What is up, everyone?
Welcome back to my channel.
In today's video, I'm going to teach you YouTube optimization strategies so that you can get
more views on your videos and you can grow your channel faster.
In my last video here, I talked all about how to go viral on YouTube and how a small
YouTuber like me blew up kind of overnight.
Well, in this video, I'm actually going to finish up some of the hacks that I shared
in the last video and teach you how you can really optimize your YouTube channel so that
YouTube will favor you in the algorithm, which would then lead to more views and more subscribers
to your channel.
Now, before I get started and do a deep dive on my hacks, I have to tell you that this
video is actually in collaboration with Lauren Tickner.
I'm going to give you three hacks, and she's going to give you the other three, so after
you watch this video, make sure you go to her channel and check the rest of the hacks
out.
That being said, guys, I also have a special bonus for you, so make sure that you actually
download this checklist that really rounds up optimization for you guys, so every time
you're uploading a video, you can follow along, and make sure that your video is fully optimized.
I'm going to link it in the comments section below and in the description box, so make
sure you download this optimization checklist so that you can be on top of your stuff every
single time you upload a video.
All right, so one thing that you really need to know about YouTube success is understanding
the key metrics that you need to keep track of.
The ultimate goal for any content creator is hoping that YouTube will actually recommend
your videos to people who aren't even looking for you.
In order for you to actually get to that point where YouTube is favoring your videos in the
algorithm, you need to have good watch time.
YouTube success is not just determined by views or by subscribers.
It's really determined by how long your audience is actually engaged with your videos and the
length of duration that they actually watch your videos for.
Because YouTube is a content platform, they obviously favor content creators who have
the ability to create really good content that allows viewers to stay on the YouTube
platform for as long as possible.
That's why what you'll notice in the next three tips that I give you, it's going to
be solely focused on helping you increase that watch time so that YouTube will pick
up your video in the algorithm and increase your chances of getting more views and more
subscribers.
Now, the first tip I have for you is perfect if you are already an existing content creator,
and that is, is to look at your analytics.
I feel like analytics is something that a lot of us content creators gloss over.
However, it's probably one of the key things that YouTube gives back to you as a content
creator that gives you a lot of clues and nuggets of wisdom on how you can improve in
terms of creating your videos.
That's why I'm going to share my screen and show you some of my favorite key analytic
tools that allow me to understand why people aren't watching my videos, or how I can improve
my videos so that people watch them for longer.
Hey, guys.
Right now, we are in the analytics section of my Creator Studio for my YouTube channel.
Now, obviously, when you go on the overview, YouTube is going to tell you your average
watch time and also your average view duration, but what I really want to show you that's
really cool is actually looking at all the analytics that's under the watch time reports.
One of my favorite ones that I'm going to show you in this video is audience retention,
so let's click on this tab right here.
Okay, so audience retention is going to tell you a number of things.
It's going to tell you your average view duration, so with all of my videos, my average view
duration is about five minutes and 48 seconds, and also the average percentage viewed.
For my video in the last 28 days, on average, people finish about 40% of my videos.
Now, obviously, this is going to be different for everyone depending on the length of your
video.
If you have a one-minute video and everyone watches the one minute of that video, your
average percentage viewed is obviously going to be 100%.
The longer your videos are, the smaller this percentage most likely will be, but anyways,
what I actually really wanted to show you is, you can actually look at your audience
retention report per video, so I'm going to go on my Gain Instagram Followers Organically
video.
This one is my most popular video to date, so let's take a look.
Once you get into this report, you're going to see the audience retention report for this
specific video, and there are two tabs here.
The first one is "Absolute audience retention," and the second one is "Relative audience retention."
What absolute audience retention is, is basically it's looking at the specific video and telling
you, at what point in the video do people start dropping off?
Relative audience retention, on the other hand, shows you how your video compares to
other videos on YouTube of the similar length.
