- You always hear channels like mine give advice to you
about what you should be doing to get views on YouTube.
But today we are going to flip that around
and I'm gonna show you what YouTube says
about how to get views on your YouTube videos.
And the best part about all of this
is YouTube also shares with us
what they call the "Golden Ticket",
the thing that triggers promotion and exposure on YouTube.
So look, if you are seriously
and honestly wanting to improve what it is
that you're doing on YouTube,
so you can get more views on all of the efforts
that you're putting into your content,
watch this entire video.
And grab your notepad
because we're starting right now
with the homepage of YouTube.
In this screenshot from the YouTube Creator Academy,
they tell us that the section of videos
that show up on the homepage are based on performance,
which we'll break down later in the video,
but they say that performance essentially means
how well the video has engaged
and satisfied similar viewers among other factors.
And we'll be getting into some of those other factors
later in the video.
They also mentioned that
the viewer's watch and search history also help determine
if your videos are going to show up there.
I also wanna bring to your attention a really quick detail
at the bottom of this screenshot
for those of you that have questions
about how long your video should be.
You'll see that YouTube says
we need to get the viewers engaged.
It doesn't matter if it's with a long video
or several short ones.
Here's the important part.
The longer you keep them watching,
the more your content may get surfaced.
And I'm gonna emphasize that one real quick.
They say the longer that you keep viewers watching,
the more your content may get surfaced,
and we're gonna break that down a little bit later.
But now I wanna talk about search
because I know a lot of you will target search traffic,
and I get questions about things like,
"Hey, Nick, my videos are optimized.
I've got the right titles in there,
I've got the right descriptions and tags and all that,
but my videos are not showing up.
Why?"
Well, let me show you what YouTube has to say
about getting views from search.
On this screenshot you'll see that they say
that like the Google's search engine,
which you can also use to get views from, by the way,
YouTube strives to surface the most relevant results
according to keyword queries.
This is why me and other people who make content like me,
the ones who genuinely want you to succeed on YouTube,
this is why we're constantly telling you
make sure that you're including keywords or keyword phrases
in your titles, as long as your content type supports it.
But anyway, they say here that videos are ranked
based on a variety of factors,
including how well the title description
and video content match the viewer's query.
As part of this,
YouTube also tells us to write robust descriptions
up to one to two paragraphs long, if relevant.
They also encourage us to brainstorm new video ideas
by looking at search results
for popular and less competitive queries,
which, by the way, TubeBuddy can help you with,
if you're already a TubeBuddy user, you know this,
but if you're not a TubeBuddy user,
I've got to link to TubeBuddy down in the description below.
It is a tool for YouTube content creators,
it can help you with this part.
But if you look on the right over here,
you'll see YouTube says, "Search considers many signals,
including the watch time of a particular video
for a particular query."
That means that just having the keywords
or the keyword phrases in your titles and descriptions,
it's not enough.
In addition to that, you also have to generate watch time
from the videos, which means when they show up
in search results, if people are clicking on them
and they're enjoying that content,
then your content's likely to stay there.
But if not, it won't.
Now, check this out.
For those of you targeting search,
one of the things that YouTube tells us
that will help us show up in search
is to write searchable descriptions.
Well-written descriptions with the right keywords
can boost views and watch time
because they help your videos show up in search results.
They say to put the most important keywords
towards the beginning of your description,
and to identify one to two main words
that describe your video and feature them prominently
in both your description and title.
In fact, if you go into the YouTube Creator Studio dashboard
you're gonna see that YouTube shows us
when we click the question mark in the description box,
that writing descriptions with keywords
can help viewers find your videos more easily
through search.
And if we go up one box to the title area
and click the question mark there,
they say, "It's a good idea to include keywords
your audience is likely to use
when looking for videos like yours."
And look, you're gonna hear some people tell you
that the system is smart enough to know exactly
what to put in search
if you just upload the video
with whatever title and description.
But unfortunately the system isn't perfect yet.
So because of that, adding these things
to your title and your description,
it helps give the system context
to what your video is about.
Essentially making its job easier.
Now, before we move on to getting views
from suggested videos,
I wanna share some more information with you about titles,
since we just went over some description stuff,
I just wanna share some information
that YouTube has to say about titles.
When it comes to titles,
YouTube tells us to write catchy titles,
which I'm sure that we all probably knew that one already,
but to add detail to that
they say to create titles that accurately represent
what's in the content.
The reason this is important is because
if you mislead people
into clicking on your thumbnails in your titles,
then they're not gonna end up watching that video
for a long period of time
because they're not getting out of that video
what they expected when they clicked on it.
If that happens and you're not getting that watch time,
which means that the viewers
are not having a good experience with your content,
then you're putting yourself in a situation
to where the system has no choice
but to not show your content anywhere.
You can see that they mentioned here,
"It's important to accurately describe your video
so viewers stay to watch.
If viewers don't stick around
because the video didn't match their expectations,
you'll see a drop in your audience retention,
which can result in your video
being less likely to be recommended by YouTube."
They also mention this in the YouTube section
of the Google Help Pages,
where they say,
"Clickbait videos tend to have low average view duration
and therefore are less likely
to get recommended by YouTube."
