Once you start a YouTube channel, you may find that your videos are not getting the recognition or viewership you think it deserves. Most times, it’s because you haven’t implemented any marketing techniques to promote the video or even failed to set it up properly.
Although good quality content is essential, it alone is insufficient to bring in traffic. You need to promote your video content so that more people will know about it and switch on to your channel to watch it. If they like what they see, they could even subscribe, leading to easier publicity the next time around. In this post, we look at four simple ways you can gain views on YouTube.
Transcribe Your Video
Many YouTubers forget to implement this little trick. Convert the audio content to text and paste it in the description section of the video. By implementing this, search engines can crawl through the content and easily associate the video with relevant keywords. Then, when people search for keywords that match your description, your video will be displayed on the results page of the search engine.
For obvious reasons, Google gives priority to YouTube videos over other results. Without adding transcripts, the search engines will have no way of knowing what your video is all about. As such, it is less likely to be indexed and found by visitors.
Add an Attention Grabbing Title
The title of the YouTube video must fulfill two criteria – interest and keyword richness.
Firstly, the title should be interesting enough that it catches the attention of the visitor, generating sufficient curiosity for them to click on the link.Secondly, the title must contain keywords you wish to target. For example, if you want to attract users looking for ‘the latest trends in sandwich recipes,’ then your title must look something like ‘Top 3 sandwich recipe trends you should try out.’ You cannot put out a title like ‘Healthy breakfast techniques’ since it does not contain the right keywords.
Promote Through Facebook
Facebook is a relatively affordable and effective way to get your video content in front of a large number of viewers. For just a few pennies a day, you can promote videos to thousands of potential viewers.
For example, if you make videos related to superheroes, then promote those videos targeting Facebook users who are actually interested in such stuff. And if they like the video you have posted, you will get more likes on your Facebook page, and subsequently increase views for your YouTube videos, from the social media effect.
Ask Them to Subscribe
Use the annotation option offered by YouTube and ask the viewers to subscribe to your channel. Unless you specifically ask them to subscribe, the viewers may not be encouraged to do so.
When you build a large subscriber base, new videos are automatically promoted by YouTube to the followers. This shows up in their notifications and remains there until they see the video.
Casually ask viewers to click on the subscribe button at the end of the video. If you ask them to subscribe every 15 seconds while the video is playing, you will irritate them and decrease your chance of having them visit your channel again. You could also try to squeeze in the request when you make a big announcement in the middle of a video; when the interest levels are on the high end.
Bonus tip: Keep your ears open to the pressing needs of your subscriber base. You could try asking them directly. Or, you could find other similar channels and check out videos that are doing especially well. If it has content that you have not yet covered, go for it, and make something similar or better.
Use the above techniques in your YouTube channel and you will have a better chance at increasing both video views and subscriber base. Good quality content is the base on which you build your marketing efforts. So, keep the content top class and if the visitors love your content, then it won’t be hard to grow your YouTube channel.