Want to make it big on YouTube? It’s tough.
Like Google, YouTube is a search engine and the amount of content uploaded to the platform every second makes it harder for your audience to find you.
We have five easy tips to help you grow your YouTube views in 2020. Check it out below and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Optimize Your Channel’s Home Page
Your channel’s homepage is, essentially, the “face” of your channel. It reflects the overall mood of your content. In order to optimize your channel’s home page, take into account the following…
Channel Art and Icon
Make sure your channel art and icon reflect the mood and genre of your channel. Take The Try Guys as an example. Their channel art is punchy, loud and exciting – just like their YouTube channel.
Channel Playlists
In order to help your viewers in finding what they’re looking for, consider grouping your videos into categorized playlists.
For example, if your audience is asking about how to get ideas for YouTube videos, try titling it: Top 10 Video Ideas for YouTube.
Backlinko’s Brian Dean, an American How-to & Style YouTuber, tested this theory on his own YouTube channel and has noticed a major different is user engagement.
Dean also mentions on his website backlinko that alternating your playlist layout from horizontal to vertical, this will make your playlists standout from one another, and also increase your user engagement!
Channel Trailer
In the section allocated for your channel trailer, display your most popular video in the past 90 days, this way you get more automatic views and it will give your audience an idea about your channel’s vibe.
BOGY Thumbnails
BOGY thumbnails are the key to your video’s success and discoverability on YouTube.
Blue, Orange, Green and Yellow (BOGY) are the colours you should use when designing your video’s thumbnail.
YouTube’s colours are Red, Black and White, so by using “BOGY” colours your video will pop out in the user’s eyes and therefore increase your video views.
Avoid Clickbait Titles
Video titles play a huge role in your discoverability on YouTube, according to A YouTube SEO, A Practical Guide on Optimizing your Videos for Search, try to match your title phrasing as much as possible to what your audience will search for.
For example, if your audience is searching for YouTube video ideas and you’ve made a video about it, try titling your video something along the lines of “How to Come Up with the Best YouTube Video Ideas.”
Make your title keyword-friendly and ensure it accurately reflects the content of your video (clickbait isn’t a good idea).
Video Description Matters
Fact: YouTube is a search engine. The more keywords you use, the higher the chance a viewer will come across your content. If your video is about how to come up with the best YouTube video ideas, then you should mention it in the title, description and within tags.
The first 150 characters in your video description are the ones YouTube is going to include in its Search page, so make sure they are catchy and inform the audience what your video is about.
Use the MVC Formula for Video Tags
When it comes to video tags, here’s the secret, there is a certain formula you need to follow to make sure you feed the engine its fuel and that is the MVC Formula.
This formula was tested by Brian Dean, and is a way to organize your video tags in a simple way for YouTube to understand what your video is about.
Start of by typing the Main first keyword in your title as the first tag. Second, write different variations of that keyword. Lastly, write 1-2 tags that say the genre/category of your video!
Bonus: Don’t Forget The Card Bridge Technique!
This small technique could drastically change the amount of views your videos rack up on the platform.
Visit your Creator Studio a few days after uploading a video and check out the watch time of the video. When you notice a drop, add an information card there to send the viewer from the video they’re on to another video.
Sneaky, yet very effective.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.
Written by Basma Badr. Image Credits: backlinko.com and cdn2.hubspot.net