For example, for my video, this one specifically on how to grow Instagram followers organically,
in the beginning sections of the video, I'm actually performing above-average compared
to other videos that are of this similar length.
As you go through, I perform average, and then near the end, I'm kind of more so leaning
towards below average near the 13-minute mark.
This is kind of cool to see how you compare to other people on YouTube for the similar
length video, but what I really want to focus on is absolute audience retention.
This one is a very key tool that you can leverage when you are looking at your analytics and
when you are trying to understand how you can improve from your videos.
This really tells me when people are dropping off in the video.
Now, as you can see here, a lot of people have dropped off near this beginning, and
this, there's a little dip here.
When I actually click on this dip, it'll redirect me to the exact point in the video so that
I can understand where exactly I went wrong.
In this mark here, I just watched the video myself, is kind of showing me that my intro
was a little bit too long, so my intro was about two minutes long, and naturally, people
were just dropping off.
Now, that's something that I need to note for the future, and I actually have noted
for the future, and now, this is why for a lot of my videos, I keep my intro really short
so that I can preserve my watch time and encourage people to watch more of my video.
Now, the second thing that you want to know is, actually look for peaks within your graph,
so any time that there is a peak, that means that people are actually going back to rewatch
a portion of your video.
There is a peak here which shows that people were actually rewinding back to this particular
scene within my video, which is me showing the different hashtag sizes, so this makes
a lot of sense.
Not only this, if you actually look here, there starts to be a little bit of a dip again
at this 13-minute mark.
When I watch this video, this is actually when I conclude the video, so naturally, when
I am concluding the video, most people are exiting out, and this is what this graph is
telling me.
What are some key takeaways when you are looking at the audience retention report?
Well, the first takeaway is that if you see major drop-offs at certain points of your
video, really pay attention to why people are dropping off.
Are you talking for too long?
Are you stuttering?
Is your intro boring?
Is the tip bad?
So on and so forth.
When there are people that are rewatching certain scenes of your video, really ask yourself
why.
Was there a really interesting infographic?
Were you playing B-roll?
So on and so forth.
These are really interesting things to kind of pay attention to when you are looking at
your analytics report, so that's why I really wanted to show you audience retention, because
this one is one of my key favorite features when I look at my YouTube analytics, and when
I want to understand how I can improve my videos and my watch time.
All right.
I hope you had fun being an analytical nerd with me, but the second tip that I have for
you is actually to leverage playlists.
Now, I know.
This sounds like a really, really basic tip, but it is extremely important.
In a second, I'm going to share my screen again and tell you exactly why.
All right, so one thing that's really important is actually having playlists.
As simple and basic as this tip is, the reason why it is really important is because when
you have playlists, it'll actually increase the chances of YouTube recommending your own
video to play after a viewer watches your video.
If you don't have playlists, then most likely in this section here, YouTube will recommend
a video of your competitors or something else.
If you actually create playlists, it'll increase the chances of this section being an existing
video that you already have, especially if you've put it in a playlist.
Now, it's not guaranteed that this happens every single time, because at the end of the
day, YouTube will always recommend a video that they think is best for the audience.
However, by implementing playlists, it will increase the chances, and it goes to show
that you are creating opportunities for your audience to binge on your content.
Another thing that you want to know about playlists other than just adding a basic playlist
within your channel is, is that you also want to put your playlists on your homepage as
well.
Not a lot of YouTubers actually do this.
To be honest, I didn't even realize I wasn't doing this either until someone told me about
it, but basically, what you want to do is, you actually want to add sections within the
homepage of your channel.
If you actually look at my channel from the perspective of a new subscriber, what they
see is not just my uploads, but on the homepage they also see all of my playlists, so the
visitor can always look at my business advice videos, my social media tips, my Instagram
hacks, so on and so forth, and it's right at the tips of their fingers, because it's
straight from my homepage.
What you want to do to get this is, you actually want to click Customize Channel, and once
you get to Customize Channel, you'll see this page.
