YouTube is the second most popular website on the internet and the second-largest search engine. People spend hours searching for videos on the platform, but it’s hard to get swept up in the amount of content available.
Everyone wants to make their own content, but they also want it to get noticed. But how can you drive more traffic to your YouTube channel?
This article will explain how you can drive traffic to your channel with our handy tips. Now, let’s start with how you can best utilize the tools you have available.
Design Your Thumbnails And Give Catchy Titles
Do you look at videos and a channel and judge it by its thumbnail? I know I do. If there’s a good thumbnail with a great design, I know I’m likely to click on that video.
That’s because I’m curious about what the content is about. But I won’t be as interested if there’s not a catchy title with it.
Your title and thumbnail are a way to show your channel’s personality and the type of content that your audience can expect. While you might be tempted to let YouTube decide on a thumbnail for you, don’t.
It shows your audience that you worked hard on your video. The same can be said for your title. You want to show what you’re capable of, which is a way to gauge interest in your content.
Learn About YouTube SEO
Many people assume you just need to upload your video on a subject to get results. While this may have worked back in 2005, it’s much bigger now. To get new viewers, you need to make your channel search-friendly.
Knowing how YouTube SEO works can make your channel easier to find. But how can you do this?
The answer is through your channel name, description, tags, and video titles. They all need to have relevant and trending keywords. Find out what keywords your audience will be looking for, and identify what’s trending.
However, you need to be careful when you do this. If you put in too many keywords, it feels more like spam. To help your videos, make sure you include some keywords in your videos and turn on closed captions.
Closed captions help SEO, and they make your content more accessible.
Work On A YouTube Series
Making a series of videos can increase your subscribers’ interest in your channel. New viewers will also be interested because they’ll go to your channel and look for similar content.
Your audience and the algorithm will likely recommend your videos if you do a series.
However, the key to this is to post consistently. You don’t want to promise a series and then post something irrelevant when you promised something else.
So long as you have a set schedule, you can still post other videos. Ensuring that everything is relevant is a great way to gain attention. Organize everything you have into playlists, and you’ll find your audience more interested.
The best thing about playlists is the auto-play feature, and you’ll find your channel views getting higher through your audience looking for more.
Don’t Be Afraid To Collaborate
YouTube encourages a collaborative environment, and everyone wants to get more channel views and subscribers. It’s important to note that other content creators aren’t your enemies, and no one is stealing views from you.
Instead, look for opportunities with those around you. If someone makes similar content to you, try and get in touch. The worst thing that can happen is they say no.
By partnering with different content creators, you can diversify your audience. Fans of that channel will show interest in you, and fans of your channel will show interest in them. It’s a win-win situation.
If you’re successful at collaborating, you’ll be able to work with more people and network so your channel will get more views.
Understand Your Audience
You’ll want to know what your audience wants and what they want from your content. Understanding your audience can help you curate your content so that they’ll remain interested in the long run.
It’s always good to make your content for you, but your audience will want to know what to expect.
The best way to understand your audience is to look at your competitors. Looking at other videos can help you understand how they keep their audience over time.
However, if you’ve made a video, you can look at YouTube Analytics to see their demographic, location, engagement, and many other stats that can help you.
If you understand your audience, you can curate your content in a way that will keep them coming back for more.
Engage With Your Audience
I mentioned how collaborating is an excellent way to network, but you mustn’t forget your audience. They’re the ones who will return to you for each new video. So, make sure you engage with them.
If you see comments, feel free to respond and like them. You don’t have to reply to every comment, but acknowledging them will make your fans feel welcome.
They’ll lose interest if you ignore your comments and make it look like you aren’t paying attention. You can even host live streams so they can interact with you on chat, and if you get big enough, you can even attend YouTube events and gatherings.
Head over to conventions to interact, and your viewers will appreciate it.
Just because you understand your audience, it doesn’t mean that you can’t engage with them. After all, you don’t want your audience to feel isolated from you.
Promote Yourself On Social Media
If you have a YouTube channel, you’ll want to promote it on social media and on your website. Promote yourself on your Facebook page or tell your viewers there’s a new video through Twitter.
Post your thumbnail on Instagram and include a link. You could even post small clips or bloopers on TikTok. Utilizing other social media is essential to drawing more engagement to your channel.
If you have a website, you can embed your YouTube videos there. You could even make a newsletter with future video updates, which will only increase audience engagement.
If you’re known on social media elsewhere, you’ll be able to have a new way to interact with your audience and a chance to bring them to your channel.
Consider Google Search Results
While you should focus on your audience, you should also consider how your channel will work with Google SEO in mind. Long-form videos about keyword-specific content tend to do great on search engine results.
However, you should focus more on this if your niche is product reviews, not creative content.
Final Thoughts
You don’t need to spend lots of cash to get YouTube views on your channel. You just need to understand what you have to do.
Research is essential to a successful YouTube channel, so if you want to succeed, you can’t just churn out a high quantity of content. You need quality videos too, or your audience won’t be as interested.
Curate your content well and learn about your audience and SEO; you should have more traffic in no time.
These days, everything is online. You can’t get your business anywhere without a great online presence. With search engines forever changing, it’s difficult to stay on top of it all! That’s where I’ll come in.
Hello, my name is Jack O’Neil and I have been in the marketing industry for almost 10 years. I focus on online marketing, SEO, advertising, and more.
