Getting more views on YouTube videos can seem like an impossible task, especially when you’re just starting your channel.
While other creators in your niche are getting hundreds of thousands or even millions of views, you get ten or twenty, a couple hundred if you’re lucky.
Clearly, your videos are not getting in front of your intended audience. Or maybe your content is not broad enough to appeal to a lot of people. Whatever the reason, not enough people are watching your YouTube videos to help you make a profit.
It’s time to change that.
When it comes to getting more YouTube views, change doesn’t happen overnight. Instead, it happens through small, meaningful actions. The more you practice and perfect these actions, the more views you’ll get.
How to Get More Views on YouTube Videos
To learn how to get more views on YouTube videos, follow these 15 useful tips.
1. Find Out What Your Audience Wants to Watch
Consider this your first step in reevaluating your channel.
Sometimes, as YouTube creators, we show a blind eye to the true usefulness or universal appeal of our content. What we think is interesting, funny, or cool, may not translate the same way to the average viewer, and that disconnect between creator and audience could cost us YouTube views.
Therefore, you should take a step back for a second and instead of focusing on what you want to create, find out what your audience wants to watch.
To start this tip, do some research. Look at what other creators in your niche are putting out that’s getting a lot of views. Look at what’s trending in similar categories on YouTube. These two areas will help you come up with more targeted video content ideas.
You can also put out a poll on your channel to ask people what type of content they want to see from you in the future. Even if you only get a few responses, you’ll still have something to go on that indicates the kinds of videos people want to watch.
2. Use Keywords to Create An SEO Title
We’re going to turn this article into a YouTube SEO guide for a hot minute.
SEO, which stands for “search engine optimization,” is a marketing strategy that helps creators optimize their YouTube content for keywords. Keywords are words or phrases that people put into search engines when they’re looking for something specific.
SEO is why when you type in a keyword, such as “how to get more views on YouTube videos,” an article like ours pops up. We made sure to include that specific phrase a few times throughout this article so that it is more likely to show up in search results. It works the same for videos, as well.
To discover which keywords people will be most likely to search for to find your content, you can use a keyword research tool like Google Keywords Planner (or any number of others on the internet).
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You can also do your own research by entering words that are associated with your content into the Google and YouTube search bars, and seeing what comes up.
Once you’ve done this work, incorporate one or some of the keywords you found into the title of your YouTube video. Make sure they’re relevant to the content of the video and that your title still makes sense in the end.
With an SEO title, your video is now more likely to be discovered organically through the YouTube and Google searches.
Further Reading: Video Marketing SEO: 11 Ways to Optimize Your Video for Search
3. Make the Title More Catchy
To get more YouTube views, your video title needs to be catchy. Titles with words like “top” or “best” in it along with a numbered list tend to catch a lot of people’s attention. “How to” videos are also extremely popular.
If you have room for it, your title should also excite an emotion or speak to a pain point that people are having. This will create a sense of curiosity in the person who reads it and encourage them to click on it.
For example, the title of this article is called “15 Useful Tips For How to Get More Views On YouTube.” We included a number as well as the word “useful” to catch the attention of people who need practical help getting more YouTube views.
That need is a pain point. Anyone who has that need will be curious about our 15 useful tips, so they will click on our article to find out more.
You’ll generate a lot more views on your videos when your title is both catchy and touches an emotion or pain point.
4. Include Keywords In Your Video Metadata
We’re back to keywords again. You’ll see them once more in this list, so don’t get tired of them just yet.
One word you haven’t seen us talk about yet, though, is metadata.
Metadata is extra information about your video and includes the title, description, and tags. We’ve already gone into detail about including keywords in your title because it’s one of the most important elements of your video. For this section, we’ll focus on your description and tags.
Your description should, for lack of a better term, describe your video. But it should describe it well, with clear language, in one or two sentences, and of course, with keywords. Keywords are essential for helping your video appear in searches, and the more places you include them, the better.
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That’s why you should try to include them in tags, too. We’ll talk more about tags and why they’re important later in the article. For now, just know that you shouldn’t skip optimizing your metadata for SEO. It can help you generate more YouTube views.
5. Upload A Transcript Of Your Video
Uploading a transcript of your video is not just a great way to allow viewers of all kinds, including those with hearing impairments, to enjoy your content. It’s also a great way – you guessed it – incorporate more keywords.
Chances are that the keywords you’re optimizing your content for are already in your video. You probably say the words aloud. Uploading your transcript is a simple way to add those keywords as searchable text into your content, without overdoing it in your metadata.
6. Tag Your Video
Adding tags to your videos in the description may help you show up in more searches. These tags are the same as they are on other social media platforms – a hashtag followed by a relevant keyword.
The benefit of tagging your video is that they may help your content may show up on the sidebar of other, similarly tagged videos in the “Related Videos.” This is not a surefire way of getting more views, but it’s another avenue.