You'll see your uploads, but what you also want to do is, you actually want to click
"Add a section" so that you can add an actual section within your homepage and your YouTube
channel.
You then want to click "Single playlist," select "Horizontal row."
Then within your own playlists, you choose the playlist that you want to feature.
For me, let's say I'm going to do Instagram Hacks.
Then it'll show all my Instagram Hack videos that I've already put it in a preexisting
playlist, and actually tidy up, tidy it up a little and put it on my homepage as a horizontal
view, which is really nice.
What you can also do is, you can do a vertical list if you want to, so they show up like
this, but for me, I personally prefer having it in horizontal.
Done.
Once you click Done, you can actually choose where and which section you want to show first
within your homepage.
For me, I've put Instagram Hacks right under Social Media Tips, and that's how I've personally
organized my page.
Hopefully, this tip really helps you to encourage your audience to binge on your content, which
will then allow YouTube to favor you as a content creator because you are encouraging
people to stay on the platform for longer.
All right, so the third and last tip that I have is adding info cards and end screens.
Now, I feel like a lot of content creators think that this is an optional step, but it
is absolutely not.
In order to actually be a fully optimized video for YouTube, you need to leverage the
end screen feature and the info card feature.
The reason why you want to do that is because once you've actually implemented it, it'll
flag to YouTube that, number one, this is an optimized video, but second of all, you
are encouraging people to continue to binge on your content.
Very similar to what we were saying about the playlists, the end screens and info cards
are crucial in order to show to YouTube that you are trying to get people to stay on the
platform for a lot longer.
Again, I'm going to share my screen and explain and show you how and why this works.
All right.
Last but not least, after you've understood how to improve your videos to increase your
watch time, and you've created and optimized all your playlists and made them super visible
to your audience, what you also don't want to miss out on is adding end screens and info
cards into your videos.
Now, this is something that YouTube has created in order to, again, encourage people to binge
watch videos on YouTube.
If your video doesn't have end screens or info cards, it shows to YouTube that you are
not a fully optimized video.
Now, if you don't know what end screens are, end screens is basically something that you
see at the end of most of content creators' videos, which encourage you to take action
after the video is over.
Essentially, this is what it would look like.
You would have your videos here, and the more videos that you put in, the better, so usually
YouTube will ask you for a maximum of two, I believe, for you to put in your end screen.
You can also add this little call to action button, which allows people to subscribe to
your channel, and you can also add a link so that people can visit your website or direct
them somewhere else.
I believe you have to have a certain amount of subscribers or certain amount of watch
time in order to unlock this feature, but definitely check it out and see if you can
do it for your channel.
The next thing that you also want to know is info cards.
Now, what info cards are basically are the cards that show up in the top right-hand corner
of a video, so if you actually look at here, you'll see that an info card will pop up like
that.
What you want to do to make sure that your videos are optimized is make sure that you
are including relevant info cards in your video and putting them all across your video
so that people will be more inclined to actually continue watching different pieces of your
content.
By doing this, it can increase the chances of you getting more views on your videos,
because, especially for someone who is new to your channel who's not aware of your other
videos, it's going to be really great to actually put those info cards in, especially if they
are relevant to the current video that they're watching.
For instance, this video is about social media, so obviously, all the five info cards that
I use are going to be about social media as well.
All right, guys, so those are my top three tips in terms of how you can improve the number
one key metric here on YouTube, which is watch time.
I guarantee that if you increase your watch time, it will increase the chances of YouTube
actually pushing out your video and recommending it to a new audience.
Before you click out of this video, make sure you check out part two, created by my friend
Lauren Tickner.
Yes, I talked a lot about the strategies to increase your watch time, but Lauren is going
to give her strategies on how to improve your keywords and also have better thumbnails so
that you will stand out from the sea of competition.
That being said, guys, as always, thank you so, so much for watching this video.
I really hope that you enjoyed it and learned something new.
I hope you guys have a great day, a great week, and a great life.
I'll see you in the next one.
Bye, guys.