Do you want to attract more views and subscribers to YouTube videos and grow your YouTube channel?
In this video, I outline 10 YouTube audience growth strategies so your content can reach
more people. Hello. My name is Herman Drost. If you want
to grow your audience on YouTube and generate traffic leads and sales on autopilot, click
the subscribe button and click the bell notification icon so you're notified whenever I upload
new videos. Number one. Target the right audience. The
goal for your video should be to provide solutions for the problems that your audience wants
answers for. One of the best ways to do this is with keyword research. For instance, if
you enter your main topic in the YouTube search bar, you will give a bunch of suggestions of
what people are searching on. This is like reading the minds of your audience. If you
have the Keywords Everywhere extension installed, you will see the search volume right there
in the browser. If you want to save time on keyword research, I highly recommend using
the TubeBuddy Chrome extension. I'll place a link in the card on how to do keyword research
using the TubeBuddy keyword research tool. After you've done the keyword research, check
out the competition on YouTube and look at the videos that are getting tons of views.
For instance, if you see small channels that are getting thousands of views on their videos,
that's a great search term to go after. Number two. Create an engaging video. One
of the biggest ranking factors on YouTube is audience retention. This means, if you
can keep people watching all the way through your video, there's a better chance of your
video ranking in the search engines and YouTube suggested videos. One of the ways to do this
is to start your video with a strong hook, such as asking a question or teasing them
at the beginning. After that, reinforce your introduction by providing the meat of the
content. Ideally, you want to provide the solutions to the problems of your audience.
You can increase the engagement of your video by resetting the attention of viewers using
B-roll. Number three. Create a clickable thumbnail.
If nobody clicks on the thumbnail, they're not going to watch your video. Also, make
sure that your thumbnail stands out from your competitors' thumbnails. You can use a face,
bold text and contrasting colors. If more people click on your thumbnail than your competitors'
thumbnails, your video will be promoted in the search engines.
Number four. Create an optimized title that satisfies the search engines and the viewers.
Ideally, you want to include your keyword phrase in your title and also an emotional
trigger that captures the attention of your viewers. It should also reinforce the thumbnails
that they clicked on. Number five. Your video description should
summarize the content of your video. The first 3 lines are what people see immediately under
your video, so make sure that that encapsulates the content of your video. If you want to
redirect people to a URL or a landing page, include that full URL in the first three lines.
Number six. Include relevant tags. YouTube says that tags are not so important for the
ranking of your videos, but you still want to include tags that are relevant to the content
of your video. Therefore, make sure you add your title in the first tag, add related keywords
in other tags, then finish off more with broader tags. All of them should be totally relevant
to the content of your video. Number seven. Upload your video as unlisted.
When you upload your video as unlisted, you can pin a comment to the top of your comments.
This could be a question or a link to a video or playlist. Some people who are going to
leave a comment, they'll see your comment at the top of the comments. When you upload
your video as unlisted, you'll also be able to see if there's any monetization issues.
At this stage, you can also add your cards and end screens that link to a different video
or playlist. Number eight. You want to link your video
to a related video or playlist in the cards and in screens. The best link is a playlist
that contains related videos to the one that's been just watched. Keep in mind that linking
to a playlist will increase the watch time of your videos and improve the probability
of them being found on the search engines. This will motivate the viewer to binge watch
successive videos in a row and you get a high audience retention and a lot of watch time.
By people watching successive videos, your videos will appear more often in the search
engines. Number nine. Promote your video on social
media sites. After you've optimized and published your video, your work has just began. You
at least want to promote your video to the social media sites in the share buttons under
your video. This will expose your content to different audiences rather than YouTube.
Make sure you engage with the viewers in the comments, especially on the first 24 to 48
hours, because the view velocity of your video helps to promote it in the search engines.
If your video gets a lot of views in the first 24 to 48 hours, it signals to YouTube that
they've got to surface this video to more people. Therefore, it will be promoted more in the
suggested videos which appear on the right side of the people's watch page.
Number 10. Repurpose your video content so you can reach a lot of audiences. Did you
know that you can convert your transcript to a blog post and post it on your website
or blog? You also want to embed your video on your website or blog. Over time, your video
will also rank in the Google search engines. This means you get traffic from both Google
and YouTube, which is a great thing. If you want to know of multiple ways to repurpose
your video content, click the link in the card.
Here's a bonus tip. Track your video performance via YouTube analytics. Particularly you want
to look at the click-through rate and your audience retention. If you get a high click-through
rate, that means many people are clicking on your thumbnails and watching your video.
If you get a high audience retention and watch time, this means that many people are staying
engaged throughout your video and watching more of successive videos.
Let me ask you a question, what strategy have you used that is being the most effective
for growing your YouTube channel? Post your answer on the comments below. I'd love to
read them and I'm sure others would too. I just thought of a couple of other strategies
to grow your audience on YouTube. Why not do collaborations with other youtubers in
your niche? You can then cross-pollinate the information that you share with each other.
The information you share may be beneficial to the other creator, and vice versa.
Another strategy is to go live on YouTube. Going live is a great way to get a lot of
watch time and to connect live with your viewers and subscribers. You also don't have to do
any editing and you may come across more natural than a scripted video. Give it a try. If you
want more tips and strategies about how to go live on YouTube, watch my next video. You'll
learn the exact strategies that I use to go live with my audience every week on YouTube.
Thanks for watching. We'll see you in the next video.