How to Get More Views on YouTube With These 11 Tips

There’s no better time than now to figure out how to promote your YouTube channel.

Why “now,” though?

For starters, YouTube is the second most-visited site on the web, and when we’re spending up to six hours per day consuming video, the writing is on the wall. If you want to stand out on YouTube, you need to take advantage of as many promotional tactics as possible.

We’ll go into detail on each of these tactics for how to grow your YouTube channel and maximize your viewership. Whether you’re just getting started or want to see your numbers tick further upward, these tips are all fair game.

What counts as a view on YouTube?

Views refer to the total number of times your video or channel has been watched. Each time a viewer plays a video and watches it for at least 30 seconds, YouTube counts it as a view. If someone watches your video several times, each time is counted as a new view. This applies across all devices whether a person watches via smartphone or desktop. This also applies to embeds and videos shared on social media like Facebook.

When someone visits your channel page, you receive a view. If you use YouTube Analytics, you can go to the Overview tab to see how many views your YouTube channel received over the last 28 days.

Why are views important on YouTube?

Views are important because they influence the YouTube algorithm. If you get more views, the algorithm will push your video out to more people. Views are also part of how you can make money on YouTube, which we all want to see a return on investment and increased revenue.

Views are also vital on YouTube because it’s a way to boost awareness and build brand affinity. It may take some time to achieve your target viewership, but you’ll need to connect with top-of-funnel prospects to help reach your goals in the long run.

How to Get More Views on YouTube: 11 Tips and Tricks

1. Write engaging, must-see titles

YouTube marketing is all about presentation.

Titles are make-or-break when it comes to your video’s performance. Ask yourself: are you presenting your content as “must-see” or “meh?”

The key to crafting killer titles is grabbing your audience’s attention without resorting to clickbait headlines. People crave content that’s entertaining, and they likewise want to know what your video is about from the word “go.”

For example, you can take a page out of the playbooks of YouTube giants like BuzzFeed and WhatCulture. Such videos often rely on listicles, question-based titles or hyperbole (“insane,” “…of all time”) to rack up the views.

Athlean X’s fitness-based videos are another good example. The channel’s content manages to sneak in relevant keywords in its titles while also coming across as conversational.

“Best-of” lists and “how-to” titles are always a safe bet, too. Food channel Tasty uses click-worthy titles like this:

The takeaway here is that you should definitely spend time mulling over engaging titles rather than sticking with the first idea that pops into your head.

2. Optimize your videos for visibility

Here’s some food for thought: YouTube videos show up in 70% of the top 100 Google search results.

Heck, see for yourself. Any given product or “how-to” query on Google will return something from YouTube.

In fact, YouTube results sometimes even pop up before traditional blog posts or websites. Listen: YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world in and of itself. Just like people search for products and need problems solved via Google, the same rings true on YouTube.

Think of your YouTube videos like any other piece of content that needs to be optimized in terms of keywords, tags and so on.

In order to increase your chances of showing up, you’ll want to follow some of the best practices for YouTube SEO:

Titles and description: Include target keywords in your titles and descriptions. You can use a tool like Keywordtool.io to help you find keyword ideas.
Mention keywords in your video: According to Brian Dean of Backlinko, saying your target keywords in your video can help YouTube better understand what your video is about.
Engagement: YouTube uses engagement (likes, comments, views) to help determine where videos rank in its search results.
Categories: Use categories to help YouTube get a better understanding of who to show your videos to.
Tags: In addition to categories, you can also add tags to your videos to give YouTube more context about your content. You can use quite a few tags, so add as many as you can think of.

Just like with SEO for your website, don’t keyword stuff. Use keywords when it makes sense, not just for the sake of having them.

3. Figure out what your audience wants

With any type of content you produce, you want to make sure it’s aligned with what your audience wants. Whether you’re writing a blog post or creating a video, start by getting to know your audience and what type of content they want to see from you.

If you’re just starting to promote your YouTube channel, take a look at your competitors or other video creators in your industry. Look at which of their videos get the most views and engagement. This will give you an idea of what topics your audience wants to learn about and what style of videos they prefer.

Another solution is to look at your YouTube Analytics if you’ve already uploaded videos. YouTube gives you detailed information on audience demographics, location, engagement and other helpful stats. You can also take your strategy a step further with YouTube reporting in Sprout Social and see how your content stacks up to other social videos you’ve produced.

4. Engage with the YouTube community

Although you might not think of YouTube as a social network per se, the platform does represent a thriving community where users are engaging via content, profiles, “likes” and comments.

Sounds pretty “social” if you ask us.

As noted earlier, any sort of interaction with your viewers is seen as a positive signal to YouTube. If nothing else, engaging with your subscribers can help you foster a stronger connection with your audience. “Liking” comments only takes a few seconds, as does pinning a top comment as a sort of personal note to your subscribers.

