- Okay, let's see how we did today.
(bell chimes)
Oh, I'm still not getting any views.
(dramatic music) YouTube's algorithm
is against me.
Yeah, as tempting as it is to believe that,
it's simply not true.
So before you do give up,
give me a chance to prove to you
that the YouTube algorithm is not your enemy.
It does want to help.
You just need to figure out who it wants to help,
and once you figure that out,
your videos will get more recommended by YouTube.
So what is the YouTube algorithm?
Well, think of it more as a recommendation system.
It decides which videos YouTube suggests
to its 2 billion plus human users,
and human is the important word there.
That's because the YouTube algorithm
is all about helping humans find the most relevant content
as easily as possible.
YouTube's entire goal is to increase human retention,
keep viewers on the platform as long as possible.
Simple, right?
Well, over the years,
the algorithm has evolved as YouTube has grown.
So here's a quick history lesson.
In the early years, the algorithm was all about
how many eyeballs were on a YouTube video.
If you clicked on a thumbnail or a title,
that was good enough for YouTube, but this led to clickbait.
Yes, it was worse then than it is now.
Ultimately, a viewer would click into a video
and not be satisfied by the content.
So in 2012, YouTube tweaked the algorithm to watch time.
Video recommendations were now based
on how much time somebody spent
watching videos and channels,
and that I would say is the extent
to which most people understand the YouTube algorithm.
But as well as clicks and watch time,
there's an even deeper layer.
In 2015, the YouTube algorithm got personal
and has been getting more personal ever since.
Today, its goal is to find the ideal video
each viewer wants to watch right now,
and it does that by mixing and matching
all of the personal tastes of everyone on YouTube.
So to reinforce your understanding,
the goal of the YouTube algorithm
is to find the right video for each viewer
and then maximize that viewer's watch session
so that they come away from the experience satisfied
and will return in the future.
And it does all of us through data signals.
Now, YouTube needs positive signals to rank videos,
and I'm not just talking about search rankings.
I'm talking about how often and to how many people
videos show up on the homepage and suggested videos.
A little while back, some Google Engineers
wrote research paper on this topic,
and I'm not going to link it in the comments below
because it's really technical and boring,
but what it does highlight are key signals
for video recommendations that include click-through rate,
watch time, how many videos the user
has watched from your channel,
how recently the user watched a video about the same topic,
what the user has searched for in the past,
the user's previously watched videos,
and the user's demographic information and location.
Now, the first three signals are the only ones
that you can influence directly.
Everything else, as we've already established,
is personalized to the viewer.
One way to influence viewers to click,
watch, and click again
is to have a constant stream of good ideas,
and vidIQ can help you do that.
Our recommendation AI will scan your channel
and then suggest video ideas based on the topics you cover.
You can get up to 50 ideas a day, more than 1,000 per month,
and it's free to start using today.
And I will leave a link to this in a description
because it's really, really useful.
As I hinted at a little earlier,
when we talk about the YouTube algorithm,
we're actually talking
about three distinct discovery systems.
There's one that chooses videos for the homepage,
there's one that ranks videos for searches,
and another one for suggestive viewers
and what viewers should watch next.
Now, while it is true for a lot of small channels
initially get discovered through search,
most channels don't really want to stick
to that traffic source.
That's because the algorithm tends to work best
when viewers are watching videos from the homepage
or suggested videos.
Every time a person opens YouTube, be on a computer,
phone, tablet, or TV, the YouTube algorithm
offers up a diverse set of videos
that it thinks that person might like to watch.
Videos that are selected to appear on the homepage
are based upon two sorts of ranking criteria.
The first, unsurprisingly, is performance,
how well similar viewers seem to enjoy the video.
YouTube measures performance with metrics
like click-through rates, average view duration,
average percentage viewed,
likes, dislikes, and viewer surveys.
And secondly, we're looking at personalization again.
This means that YouTube offers videos to people
that it thinks are relevant to their interests.
When it comes to suggested videos, however,
YouTube adds a few more ranking criteria
to performance and personalization.
Because you're in the process of watching a video,
YouTube will suggest videos that are often watched together,
videos on similar topics,
or videos the user has already watched in the past.
Now, when the algorithm
is recommending videos to the viewer
through a homepage or suggested videos,
it's doing it more so through data
because it doesn't know the viewer's intent.
But when it comes to search, it's a whole different ballgame
because the viewer is wanting
to watch something very specific.
YouTube is as much a vast search engine
as it is a video platform,
meaning that a little bit of SEO knowledge
can come in handy.
To a certain extent, YouTube's search algorithm
does rely on keywords you use in your video's metadata
to decide what your video is about.
So if you want your video to show up
when people search for videos with gluten-free recipes,
you probably wanna include those two words in the title,
maybe in the thumbnail, the description,
even in the words you say in the video itself.
Now, it can take some time for YouTube to figure this out,
which might explain why some videos don't take off in search
for days, weeks, months, sometimes even years.
But the more accurately YouTube can understand a video,
the more accurately it can test with search results.
And then the algorithm can start to assess
the performance of a video.
If your video appeals to and satisfies people
looking for those keywords,
it will be shown to even more people.
And believe you me when I say once you get
to the the top of the search rankings,
you can stay there (pencil scratches)
for years.
If the answer to a search query never changes,
(bell rings) that is perfect
evergreen content.
So with all of this information about the YouTube algorithm
now at your fingertips,
let's start taking action on it.
While there are many humans watching your videos,
there is no human being specifically sitting
at YouTube headquarters watching your video and ranking it.
Instead, the algorithm looks at your metadata
and it decides what the video is about,
which videos or categories it's related to,
and who might want to watch it.
When it comes to YouTube,
whatever we're talking about,
there's a reason we use words such as subscribers,
views, watch time, monetization,
your channel, copyright.
That is the universal language of the content creator.
Obviously, you need to upload a custom thumbnail
and keep the visual style consistent
across all of your thumbnails.
You must write an intriguing title
that creates a sense of curiosity in the viewer's mind
that can only be resolved by clicking on the video.
And remember that the first sentence,
around about 150 characters of a description,
will show up in search,
so make it interesting and relevant.
We have covered the topics of thumbnails and titles
in great detail in the past,
and we will definitely do that in the future,
so make sure to subscribe if you wanna see those videos.
(bell chimes)
Once the viewer starts watching and you have them hooked,
make it easy for them to keep watching your content
and stay within your channel's ecosystem.
To this end, use cards, end screens,
playlists, subscription watermarks.
If you imagine YouTube as a viewer's home,
you wanna make your channel
their favorite room to hang out in.
You also need to consider views
that don't actually come from the YouTube algorithm.
Views from external sites,
cross promotion on other social media platforms,
and partnerships with other channels or brands
can all help you earn views and subscribers
depending on your strategy.
But above all else, in a time of content saturation,
viewers want value.
The algorithm prioritizes satisfaction
for each individual human viewer.
So find your target audience, find your niche,
and lean into it.
You want to become their go-to guide on YouTube.
Now that we've covered the general basics
of a YouTube algorithm, if you're a small channel
trying to figure out how to specifically
get your videos recommended on a platform,
then this is the next video for you.