there are three rules that every single youtube video has to follow if you break any of these
three rules your videos will aggressively underperform seriously if your videos are
underperforming it's probably because you're not following these three rules
and i wish somebody had sat me down early on and taught me this because i wasted so much
time grinding away to learn all of this over two years so that's what i'm gonna do for you today
i'm gonna save you time by condensing everything i've learned into one video hey i'm Eljay and
after making over 80 videos and getting 9 million views on this channel in just over 18 months
i can confidently say to you right now that all of youtube the entire algorithm just comes down
to two things no seriously just just two things that's it those two things are your click-through
rate and your retention rate aka youtube just wants you to click on a video and watch it as long
as possible and then click on another video they suggest and watch that as long as possible this
keeps you on the platform watching ads making them money what do you think youtube wants like to me
i think youtube just wants people to click on a video and watch it what's important
is click through rate getting people click on your video and then average view duration average view
percentage or just relative retention simplistic as that is that's like what youtube wants later in
this video i'm also going to share with you one of my favorite entirely free tools that every
single youtuber needs to use all the big guys are already using this and you guys need to use
this as well to upgrade your content we'll cover that in a second but first let me talk about your
package so obviously in order to get retention rate and watch time you need viewers to click
on your videos and watch the entire thing and you've probably been told a thousand times
before that thumbnails and titles are crucial you're probably sat there thinking right now
lj i understand that thumbnails are important i already have mastered the art and i don't know
why i'm not growing no you don't get it billy in fact your channel lives and dies based on
how you package your videos i'm tired of people talking about thumbnails and titles
separately that's why i'm calling it packaging and guys your package is so important if i look
at your package and don't instantly understand what the video is about you have a bad package if
i don't instantly understand the story this video is going to take me on then you have a bad package
if i don't instantly understand the value your video has to me then you have a bad package if
your package doesn't stand out from all the other packages and make me go hey that's a nice looking
package i want to click on that package then you have a bad package here is what i want you to do
when you come up with a video idea i want you to start thinking about its package while scripting
and while planning the video this will help your package accurately reflect the value of
your video and the better your video connects with the packaging the better it will perform but we do
have to go a step further than that the first 5 to 10 seconds of your video needs to heavily reflect
on your value and your packaging otherwise your audience will leave the video before you reach
the crucial 30-second mark if you can keep the majority of your audience watching after the
30-second mark and keep them engaged then you have cracked the code that is a success the simplest
thing just tell them why they should watch it you know if you're putting a million orbeez in a pool
don't start the video with you shopping for your mom's birthday present at the beginning of the
video just say we're gonna put a million orbeez in this pool one of my favorite ways to keep people
engaged for those first 30 seconds is to tell them a very strong statement that triggers an emotional
response from them because you want someone to feel something with a video if they feel nothing
they'll leave you actually saw me do this at the start of this video i told you guys that your
videos are underperforming i said you're wasting your time like i did and i made you a promise
that this video was going to help you the second thing i like to do is actually use music to boost
my retention rate and encourage the emotional response that i'm aiming for music is actually an
incredibly powerful tool that i think all of the small creators that i watch aren't using properly
let's look at ludwig for example he will take a segment a video or a stream and use music to boost
it to be so much more engaging entertaining and just generally a motive one of his favorites
he likes to use is requiem by mozart you're actually listening to requiem right now it is
both incredibly copyrighted and also incredibly good at adding dread and stakes to your content
which is why ludwig loves it so much and because he saw it in hunter hunter and it is a giant weeb
one of the major reasons this particular song and so many songs he uses work are because they're
incredibly well known people recognize the song even if they don't know the name because it's
so heavily used in media this is the same reason that i believe tiktok has been so successful they
use copyrighted chart-topping music as sounds that every single viewer can relate to on an emotional
level and connect with it's accessible which is a shame because at the end of the day some
of the best music for engaging your viewers is incredibly well known and incredibly copyrighted
chart topping or famous music and when i asked you guys about this a huge 89 percent of you
said that if you could use copyrighted music to enhance your videos then you would use copyrighted
music but you'll be happy to hear that thanks for today's sponsor lickd that's actually possible
now lick's mission is to sign all of the major record labels and publishers so that they're
the only platform you guys need for licensing all your chart topping and famous music they've
got loads of chart topping popular music even my favorite artists are on there such as olivetree
and easylife and for all you normies out there that even got david guetta if you want you can
actually go to their site right now and use their category system to browse for the perfect song and
to see if your favorite artists are on there and remember what i said about all those tick
tock trends and how accessible they are on a base level well they have a category purely for those
literally every single one they have licensed is there for you to check out but it doesn't stop
there they've also just added a subscription-based stock music library making them a one-stop shop
for all licensed music lickd is simple to use and easy to understand which to me is the most
