Subrat Kar
Subrat is the co-founder & CEO of Vidooly, a YouTube video marketing & analytics suite for content creators, brands & MCNs. He is a product, marketing & analytics guy, loves all aspects of video marketing, analytics.
YouTube is the second most popular search engine in world just behind Google. Over 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month & 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Brands & Content creators have adopted YouTube as one of the most effective marketing medium to engage with their customers and users.
Do you know around 52% of viewers arrive to your YouTube video due to search & related videos? You can make your channel & video more discoverable through proper title, tag, description, thumbnail image & watch time optimization. Interesting contents always drive users attention to watch & hence increases the watch time of your channel that helps you to get appear on search results.
Here are some tips to get new viewers to your YouTube video.
# Optimize your meta data properly
Metadata in YouTube refers to information about your video that includes the title, description, tags, category, thumbnail, subtitles and annotations. This metadata can help audience to discover your videos on YouTube effectively.
If your video title matches to the thumbnail image then there are chances to get more clicks based on the context. You have to make sure that your metadata should contain relevant content to your video. Sometime people miss match the thumbnail image with their title that causes less attention to users click on it.
Here are a few points regarding meta data that will help your video to be found on search results
- Always try to put short & concise title of video as possible as you can. Include relevant keyword in your title that will help you get appear on search results.
- Don’t use un-necessary keywords in your title that does not represent your content which may create confusion to your audience click on it.
- Put the accurate description of your video in one to three concise sentences at the top. Don’t forget to include the keywords relevant to your video. Try to use atleast one keyword of your title on description that will help content discovery.
- Best video thumbnail images has more power to drive click rates. So, always put highly relevant thumbnail image of your video while uploading.
- Observe how titles and descriptions appear in search results, suggested videos, What to Watch, etc. Shorter titles often work best because long titles can be cut off depending on available width. Good descriptions add context to the video when it appears in search results. Consider replacing links from the top of your description with relevant text that gives context for prospective viewers.
- Upload subtitles and closed captions for your videos. These files are indexed and broaden your audience to non-native language speakers and viewers who are deaf and hard of hearing.
- Use annotations in your video & link them to the next or popular video that will drive more watch time & hence will improve your search ranking of your channel. While using annotations, you have to work out on color combination related to the background of video that will drive higher click rates.
- If you are uploading contents in a series, try to include the videos in a single Playlist. YouTube gives higher preference to the Playlist videos on search ranking. Don’t forget to put the description of your playlist.
# Optimize watch time
Watch Time is an important metric for YouTube’s search ranking. YouTube suggests those videos to users that have longer watch time, not to those who have higher views. If you’re making videos that people are watching & spending more time on YouTube to watch more contents then YouTube will suggest those videos to new users often.
Keep few points in mind to increase watch time of your video
- Try to use annotations in the video and back link them to popular or relevant videos to make it easy for viewers to continue watching & hence your watch time can be improved.
- Encourage your audience to like, comment & share your videos that impact your watch time. Don’t ever divert them to go away from YouTube. Always put internal links of video in the description.
- Use playlist to club similar videos at a single point
- Build long watch-time sessions for your content by organizing and featuring content on your channel.
- Use Audience Analytics view report to understand the performance of your video. The report shows which videos have low view times and view-through rates, and indicates which videos are successful at keeping viewers watching. So that you can have over all idea which type of contents drive more watch time & in next time you can produce similar type of contents.
Hope the above strategy will help you get new viewers to your video!