The important thing to take away
from that part is be compelling, not misleading.
And while we're on titles, here are a few more quick tips
from YouTube about your titles.
One, keep them 60 characters or less
with the most important information upfront,
right around 50 characters seems to be the sweet spot,
depending on what it is you're viewing it on and so on.
Two, "Save episode numbers and branding towards the end."
Three, "Check your titles don't get cut off
in suggested videos, search results, and mobile."
That part right there
is why I recommended the 50 characters.
You wanna make sure that anything that's important
for the viewer to have context for the video
is within the first 50 characters
or right around 50 characters of your title.
Now let's move on to getting more views
from suggested videos.
Here you'll see YouTube says,
"Suggested videos are ranked to maximize engagement
for the viewer."
What that means is
it's not necessarily about YouTube promoting your content.
It's more about YouTube showing the viewer,
the user of YouTube, the content
that they are most likely to enjoy at that moment in time.
According to YouTube,
signals that contribute to these recommendations
include videos that viewers watch
along with the current video
or videos that are topically related.
You know how I'm constantly telling you
to use your end screens and make sure you have links
to relevant content in your video descriptions,
and pin comments and all that good stuff,
this is why.
YouTube even tells us to make strong calls to action
for viewers to watch another one of your videos.
What that means is as your video is coming to a close,
instead of wasting the viewer's time
with a bunch of things that they don't care about,
it's more important to just recommend another piece
of your content to them.
They also say to use playlists, links, cards,
and end screens to suggest the next video,
as well as develop a series of videos
that are organically connected.
This is so that you can make it easy for people
that are interacting with your content
to watch more than one video at a time.
And in this situation you win
because you're getting more views and watch time,
YouTube wins because they are getting more watch time
or more time on platform,
and the viewers win because you made it easy for them
to find more of your content that they enjoy.
Everybody wins.
Now, before we get into the "Golden Ticket",
there are a few more things that I want to show you.
The first is about thumbnails.
YouTube says, "90% of the highest performing videos
have custom thumbnails."
Use them.
YouTube also says that your thumbnails and titles
work together as a team to build anticipation
while accurately representing what's in your videos.
The reason that I mentioned this one is
because it's important to stop thinking of your thumbnails
as one thing and your title as another thing,
and start thinking of them together
and how they work together for you to win the click.
But be careful.
According to YouTube, in this warning
in the YouTube section of the Google Help Pages,
clickbait videos tend to have low average view duration
and therefore are less likely to get recommended by YouTube.
Remember, be compelling, not missleading.
Next, YouTube tells us the following,
"If viewers are returning to your channel regularly
to watch more, they're more likely to be recommended more
of your videos in the future."
This is why consistency is important.
This is why niching down is important.
This is why making sure
that you're focused on making content
for a specific type of viewer is important.
The more they return and enjoy your content,
the more likely they are to get recommended more
of your content in the future, which brings you more views.
Now, as we start leading into the "Golden Ticket",
there are a few things
that I wanna bring to your attention.
In documentation about titles,
they say that if your retention is low,
your video is less likely to get recommended on YouTube.
And in this one they say,
"The longer that you can keep people watching on YouTube
because of your content,
the more your content may get surfaced."
I would like to emphasize the "your content" part of this
and just remind you what they said before
about leading people into playlists
and making it easy for people to find more of your content.
And for all of you who think YouTube has something
against you, they don't.
They tell us that the systems have no opinion
about the type of video you make
and they don't favor a format.
They follow that up by saying,
"Instead of worrying about what the algorithm 'likes',
it's better to focus on what your audience likes.
If you do that and people watch, the algorithm will follow."
In other words, the way to win in the algorithm
is to make content that people enjoy
and that they can continually come back to your channel for,
which leads us to the "Golden Ticket".
Tan-tan-ta-da!
This information is labeled under the average view duration
and watch time section for obvious reasons.
They say, "The golden ticket is to make sure
your viewers want to watch all the way through your videos,
as measured by average view duration and watch time."
They follow that with,
"Think about how your audience can engage more frequently
with your content,
which can help increase promotion and exposure on YouTube."
Another reference to this is found
when researching on how to get more impressions.
They say, "The best way to get more impressions
is to consistently make great content that viewers love."
So to get results on YouTube,
you have to go through the process of learning
how to make content that people really truly enjoy.
It's not a, "Hey, how can I just get people to click on this
so that I can get that view?"
You gotta get them to click on it
and you have to actually create content
that people enjoy and that they would be excited
or look forward to coming back for.
And if you focus your efforts on adding value
to the viewers that are interacting with your content
and just making great content for them
instead of always thinking
how can I get the algorithm to work in my favor?
If you just focus on the viewers,
then you're gonna get more views on YouTube,
according to YouTube.
Now, remember that part earlier in the video
where I was talking about recommending additional content
to people that are watching your videos to make it easy
for them to find more content that they care about
in your channel?
This is how you do it.
I have videos right here that are going to help you
with your YouTube channel.
Click into this playlist right now.
And if you haven't yet, make sure you subscribe.
Thank you so much for watching.
I'll see you next time.