- All right then, creators, cards on the table.
I'm not here to sell you fake, worthless views.
However, what I am here to show you is how to get
more quality views for free the right way.
I'm here to show you how to do this
and produce results that look like this
so that you can grow your channel organically.
If you're here to try and hack the system
or cheat on YouTube, all we can do really is politely send
you on your way and wish you the best of luck
with the community guidelines strikes
and channel termination you're about to encounter.
Put very, very simply, buying YouTube views is
against terms of service.
And even if you could legally buy views,
the only reason the viewer is watching your content is
because of financial incentives.
Now, of course, such videos would be of extreme value
to the viewer, cold, hard, physical cash, right?
But you ain't gonna be able to sustain such a strategy
for very long as a creator, are you?
So what we are here to do today is to maximize those views
that you do have and convert them into more views now,
and more views in the future.
And that, my friends, starts with end screens,
even though I'm talking about end screens
at the beginning of a video.
Even though we've had over a decade to get familiar
with end screens, they remain one of the most underutilized
and undervalued tools on YouTube.
And I include myself in that mistake
up until six months ago.
Since then we have been making a very conscious
and concerted effort to maximize the power of end screen.
And the first and easiest thing to do is to keep
end screens simple.
I know from experience that it is difficult to resist
the four elements that you can put on an end screen,
but just take a look at the screen.
There's far too many options for the viewer to choose from.
So keep it to just a single call to action end screen
that you're going to directly address at the end of a video.
And that single end screen needs to directly address
the viewer's immediate needs.
Based on the video the viewer has just watched,
you need to explain what the next step is
and you need to explain to his viewer why they should care
about this next step.
And then you need to convince a viewer that the video
you are promoting in your end screen is that next step.
In order to see this end screen secret weapon in action,
all you need to do is watch until the end of this video
and before you know it, you'll be watching the next video
and the next step in your YouTube education.
Did you see what I did there?
And since we adopted all of these strategies,
this is how successful our end screens are today.
We're now getting an extra thousand to 2,000 views per day
from the end screen traffic source.
So we're not making more videos, we're just being
very strategic about where we tell our viewers to go next.
And by a small extension of this strategy,
you should also put the same video in your video description
as a single call to action.
And also potentially as your pinned comments
so that everybody is gonna see that next video link.
By doing this, you're triple reinforcing
the next piece of content a viewer should watch
from your channel.
And that is really one of the key elements
to consistently getting more and more free views.
What you make next is always critical.
In a recent talk at a conference, YouTube revealed
this golden nugget statistic.
They said that on average, if 100 people watch a video
on your channel this week, then by the following week,
YouTube will have shared your thumbnails and titles
with 700 people.
In other words, for every view you earn, YouTube gives you
seven free opportunities to earn another view.
Therefore, it is absolutely imperative
that what you make next is
what your audience wants to watch next, especially
when you've recently been making successful content.
You wanna double down on that video topic, that video style,
that video story, that video presentation.
And this is a reason why from a YouTube algorithm,
YouTube recommendation perspective.
For whatever video that works for that ideal viewer
on your channel, the next time you release something,
YouTube is gonna tap that viewer on the shoulder
and say, hey, we noticed you like that creator.
Do you wanna try watching this next?
It is your golden opportunity to grab that viewer
for a second time, a third time.
Turn them into, dare I say, subscriber?
Even if I don't technically press a red button.
Essentially, it's the same strategy as end screens
only YouTube's doing it instead of you.
Hey, you got to the end of this video.
I assume you found it satisfying.
I recommend you watch this video next.
YouTube's doing exactly the same thing
through its homepages, suggested videos and so on.
Believe it or not,
this is the very definition of free views.
Instead of a viewer just watching one of your videos
and then moving on, they're watching a second video
whilst YouTube shares it amongst at least seven more people
who may watch a video.
By consistently hitting that same audience,
YouTube is gonna get more and more positive data
and it's gonna go out and find similar viewers
to the viewers who are already watching your content.
