Renu Sharma — July 13, 2019 — July 13, 2019
YouTube, a Google subsidiary and a popular video sharing platform, is currently the second most visited website and search engine in the world. It hosts more than 1.9 billion active users per month. With a stunning figure of an ever-increasing subscriber count, YouTube unfurls an enormous potential for businesses.
According to reports, a viewer spends 70% of their time on YouTube watching recommendations by algorithms. To increase your channel’s visibility, you should learn how algorithm works and prepare a strategy accordingly.
Image via Briggsby
You can always boost the visibility of your channel using paid ads and influencer collaborations. But it is also important to improve the organic reach of your channel without paying a single penny.
To help you succeed, we have put together a few effective ways that can help you promote your YouTube channel to maximize views and drive more traffic.
1. Optimize Your Channel Description
If you want to maximize view on your YouTube channel, setting up your channel information the right way is one of the most basic things to start with. You should go to your channel and customize.
Give a brief introduction of the channel. Make sure that you provide a clear description about your channel, what is it all about, its purpose, goal, and what your viewers can expect from it. This information shows up in the “About” section on your channel and it works as part of branding.
Here’s what the YouTube channel description of Backlinko by Brian Dean looks like:
Image via YouTube
You should use appropriate keywords in the first 100 characters as they would work as a snippet when a user searches for your channel. It will also help your channel to appear in relevant search results.
Personalizing your channel also gives better outcome. As you can see in this image from Briggsby, having more characters in description help improve your channel’s visibility. It is recommended that you should use at least 300 characters in your channel description.
2. Create Engaging Titles Inclusive of Keywords
When you search for something on Google, it always shows results inclusive of YouTube videos. But to rank your video in relevant search results, one of the best practices is to optimize your video title.
I just searched for “how to buy a camera,” and as you can see in the below image, Google search results also listed relevant YouTube videos.
Image via Google
Do you want your YouTube videos to rank in the SERPs?
You should ensure that the video title is not any longer than 70 characters as the rest do not appear in search results. According to a study by Briggsby, shorter video titles secure higher ranks.
You should also make the title keyword-friendly. Keywords that occur naturally in video titles play an important role in generating more views. Keyword-inclusive titles can help your videos rank better in YouTube as well as in Google search results.
Image via Backlinko
However, you shouldn’t add keywords for the sake of views. The title of your video should be engaging yet it should clearly tell users about the content of your video. You should refrain from misleading viewers with irrelevant titles.
To increase click-through-rate (CTR) of your videos, another thing you can do is to add a number to the thumbnail text. You can add the number of views if you have touched a milestone. For instance, “5 million views” or similar, but the number should be correct. Alternatively, you can write the number of tips you are going to share in the video such as “10 tips to improve your rankings.”
3. Write a Good Video Description
Always write a proper description for each video you upload on your YouTube channel. Make sure that the description is informative.
Viewers often prefer to read video descriptions, especially for product reviews and “how-to” tutorials.
But, what exactly should you write in your video descriptions?
- The first 100-150 characters are crucial. They appear as a snippet in search results. Therefore, you should use the target or main keyword in this segment.
This will make it easier for YouTube and Google to identify your content and show it to relevant viewers.
Here are the video results YouTube displays for the term, “how to lose belly fat”:
- Use primary and other important keywords throughout the description, as required.
- Add hashtags in the description. According to Google, hashtags make it easy for viewers to find your video.
- Include your social media profiles with links to follow.
- Ask your viewers to like and subscribe to your channel.
According to Briggsby, a 3-4% keyword density and 300-350 word video description can help your content stand out.
Image via Briggsby
4. Add Video Thumbnails
Thumbnails help viewers to quickly get an insight into your video content. According to YouTube Creator Academy, thumbnails make videos more appealing to advertisers and they are also an important part of your video’s metadata.
Thumbnails help viewers to decide whether the content is relevant, and to an extent, what they can expect from it.
You will have three options to select a thumbnail once you finish uploading your video. But it is always better to create your own. In fact, 90% of the best-performing videos on YouTube have custom thumbnails.
You should create custom thumbnails using impressive images to make your video more clickable. You can also add your video title in the thumbnail to convey more on its content.
Remember, your thumbnail’s file size should not exceed 2 MB and it should maintain an aspect ratio of 16:9. You can use file formats such as JPG, PNG, GIF, or GMP.
5. Maintain a Posting Schedule
How regularly do you upload and share videos? It may not strike you, but the frequency of uploading videos has a lot to do with the overall visibility of your YouTube channel.
If there is a significant gap between your video uploads, it would make your channel less detectable. Whereas, more number of uploads and freshness can boost the searchability of your channel and content.
YouTube algorithms value consistency so you should better create, maintain, and follow a content calendar.
Image via Briggsby
If you are busy and cannot keep track of time, you can schedule your videos on YouTube. For this, you first need to upload a video and mark it as “private” or “scheduled.” You can mention the date and time when you want to publish the content. YouTube also enables you to edit the time later.
Remember, the upload time mentioned on YouTube is based on Pacific Standard Time (PST).
6. Avoid Short Videos
Shorter videos often have a negative impact on your video rankings. Any video that is of below four minutes duration tends to get fewer views.
Image via Briggsby
Videos that run 4:26 minutes in length achieve maximum views. You should use your creativity to make longer yet engaging videos to bring in more views.
Image via Briggsby
7. Increase Viewer Engagement
Engagement fosters better relationship with viewers and encourages them to like, comment, and share your videos. This also helps you drive more traffic to your YouTube channel.
Image via Briggsby
To increase viewer engagement, you need to create video content that is authentic, helpful, and entertaining.
A few other YouTube optimization tips that can help you drive more engagement on your videos include:
- You should make full use of the comments section. You should ask your viewers to leave comments and also engage with their comments.
You should like their comments, reply to their questions and praises, and encourage discussions to improve engagement.
- Ask your viewers to subscribe to your channel.
- Request viewers to like your videos if they like your content. YouTube algorithms prefer to rank videos that get more likes.
- Host contests that engage users and compel them to subscribe to your channel.
8. Create Playlists
Creating your own video playlists on YouTube can help you promote your videos and drive more views. Playlists can also help you increase watch time.
Additionally, they help organize your content better. Viewers can easily filter relevant videos from your playlist according to their needs and preferences.
- To create a playlist, you should start with adding videos that have more number of views and a better audience retention rate.
- Write SEO optimized playlist title and description.
- Do not add too many videos as it can hamper visibility.
- Experiment with different playlist layouts.
9. Embed YouTube Videos
Embed your YouTube videos on your website or in your blog posts to generate backlinks. You can also embed valuable video content while guest posting to high-authoritative websites.
This can help you drive external traffic to your YouTube channel and boost your video rankings.
Image via Briggsby
Image via Briggsby
Conclusion
There are numerous other ways to promote your YouTube videos organically. You can promote your channel and videos on all of the major social media channels, your blog, and personal website. This can help you increase the viewership of your YouTube channel.
However, you should remember that the process of attracting viewers to your channel needs time and patience. You can expect tons of traffic overnight.
Can you think of any other ways to increase traffic to YouTube channel? If yes, why not share them with the community here?
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