- So many YouTube creators are focusing on search
to try to grow their channels.
But what we have found
is that when you hit explosive growth on your channel,
it very rarely comes from search.
It almost always comes from suggested videos
and the homepage.
And today I want to give you guys a plan,
a strategy that you can implement on your channel
in order to just dominate those suggested views
and blow up your channel.
(futuristic computer sounds)
Hey guys! My name is Tim Schmoyer.
Welcome to Video Creators.
We are all about helping you guys
grow your YouTube audience.
Get more views, more subscribers, make more money,
so that you can reach more people
and change their lives with the messages
that you are spreading.
So thank you for letting us be a small part
of that with you here today.
If you are a smart YouTube creator,
then targeting suggested traffic and homepage traffic
and things like that should be a part
of your strategy for growing your channel.
But most creators,
hopefully not like you,
are making some pretty big mistakes
when it comes to how they do that.
Most of the time creators mistakenly
believe that ranking, and suggested, and homepage,
and other places like that around YouTube
are based on metadata.
Keywords, tags.
So they'll do things, like
if they want their video
to rank next to Pewdiepie,
then they add Pewdiepie to the tag to their video.
Or sometimes they'll look at a video that's
performing well, and they'll just copy all their tags
and paste that to their video,
thinking the tags must be
what's making the video perform well, right?
It's not.
Sometimes a creator will look at the title
of the video that's performing very well on YouTube,
and they'll think, oh!
I just need to use that title in my video.
So they just copy it, or maybe change one or two things
thinking that having a very similar title
will mean they'll either get
positioned next to that video as a suggested video,
or their video will perform
just the same as that other video is.
Let me share with you how it actually works,
and then a few things that you can do to increase
the likelihood that your videos will be suggested.
First of all, YouTube suggests videos
because they believe that the next video that
they're surfacing for the viewer is likely the next video
that they will want to watch because they watched
this previous video.
What YouTube is trying to do is increase
that viewing session to be as long as possible.
YouTube will track that information,
and start learning that, hey!
If we surface video A,
people stay on YouTube
for an extra thirty minutes.
But if we put video B in front of them,
they stay on YouTube for only an extra five minutes.
So video B will probably not
become nearly as suggested as video A.
So one practical takeaway here is that
if your videos are always trying to end
the viewing session by getting people over to your website,
to buy your course, or download your
thing for your business,
or follow you on Instagram, or whatever,
that video just might not perform very well long term
because if it's effectively ending the viewing session,
then it's probably not going to be suggested that great
in the future.
One of the best ways that my team and I here at
Video Creators have learned to kind of predict
and track this on a video is to look at
the metric in your YouTube analytics called
end screen elements shown.
And that is a helpful metric because it shows you
what percentage of the people who clicked play
got to end of this video.
And then the next metric we look at is
end screen elements clicked.
The click through rate on the end screen elements.
And that's important because now that indicates
how many people not only got the end of the video,
but now what percentage of those people
clicked to keep watching more
and extending the viewing session.
What's great about that is we are now controlling
what video they clicked to watch next.
The more people we get to the end of our video,
and the more of them click that next video
to watch another one on our channel,
that next video is more likely now
to become suggested to that
first video because YouTube starts learning, hey!
If we surface this video, they get to the end,
this percentage of the people want to click
and watch this next video.
But here's the bonus trick;
when they get to the end of your video,
don't just give them another video to click and watch.
Instead, give them a short playlist.
And if you get them to do a playlist,
these are amazing powerful tools that are so underutilized.
Think of it not as the primary goal here
is to organize content.
Like put all your videos about this topic into a category.
It's not about that.
The playlist,
the goal should be to get a viewer to watch one video,
and another video, and another video,
and another video, right?
So now you can actually start crafting the viewing session.
And guess what?
When people get into a playlist, and you start seeing
in your data more and more people
making it through that playlist,
those videos you also see are more likely to
become suggested to each other.
Even for viewers who aren't in the playlist.
Now, I already know that the most thumbed up, liked
question comment that you guys are going to ask below
this video is, I get this percentage.
Is that good or bad?
Let me give you a number I would shoot for
if I were you.
I would focus on getting fifty percent
of the people who clicked play on your video
to the end of your video.
I don't mean fifty percent average retention overall.
I mean half the people who clicked play
are getting to the end.
That is really, really hard.
I like setting the bar high because when you get there,
like, oh my gosh!
Your channel will just take off!
But, what if I want my video to be suggested
next to that other popular YouTube creator's video?
What then?
You unfortunately have a little less
control in this situation.
But there are a few things that you can do.
I would consider, what would be the next natural,
logical video that someone might want to watch after
watching that other person's video?
For example, maybe you find that there's a gap
in their content.
Or there's a common question that everyone
in the comments is asking.
One of the ways I've found that really helps
is if you start by calling out that other video
in the video that you're making.
It's not absolutely necessary.
It doesn't always work, but I think the principle
there is that when one of those viewers from that
other video comes to your video,
they immediately feel like, oh!
I'm in the right place.
Or, oh!
They are addressing the exact piece of content
that I have the question about.
People don't want to watch the same video they just watched.
They got that information.
Now they want the next step.
What's the next logical question they might ask?
There's a few other things you need to know
in order for all this to really work.
Like how to increase the click through rate
on your titles and thumbnails.
You're going to be suggested if no one's
clicking on your videos, right?
And how do you design your end screens for more clicks?
What's the best place to put those elements
where people are most likely to click?
We've done a lot of studies and research on that
with our clients.
We put together a short playlist for you guys right here,
that you can click on to go that'll answer
a lot of those questions.
And now you can see exactly why I'm pitching that
as opposed to telling you to subscribe.
Because I want those videos to be suggested to each other
and to this one.
So help me out!
Click, and I'll see you guys in those next videos.