How to Get Views on YouTube

YouTube has become more than just a place to watch funny cat videos over the years.  The popular video-sharing platform has since evolved and has now become one of the largest marketing tools business owners rely on.

To put it simply, having a strong YouTube presence can help your business bring in the big bucks.

This is why getting lots of views is essential. The more people who see your content, the more your brand gains credibility.

The thing is, getting noticed isn’t a walk in the park.  With millions of videos competing for attention, you need to craft specific strategies that will urge people to watch.

That being said, below are some of the ways you can get more views on YouTube.

How to Create Attention-Grabbing Thumbnails

The key to increasing views on YouTube is to get people’s attention.  Right from the get-go, your video needs to “hook” people in and there’s no better way to do this than through the video’s thumbnail preview.

This is because thumbnails are the very first thing people see.  If the thumbnail preview isn’t interesting enough, what makes you think people will bother to click and continue watching?

Thumbnail previews should be eye-catching enough to attract attention and below are a couple of tips that will help you produce one:

Use the BYOG Method

BYOG is short for Blue, Orange, Green, and Yellow which are the exact contrast of YouTube’s very own colors – Red, Black, and White.

Why is this effective?

Because YouTube is predominantly red, black, and white.  Using contrasting colors like BYOG makes your video stand out and in the process, grab people’s attention as well.

Add Descriptive Text

Choosing a still from the video itself makes it unattractive, out-of-context, and lame.  Adding descriptive text in big, visible letters gives the video a better chance of being seen because it entices your audience.

Just be sure to make it short and that it complements the title to make this tactic more effective.

How to Craft Compelling Titles

Equally important in increasing views is the quality of the titles you create for your videos.   Like the thumbnail, it is also one of the first things people see when they scroll through their feeds.

A compelling title can make a huge difference.  In fact, even YouTube itself has said that “Well-written titles can be the difference between someone watching and sharing your video, or scrolling right past it.”

What does a compelling title look like, anyway?

A compelling title should focus on the benefits.  It should mention why people should watch it and what they’ll gain from it instead of simply narrating what the video talks about.

Titles should also be relatively short because making it long can get some parts truncated.  Keep it short and sweet without sacrificing quality.

More importantly, titles should contain your main keyword because this will help your videos appear more in searches thereby increasing your chances of getting seen.

Adding numbers to the title has also been proven to help increase views.  It can be either the number of tips you’re giving, the year the video was taken, or the weight you lost doing your exercise videos.

How to Share Videos on Other Platforms

If you want to put your videos in front of more eyes, you have to leverage the audience of other platforms outside of YouTube.

By promoting your videos on online communities like Reddit, Quora, and online forums, more people will learn about them.

This is especially true for online communities because it is in these places where people post a lot of questions that your video may be able to answer.

If you’re into workout videos and someone posted a question about push-ups, for example, you can easily drive those people towards your YouTube channel by giving them the link to your push-up videos.

How to Feature Your Videos on One of Your Blog Posts

Another strategy that’s been proven to attract views is by featuring your videos on your blog. To help make your content more engaging, you can write a blog post on a topic that relates to your video. Your blog post can provide additional details or examples that you may not have been able to cover in your videos.

This tactic is quite easy because all you need to do is embed links to the videos within the paragraphs of the blog.

Just make sure you’re embedding the links in blog posts with relevant topics so it doesn’t look like you’re forcing or hard selling people to watch the video.

This strategy will not only get you more views, but it will also help your videos rank higher in YouTube’s search results.

How to Publish Videos When Your Audience Is Online

When it comes to social media, timing is everything which means the time you publish posts can have big consequences on the amount of reach and engagement it will get.

YouTube videos aren’t that much different.  Videos published at the “right time” tend to get more views compared to those that were published otherwise.

But how do you determine what the right time is?

Fortunately, you can now identify peak points through YouTube’s new report: “When your viewers are on YouTube.”

This will ensure that your audience is there to consume your content upon publishing which will increase the likelihood of getting more views.

A good practice will be to publish the videos one hour before the peak to give your audience enough time to find and watch the videos.  With more people discovering your videos, you’ll be getting more views as well.

How to Use YouTube Ads

YouTube ads can be one of the most effective ways to get your product/service in front of lots of eyes. But before you start going crazy and spending money on ads, it’s important to understand how they work.

YouTube offers two kinds of ads: skippable and non-skippable. As the name suggests, skippable ads give people the option the skip them, usually after five seconds. Skippable ads can be shown in-stream or in display. In-stream ads are shown at the start of a video. In display ads can be shown in search listings or as overlays in videos.

Non-skippable ads, on the other hand, play all the way through without giving people the option to end the ad early. These ads get better engagement, but viewers are more likely to exit without watching the video.

The type of ads you should use depends on your goal, but since this article is focused on getting more views on your own YouTube videos, we’re going to suggest in-stream ads as these are more likely to direct people back to your channel and help you gain views and subscribers.

You can also utilize YouTube SEO to help drive traffic to your YouTube channel through organics searches.

Conclusion

Now that you’ve gotten some helpful tips to help you build your YouTube channel, you want to make sure you’re providing high-quality content to keep your viewers coming back for more.

If you need help with creating the perfect videos, consider hiring a freelance videographer today.