important part because when i asked you guys do you feel that you understand copyright rules
76 of you said not really like to have all of your chart and stock music requirements covered so you
can start improving the quality of your videos and you can get 50 off your first chart track
and 60 days of free stock music with the link in the description the reason all those songs work
by the way is because they are accessible to a huge number of people which is the second rule
of youtube you need to ask yourself is your video accessible to your key demographic
and if your video goes to the browse aka the front page of youtube is it accessible to
the larger audience on this platform and in that topic when you're planning out and making content
you should be doing so with your key demographic and your audience in mind you're doing it for a
specific person essentially or i guess you should be because how can you plan out good content if
you don't know who the video is for recently i was helping a brand new creator over in discord
who was making a beginner's guide to using a tool called hero forge which is a tool for designing
3d tabletop models that you can then buy and another new creator popped into the same discord
channel and said hey i don't actually know who the character in your thumbnail is so maybe you should
use a character that's actually well known for the thumbnail was this good advice would it make the
video more accessible no no not at all the person who gave the advice doesn't know what hero forge
is they don't know who the person the thumbnail is and of course they're not going to click the
video because they're not the key demographic for that video this does teach us two important
things about this creators video though the first is that two people who know what hero forge is
the video is accessible it is beginners tips and i would consider clicking on it but to the larger
demographic of this platform they don't know what hero forge is and they won't click it this means
if the video goes to browse aka the front page it's less likely to blow up and get a lot of
viral attention so does this mean that you should only stick to topics that have a broad appeal and
never get into the niche or the specific absolutely not it's all about one thing again
and that is your package binging with babish makes amazing complex cooking videos and i watch them
fully knowing that i'm never going to make them in fact tonight for dinner i'm going to have a
meat pie drenched in tomato sauce because i can't cook and honestly i don't really care about food
so why do i watch them well let's look at his most viewed videos his most food video is from
ratatouille he makes a dish from a beloved movie from an entire generation and he also makes a
specific scene that has become a huge meme on the internet and then we have the krabby patty
the supreme krabby patty from spongebob and that is his top three but it isn't just his top three
videos no it is his top 50 videos they're all foods or dishes from massive beloved movies or tv
shows that a large demographic can relate to and then as we pass the top 50 most viewed videos we
start getting into the basics with babish a video series dedicated entirely to teaching beginners
how to cook a massive demographic there are more beginners than there are expert chefs where other
cooking channels never beat me in to get clicks or to watch their content babish always successfully
gets me watching his videos and that is because they are accessible to even an idiot like me
because i want to know what the secret ingredient in the secret ingredient soup is from kung fu
panda what is it which leads me to my final rule and one of the hardest rules to follow and a
very hard and honest question that you need to ask yourself is your video actually valuable to anyone
does anyone out there actually want to watch this video and what will they get out of it what value
will they get from clicking and watching the video and just as importantly can you express the value
of your video in your package because if there's no value and nobody wants what you're putting out
there then nobody will ever click it you clicked this guide because you were hoping to learn
something the value is education i'm sorry that i failed i clicked a binging with babish video
because i think watching him make a supreme krabby patty is gonna distract me from my daily life
long enough that i can go back to bed and pretend i had a productive day here's the thing though
most likely you are doing education content like me reviews guides or anything else like that and
so you've probably thought to yourself now a very easy answer yes my value is my entertainment but
and hear me out on this i don't think it's enough anymore to simply say my videos are
entertainment and therefore valuable i think youtube has developed too much for you to be
able to say that you need to go above and beyond like look at ambiguous amphibian and call me kevin
as two amazing examples of valuable entertainment content they don't just package their content as
another gaming video or another let's play they package it as unique and interesting gameplay with
restrictions yes technically it is entertainment value but because the ideas and the concepts go a
step above just a normal gaming video it makes it easier to show that value and to show the reason
why someone should click it in their package so if you want to package your content like call me
kevin and the rest of these creators then one of the biggest and best free tools that you can use
the one i mentioned at the start of this video is thumbs up.tv too many new creators are making
their thumbnails on full screen on canva photoshop whatever it is and they're not thinking about the
fact it's gonna get shrunk right down your text is gonna end up being way smaller than you expect
all those colors extra graphics it's all too complicated and it looks terrible when it gets
put up on youtube but not anymore because if you drag and drop your thumbnail onto thumbs up dot tv
you can also write the title next to it which means you can see your package before you upload
it you can look your package directly in the eye and ask yourself is my package attractive
to potential viewers now i want you to run every video idea through these three rules plan
out your packaging while you're planning out your content make sure your video is accessible to your
audience and of course make sure it's actually valuable and somebody actually wants that content
and if you want to learn to be a better creator then youtube thinks clicking this video right
here is the most important thing you can do so why not give that a go and i'll see you guys next week