the marked points of interest in the video. For example, you want to skip the introduction part and want to see some concrete process.
Therefore, if you want Google to feature your video with key moments, you need to timestamp to a video description (along with labels).
The timestamp is a part of the video in a time format – [hour]:[minute]:[second]. While labels work as a short description of a chosen section of the video.
A few tips on adding timestamps:
- Every timestamp should be placed on a new line with the label
- Keep the chronology when adding timestamps (timestamp 10:55 can’t be placed before the timestamp 5:15)
- Write brief labels keeping them descriptive
- Labels must go in line with what people see in the video (for example, if it says “fry shrimps”, people should see in the video the same)
Upload Your Videos at the Best Time
YouTube has a useful report that helps you figure out when your audience watches your video content. This report is called “When your viewers are on YouTube”:
Thanks to the report, you know the peak points. But when would it be more productive to upload your videos on YouTube?
The best time is one hour before the peak. It helps users explore the videos and watch them without a hustle.
Besides, don’t forget to take into account the difference in time zones. If you live somewhere in Europe but your target audience is in the US, you must align with their time zone and upload videos accordingly.
Include Tags
Tags help people find the video they want. Thus, tagging is a great way to put your videos in front of more people on YouTube.
How to do this right?
a) The tag should be your main keyword. In other words, if you create a video about fishing the tag will be “fishing”.
b) Tag relevant keywords from top-ranking videos. To figure out these keywords you can use one of the browser extensions – TubeBuddy or vidIQ. After installing the extension, type your target keyword, review about 5 relevant videos, and borrow relevant tags.
But it makes sense to add as the tags keywords with a good search volume. To find out the search volume of the keywords you can use Keywords Explorer tool from Ahrefs. Just put the keywords to the tool and analyze them.
The report shows keywords’ search volume. Pay attention to the stats and use keywords for tagging accordingly.
To Sum Up
There are way more methods to boost the number of video views on YouTube. These ten are the most actionable ones that you can use in practice.
Moreover, don’t forget about likes and shares – it helps promote your YouTube channel drastically. Don’t hesitate to remind your audience to subscribe, like, leave comments, and share the videos.
If you know more methods to increase YouTube video views, feel free to share your ideas in the comment section.