Now, YouTube kind of tracks these free views already
through return viewers on your YouTube studio.
If that return viewer number is going up consistently,
more and more people are coming back to your content
whilst at the same time, YouTube is gonna continue to find
new viewers for your content.
You can also kind of technically track this as well
through impressions.
If your impression count is going up,
then YouTube is trying to test your content
with more and more viewers,
be it return viewers or new viewers.
You know what?
This is another type of freebie.
Impressions are essentially free advertising
and the more free advertising you get from YouTube,
the more free viewers you're going to earn.
You think I've said free and views enough time
in this video to trigger YouTube's secret algorithms?
All right, so you've probably heard the same before
about YouTube being the second largest search engine
in the world, but you know what the largest is right?
Google itself.
And since YouTube is part of Google, the integration
between the two is so seamless that it leads to this,
video search results.
These all of the views on the vidIQ channel over 2021.
And according to the traffic sources, two million of them,
around about 10% came from Google.
Now, YouTube doesn't fully track these views
because there are no impressions
or click-through rates attached to them.
So I personally consider all of these free views.
So how do you get your YouTube videos to rank
on Google search?
Well, first of all, timestamps clearly help.
Not only because it provides more detailed information
to Google search, but when you look at timestamps
on a Google search page, they take up a lot of real estate.
Also Google ranks content that best serves
the users query.
For example, if you titled your video
"Best Dollar Store Products", then you're competing
against all sorts of blogs and articles.
But if you title your video "Dollar Star Haul",
that's much more in line with the culture
around that phenomenon and you see a lot more video results.
Potentially more of a chance to rank.
And, of course, we would always say that the title
and the thumbnail are far more important than anything else
in your optimization if your videos are on YouTube.
But when it comes to Google, you might wanna think
a little bit more about yes, the title,
but also the description and the words that you say
within the video
because Google is always looking for context.
Papers show that Google is looking at sentence structure
and verbs and nouns and how they build a sentence
in order to rank some of their content.
And now onto the community tab.
I've saved this one to the end
because some of you may not have 500 subscribers yet.
But if you do have it, you're probably not using it enough
or you are not using it in the right way to get free views
for your channel.
Let me explain it like this.
When you launch a brand new video, potential viewers see
on their home feeds.
Well, guess what?
Exactly the same thing happens with community posts,
at least on the mobile YouTube app.
Now community posts almost seem to have their own algorithm
or YouTube recommendation system.
Even if you are not subscribed to a channel,
you may see community posts from their channel
because you watch similar content.
So in effect, you can have your community tab pull
double duty.
Not only can you reach and engage with new audiences,
but you can promote your videos for free
if you do it in the right way.
Now, the key to all of this is in the name of the tool.
It's not the promotion tab, it's the community tab.
So engage with your audience first,
give them value within the post
before you promote your video.
What you need to do is wrap video engagement
into a genuine engagement package.
This might be through a voting poll that just happens
to have a video link that's related to the topic.
Or you ask a question to the viewer.
It might be something that they're struggling with
or a goal they're trying to achieve.
And guess what?
The video that you include
in that community post may provide the answers.
Simple stakes updates, images, voting polls
that contain video links always perform far better
than just simple video links in YouTube community tab posts.
The simple truth is video links just look like another video
in a home feed as a user's scrolling through.
Whereas words, static images, moving gifs,
and voting polls provide something different,
something fresh that distracts a viewer for a second
and may get them to engage with it and see that video link.
Free views.
So after you've implemented all of these strategies
and gained all of these free views, what comes next?
I'm glad you asked.
The YouTube algorithm, 100 views this week means
that 700 impressions next week,
that got your attention, didn't it?
And I bet this will, too.
But in order to understand that and why thinking of YouTube
as an algorithm is very dangerous,
you wanna watch this video over here.
Yes, that's what you need to do next.
Free views!