- The top channels that are just getting
millions and millions and millions of views a month
and new subscribers all the time, most of them are
doing that because they are just killing it when it
comes to having YouTube suggest their videos
in that right side column against other videos that
people are watching on YouTube.
How does that suggestion column work and what do you
need to do to get your videos there so more people
discover your content?
That's coming up right after this.
(electronic whirring)
Hey guys, my name is Tim Schmoyer and welcome to
Video Creators.
This channel is all about helping you guys grow
your YouTube audience so you can spread a message
that reaches people and changes their lives
and I love helping you guys do this.
Let's talk about how to get that massive amount of traffic
to your videos using that suggested column
because that Watch Next feature that you see
at the very top and then all the videos beneath that,
the suggested videos, they drive millions of views per day
to different creators.
Now, YouTube's goal is to figure out what the viewer
wants to watch next.
After watching the video they're currently on,
what video they want to watch next and if you look at
this very video on YouTube, down on the right side column
on desktop, you will see that YouTube thinks those
are the videos that you should probably watch next.
Several years ago, this sidebar used to be called
related videos on YouTube, but now it's no longer considered
only related content.
You'll see a lot of videos in there that are not related
to the content that you are watching.
Now, that collection of videos is more accurately described
as suggested videos and creators have been trying a lot
of different things to try to get their videos there,
including adding their channel name to their video tags
of all their videos and adding their channel name
to the end of all their YouTube video titles thinking that
if I repeat this keyword, this phrase over and over again,
my content is more likely to be related to my content
which would keep people on my videos watching longer
because I have all the keywords matching across my videos.
But it doesn't work like that anymore.
Actually, it's been many years since YouTube was
based on keyword batching.
YouTube now uses over 80 million datapoints
to determine what video to surface, where to surface it at,
when to surface it, and to whom it should be surfaced to.
Obviously, we're not going to get into all 80 million
of them, I don't even know what all 80 million are.
But we do know some high level things of what YouTube uses
to consider what video to show a viewer next.
Let's talk about what some of these things are
and then, some ideas of how you can take advantage of
some of these things for your channel.
Number one, one of the things they look for is
hey, it looks like this viewer is enjoying videos
from this creator.
Let's show them more videos from this creator.
YouTube will do that if they feel like that's what
the viewer is interested in, watching more videos
from that creator,
whatever is going to increase that viewing session
the longest and keep someone on YouTube
engaging with as much content as possible,
as many channels as possible, seeing as many ads
as possible, right?
That's ultimately what YouTube's going for here at the
end of the day and so, if YouTube feels like showing
more videos from that same channel, it's going to do it,
that's what they'll do.
Another thing that YouTube takes into consideration
is of the people who watch this video,
how many of those people then watch video A
or B or C or D and they'll start learning
most people who watch this video go ahead and watch
video C and so, that will make C more likely to stay
a suggested video to the video that that viewer is watching.
A third thing that YouTube will look for are
other videos with similar titles and keywords.
Now I know this sounds like I'm just contradicting myself
here but there's a lot of factors that go into this.
Let's say, for example, that if you type in something
into YouTube search because you are looking for
a specific thing and you found a video that shows you
how to unclog your drain, then you're most likely going
to see more videos about how to unclog a drain
because YouTube has determined that if you typed that in,
you are looking for that specific thing.
It's not always just totally because of keyword matching.
A fourth thing that YouTube considers is just
what content would be interesting to you.
It actually doesn't have to be related to the content
or the video you're watching at all.
For example, I don't subscribe to Jimmy Fallon on YouTube
but YouTube knows that if I see a good Jimmy Fallon video
there, I will click and watch it, even if it has
nothing to do with the video I'm currently watching.
YouTube knows all my past viewing history.
They know all the channels I'm subscribed to.
They know what other people who subscribe to those
channels, what kinda channels they also subscribe to
that I'm not subscribed to that they could then suggest.
They know what things I searched for last week
that maybe they should surface again this week.
They know every video I did not click on and every video
I do tend to click on.
They learn about my preference and my styles
and my tastes amazingly well.
Even for users who are not logged into YouTube,
YouTube is still very, very smart and can know
a lot about that person.
So, the main principle to consider here is that
suggested videos are not only videos that are relevant
to the actual content that someone's watching,
but it's a mix of what's relevant to the content
and what's relevant to the viewer.
So, what can you do on your videos to increase
the likelihood that YouTube will introduce your videos
to this massive traffic source on YouTube?
Well, there's a few things you can do actually.
Number one, make videos that a specific target audience
wants to watch.
I know that sounds pretty obvious, but it's totally true.
Too many creators just make generic videos
hoping that a generic audience will want to watch it
and when you try to reach everybody, most of the time,
you reach nobody.
So, instead, think who exactly is the most ideal
subscriber to my channel?
Who is the most ideal viewer of my YouTube videos?
And what types of things do they want to watch?
What are they looking for that they would be enticed
to watch that is different than all the generic stuff
that they're getting out there from other creators?
You need to know your target audience very intimately
so that you can hook their attention, keep their attention,
hold their attention, get to the end of that video
and watching more of your content.
And the more that happens, the more YouTube's like oh,
this specific person normally watches a ton of this channel.
Let's suggest more of this channel to this specific
person, this audience and that's what's gonna start
getting you the boost that ya need.
The next thing you need to do is analyze your audience
retention graphs in detail, on all your videos
so that you know and you start learning exactly
what hooks my target audiences attention?
What holds their attention?
What keeps their attention?
What keeps them watching longer?
What things do I do that cause them to abandon my videos?
What things get them to click on another video
in the end screen and keep watching?
The goal here is to learn the patterns of what
keeps your audience as well as what loses your audience
and start eliminating the patterns that you start
noticing that is causing your audience to leave
so that you can keep their attention,
get more watch time, increase the session watch time
and start getting that lift on your channel,
on your videos overall.
Third and you guys have heard me say this many times before
but it's so totally true, is that you need to craft
titles and thumbnails that hook someone's attention
in the first place.
So if you're making like tutorial, DIY type of videos,
any educational type of content, you need to accurately
pitch the value of that video to someone in your
target audience or if you're making entertainment-based
content like vlogs and gaming, ya know,
or skits or comedy or things, something like that,
the entertainment ones need to accurately pitch
and tease the story of that video to someone in your
target audience.
So, don't spend 15 hours working on a video only to spend
five minutes on the title and thumbnail and then just
throw it up and hope that it performs based on nothing
more than the merit of the content.
Obviously, good content is important which we just
talked about in the previous point.
But the title and the thumbnail is what's going to
get people to that video and watch it in the first place.
So, I think it's worth your time to study
how to write good headlines and titles.
Google and search a lot for how newspapers do it
and how bloggers do it and how magazines
craft good headlines 'cause their business rises and falls
also based on the headlines of their material.
Regarding thumbnails, maybe it'd be a good idea
to take some design element courses through
a different online program or something, just learn
how do I up the visual enticement of my thumbnails
in a way that still accurately represents the content
they're about to watch.
If you had figured out a few other good tactics,
I wanna hear them in the comments below
and the rest of you guys read those comments down there.
You'll learn a ton from those people.
I always do.
The community around here is awesome.
And if you're not a part of it, I would love for you to
subscribe because every week, multiple times a week,
we got videos just to help you guys know how to
grow your YouTube channel, the money that you're making
year round, the audience that you're growing
all for the purpose of reaching these people with a message
that you're spreading so you can change
and impact their lives.
But thank you guys for letting me be a small part of that
here, subscribe and I'll see you guys again on Monday
and Tuesday and Thursday next week.
See ya, bye.