For example, music channel Artists Of Morality regularly likes and responds to comments on its recent uploads. The channel’s creator regularly engages with subscribers to show appreciation and answer questions, too.

Just as you’d respond to comments and engage with your followers on any other social network, YouTube is no different.

5. Customize your thumbnails

One of the simplest yet effective tactics to promote your YouTube channel is creating custom thumbnails. Think of your title and thumbnail as a sort of one-two punch to grab a viewer’s attention.

By default, YouTube snags a screenshot from any given video and uses it for the thumbnail. Unfortunately, sometimes the image it grabs will be a blurry shot of you adjusting the camera or a transition.

Not a good look, right?

Creating thumbnails yourself not only makes your videos look more appealing at a glance but also signals a certain sense of professionalism.

If you’re looking for simple social media templates to get started with Creator Studio, check out our free YouTube banners that you can download today!

6. Cross-promote your own videos on YouTube

Chances are you’re covering similar topics on YouTube that overlap with each other. To squeeze more out of your older content, make a point to cross-promote your videos when it makes sense.

For example, you can drop links in the description of a video and encourage viewers to check them out as a sort of call-to-action. Although some might be disappointed by the removal of YouTube’s annotation system, linking in your description encourages viewers to watch your videos all the way through without clicking away.

7. Be consistent

Scott and Atkinson add, “Be consistent. It’s hard to build an audience and increase views when your video publishing schedule changes constantly.

“How many times have we seen television shows get canceled because the network kept moving the show around on the schedule and it never found an audience? The concept is the same with YouTube. Teach viewers to expect new content at roughly the same time and interval (day, week, month) on a consistent basis and it is proven to grow your audience.”

8. Optimize your title and description

Bree Brouwer , a B2B Copywriter and Content Marketer for Video/Tech, says, “While YouTube is inherently a visual medium because it was created as a place to share videos, the power of text can’t be ignored if you want to drive more viewers to your channel.”

YouTube is, after all, a massive search engine, which still uses words to find videos you’re looking for!

This means you not only need to have titles with at least one good keyword or phrase related to your video, but you also need to describe that video in detail in the description box. YouTube generously gives you 5000 characters, or ~800 words, to describe your video in detail — use this opportunity, every single time.

The more text YouTube, Google, and other search engines have to crawl about your video, the more likely your content will show up in results, therefore bumping up your views.

9. Upload closed captions

Brouwer adds, “Likewise, don’t forget to upload closed captions for every single one of your videos.

“You can use YouTube’s automatic closed captioning feature, as well, but if you have the time or can afford to get closed captions written, that’s a better way to ensure your text comes across exactly the way it’s said in the video.

“Again, the more text YouTube and Google’s bots have to draw on, the more likely they’ll categorize and recommend your content.

“Closed captions are also just a kind way of showing the hard of hearing that you’re thinking of their needs, and that you want them to enjoy your content regardless of audio (this audience opens the door for you to get more views, as well).”

10. Conduct keyword research

Tom Martin , a YouTube Growth Consultant over at Channel Fuel in the UK, says, “I’d consider YouTube keyword research to be the secret weapon of anyone running a YouTube channel because it’s super powerful and it’s very unlikely that your competition are doing it.”

YouTube Keyword research harnesses search data in order to find out exactly what people are searching for on YouTube, the exact language they are using, the size of that opportunity and how competitive (or not) it may be to appear for that keyword in the search results and suggested sidebar.

Martin adds, “Once we have that data (taken from either a specialist third party tool or free resources such as YouTube’s autocomplete suggestions) we can then utilize it in a number of ways. Firstly, we can use the keyword data to build a content strategy around because now we can make content for which we know there is a guaranteed audience as opposed to making content we assume people want to see. Secondly, we can take those keywords we want to target and ensure that we optimize for them at the time of upload, making sure they are present in our titles, tags and descriptions.”

This is no magic bullet for getting eyeballs on poor content but used correctly on great content, keyword research and optimization can be a major factor in a video reaching its full potential.

11. Buy Google Ads for YouTube

Enge also says, “Here is another idea that is among my favorites: Buy Google Ads for YouTube. This is quite effective, and you can obtain a significant number of views (depending on your category) for a few hundred dollars.”

Note that there are several types of video ads, but I prefer to use Pre-roll ads. These can run before, during, or after a video selected by a user, and users can skip them if they want.

In fact, there is no charge to you unless the viewer sees at least 30 seconds or more of your ad.

Enge adds, “Setting up the right targeting is key to the success of your campaign. For example, you can pick out different market segments which is something you should do. There is even a specific one for SEO and SEM Services!”

Google Ads for YouTube also offers basic audience targeting, allowing you to filter based on age, gender, and income. You can set these filters to entire exclude certain audiences, or only include specific audiences.

It will likely take some experimentation to get things optimized for your purposes, but it is well worth it.