7. Make Your Thumbnails More Interesting
When people scroll through YouTube, the first thing they see on a video is the thumbnail. It’s also one of the factors they use to decide if they want to watch the video or not.
To get more views, you should spend a lot of time on your videos’ thumbnails to make sure they’re eye-catching and interesting. You’ll want the image to be clear and high quality, and you’ll also want it to tell a story. That story is a preview of what the viewer can expect to see if they click on the video.
The thumbnail should also match the title. If a viewer sees something intriguing or appealing in your thumbnail, but the title doesn’t say anything about it, then they’ll move on to a different video.
Further Reading: The Best 14 Thumbnail Makers for YouTube
8. Make Your Videos Longer
If you’re not getting many views on your YouTube videos, you should consider how long your videos are. And consider making them longer.
Longer videos tend to outperform shorter ones in Google and YouTube searches. The reason for this may be that when people search for something on Google or YouTube, they are often looking for information. The longer the video, the more information it is likely to share, and therefore it’s more useful than a short one.
Don’t purposely make your videos longer if you don’t have enough information to share to make it worth the extra minutes. Instead, you should make a high-quality video that is as useful as possible. If it ends up being several minutes, or even over ten minutes long, then it will all be in your favor.
9. Post How To Videos
According to Google, how-to videos are the most popular category of YouTube content behind entertainment/pop culture, music, and comedy.
The reason we recommend making how-to videos is they work for every subject or niche you can think of. You should find it easy to fit them into your content plan.
10. Create Video Playlists
Video playlists help keep views rolling in on your channel. Here’s how.
If a viewer enjoys watching one of your videos and wants more, then they can simply navigate to one of your playlists and keep watching. This takes the work out of finding more of your content and lets them keep playing your videos one after another.
Side note: this is also why it’s important to make your video content useful and targeted to what your audience wants to watch. Playlists allow your audience to keep consuming that useful content like candy. Meanwhile, the views keep coming in.
11. Populate Your Video With Cards And Links To Your Other Videos
SEO and playlists aren’t the only tools to get more views on YouTube that you have in your arsenal. You also have cards and links.
Cards and links are clickable areas of your YouTube video that you can use to direct your viewers to more of your content. For example, if you want them to see a previous video you made in an ongoing series, you can insert a card that they can click on which will lead them to it. You can also insert links to your playlists, your social media, or anything.
Just keep two things in mind:
- Don’t spam your viewers with cards and links. If they can’t see the actual video because you put it in too many pop-ups, they’ll find something else to watch.
- Make sure that whatever you’re linking to gets you more YouTube views. That means it should be to another video or a playlist or even your channel.
Further Reading: YouTube Cards: What They Are and How to Best Leverage Them
12. Engage With Your Audience
YouTube is just like any other social media platform. It’s a place for viewers to discuss topics and talk to creators.
As a creator, you should be engaging with your audience to get more YouTube views. The more you respond to viewers’ comments, hold polls, and do giveaways, the more you encourage them to watch and like your videos.
13. Ask Your Viewers To Subscribe
Subscriptions are important on YouTube. They remind viewers when their favorite channels put out new videos for them to watch. They also help creators build audience anticipation for future content by posting sneak peeks.
Having a solid base of subscribers who will consistently view your content is why you should always ask your viewers to subscribe to your channel.
Do it at the beginning and end of every video, and even once or twice during the main content if the video is long. This way, you’ll remind viewers that if they like your content, they won’t ever miss out on what you put out in the future if they become subscribers.
Meanwhile, you’re building a bottomless resource for future YouTube views.
Further Reading: 17 Smart Ways How to Get More Subscribers on YouTube
14. Collaborate With Other YouTube Creators
Collaborating with other YouTube creators can get you a lot of new views, especially if you’re still new to the platform and you collaborate with someone who is more seasoned. It puts you in front of an audience that didn’t even know you existed before, who will find your content new and fresh.
Pro Tip: Try working with a channel that occupies the same niche as you or is connected to it in some way. This way, when viewers watch the collaborative video on the other person’s channel, they will see that you provide similar content and decide to follow you, as well.
15. Promote Your Videos On Other Social Media Platforms
Our final tip requires you to promote your videos on your other social media accounts. Facebook is the second most popular platform for watching video content after YouTube. TikTok comes in third.
Pro Tip: You can post short clips of your YouTube videos to your TikTok account, with a link to your YouTube channel in case viewers want to see more
We know it’s not easy to get views on YouTube videos, at least not at first. But the more marketing and YouTube SEO guide tools you have in your toolbox and the better you get at using them, the more views will come flowing in. By practicing and perfecting our 15 useful tips for how to get more views on YouTube videos, you’ll be well on your way to making your channel a success.
This is a post contributed from one of my marketing partners.
Hero Photo by Laurent Jollet on Unsplash