One of Google’s services that can help you reach more people is the video sharing service, YouTube. From the moment Google bought it, back in 2006, YouTube has considerably grown in users, now having hundreds of millions of users worldwide.
How to Get More YouTube Views: 10 Easy Tips
A statement to YouTube’s growth is the fact that every day there are 8 years worth of video uploaded. And with this growth, YouTube now can be a great source of website visits and publicity. Your YouTube channel can be a powerful tool for publicity, and if your videos are good, they can attract many viewers. Also, established businesses that have original content and produce videos with many views, can put Ads on their channel and videos, via Google Ads and generate profit with their videos (in English speaking countries). But what about small users, that have small businesses or upload tutorials and other materials on a regular basis? They could take advantage of the views their videos generate to increase their website traffic. How that might do this? By following these simple rules, tried and tested by hundreds.
1. Create Good Content
Content is the thing that will make you big on YouTube. It’s useless to move forward and try other methods of making more YouTube views is your content is low quality. Find something good to make a video out of, something people search for, for example [How To] Videos, educational videos or reviews, and stick with it. If you have a topic, then upload videos in that topic and not a new topic every week. These are just a few examples, do some research before making your videos and when you start, try as best possible to have high quality audio and video. If people have a hard time listening or looking at your video, they won’t like it and you won’t get far with it.
2. Don’t Bore Your Viewers
A video that is too long and inexpressive will bore your viewers. Try to make your video as short as possible, but not too short, depending on what type of video you are uploading. Add animations and multiple angles of shooting (don’t stand in front of a camera for 5 minutes and just talk, move around, shoot the video from different angles). Try and get viewers’ attention right from the beginning and keep them there. My advice is to have a look at how trailers are made.
3. Use SEO
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization also works on YouTube. The name of the video is the most important, because the search algorithm searches in the names of the videos for matches. The next important thing is the description of the video. Use Keywords both in the name of the video and in the description. Also, try to give a link to your website in the description, but try not to spam it. Users won’t like that and won’t click on it. Also in the description, insert your keywords in the first 30-50 words. Use a good name, that has a connection to what topic you upload your videos. Use tags wisely, look at what users search for in your category and try to find the best keywords. Also, use the keywords in other videos so that YouTube will show them in the “Related Videos” section.
4. Title is Important
Try to give your video a good name, not something common. Use words that catch the eye, but also look professional. For example, I upload a video of me drinking beer with my nose. If I want to have many views, I will not name my video “me drinking beer with my nose”, but something like this: “INCREDIBLE: Check out how I can Drink BEER with my nose!”. Try to avoid 1 or 2 letter words, the algorithm skips them, also try not to separate words with “_” or “-”(underscores and dashes), YouTube spikes them also. And try to avoid too long titles, people won’t read them.
5. Thumbnails
All YouTube videos have a thumbnail, and if you do not modify it, then the thumbnail will be the frame at the exact middle of the video. This can be to your advantage, using a video editing software, you can find this frame and modify it. Swap it with an exciting image or a high quality image. Users tend to click on videos that have interesting thumbnails, but keep in mind, it’s better to have that thumbnail resemble the topic of the video, rather then a hot chick. People will click on your video, but they will never recomend, like or share your video if you’re deceiving them.
6. Make Your Channel Interesting
Use a nice theme, on which users can read easily. If they have trouble reading, they will leave your page and most likely never come back. Use warm colours try to avoid high contrast. And of course, get a nice, non offending and clean background, it looks more professional and it has good readability. Don’t overdo it, or it will look like an old MySpace account.
7. Remember, YouTube Is Almost a Social Network
If you look closer, you can say that YouTube is in fact a social network. It allows you to make friends, share content, subscribe to others, comment and much more. Just as you would on any other Social Network. Try to use this to your advantage. You might have enough experience doing this from Facebook or Google+. You have to make as many friends as possible, mainly because they have friends of their own and so on. When you share a video, if they like it, they will re-share it and so on. Also, the subscription is a great tool for promoting your videos to those who are interested. Try using the “Video Response” feature to attract other views on your videos, and always comment to other people’s videos (but not just “I like it! Keep it up!”), try to add something interesting to the discussion, but also comment and reply on your videos. Interact with your viewers, answer their questions and compel them to share, like or comment by using phrases (either in the video or in the description) like “Don’t forget to Comment and Like!” or “Tell your friends about this video!”. The thing you must remember is that if you are not friendly (friendly as in commenting, liking and subscribing) to others, they won’t subscribe or like your videos.
8. Go Outside YouTube
There are lots of services that guarantee you more views and subscriptions on YouTube, but keep in mind these are illegal and you can get your account banned. But there are lots of alternatives to get your videos to the world. Try sharing them on other Social Networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Google+(which is very important keeping in mind that it’s another Google Service and it has higher ranking than others) etc. Using Google’s Blogger could help you do this. Keep a blog and embed your videos, or embed them on forums for extra views. Also, you can use some specialized services, especially designed to help you promote your YouTube Videos, such as Tube Toolbox or Fireviews. They both claim to bring your videos more traffic and be legal.
9. Friends, Please Share!
When uploading a new video, talk to your friends and give them the link to view and share it to their contacts and so on, this type of sharing could give you a large number of views in a short period. Another good way to get your video to your friends is to email the link to your entire list of contacts and ask them to do the same.
10. Become a Partner
If you do all the right things and get to the point where your videos are making hundreds of thousands of views and you have a steady flow of traffic and new videos, you can become a YouTube partner and start earning money for your hard work. However, there is a limited number of countries that are accepted. With this you can get Ads to add to your videos and get money via Google AdSense. Now you know how to use another of Google’s services to your advantage. Don’t turn a blind eye on YouTube, it can boost your business or website quite a bit, and if you follow these guidelines, maybe even make a good profit off of it.
