The past few months of YouTubing have caused hours and hours of research and analysis in my life. I have read forums, watched videos, and talked to successful YouTubers in order to find the secret of why some people can have thousands of views on every single one of their videos and I struggle to get past the teens. Over that time, I have learned something invaluable and unfortunately tragic; there isn't a one-step solution to gain YouTube fame. It is a process, a strenuous one at that. Although there are ways to increase your views, and I will share my own personal strategies, the expectation is that you must adhere to a regime of uploading and management. Your views wont explode with these strategies, but they will increase steadily, and your channel will grow healthily.
May I just mention that these steps are only a scratch on the surface of all the measures you can take to increase views, but they are what I believe to be the most important and will yield the greatest result.
If you are, in fact, motivated enough, I implore you to use my 3 step guide and squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of your YouTube tenure. If you're not motivated enough to work for your views, then may I ask what the point of spending hours editing and recording is if you're not willing to put in a little more time to advertise and manage your videos properly? Yes, it is more work, but employing this guide will surely and simply get your YouTube channel more views.
1. Content
Before you can manage your videos properly, you must first have videos to manage. There are 2 main things you can do to ensure the content you are uploading is view-worthy.
I. Entertainment Value - Simply put, what is in your video? If you were to stumble upon your video, would you enjoy watching it? Beyond that, is it an original idea? Consider this: There are about a million channels that focus on Call of Duty montages, but hardly any of them have found any kind of success. If you make a Call of Duty montage, what are you bringing to the table that nobody else does? If you're just another montage, minecraft, tutorial, makeup or skit channel, people won't want to pick your video over anybody else's. Do something unique with your channel, be different!
II. Quality - So now you're making interesting videos with jokes left, right and center, how could anyone NOT want to watch? Well, because people don't like watching videos recorded with a vacuum cleaner. Make sure your video and audio quality are as good as you can make them! Buy a microphone if you can, don't just use the built in mic on your phone or laptop. Sort out your video recording and editing setup, too. I can't tell you the number of times I've skipped over a video because it was uploaded in 240p. Record in HD! Simply put, recording in high quality will make people want to focus on the actual entertainment value of your video and not how you got your blender to upload to YouTube. Uploading high quality videos is like good hygiene: people wont like you any more if you have it but if you don't, people will avoid you.
2. Branding
Although there is a whole myriad of possible ways to brand and advertise your channel, these are 3 things you can systematically do to increase views.
I. Titles - Make sure you keep your video titles short and sweet. When someone comes across your video, you don't want them to be scared off, so make sure that the title only includes the necessary information and some possible attention grabbing words. Don't make it too short though, you don't want to make it seem like you don't put any effort into your channel. Make you title your (eg) tutorial video somewhere between "tutorial.mp4" and "FREE TUTORIAL best tutorial for getting FREE VIEWS on YouTube FAST [original]".
II.Custom Thumbnails - If you haven't gotten your account activated for custom thumbnail uploads, I have a video on my channel that explains how, and I really recommend you consider getting custom thumbnails because it is the single most important thing you can associate with your videos to increase views. When someone looks up a video, and yours shows up halfway down the page, people aren't going to notice it if the thumbnail is some random screenshot halfway through the video. Make sure to put some time into editing your thumbnails so people will see it! There are plenty of tutorials here on YTtalk on how to make a thumbnail, but I will share some points I deem to be important. Make sure that your thumbnails have the same or similar information as the title of your video, and make sure that all fonts are large and clear enough to read. Also, it never hurts to include contrasting colors and interesting imagery to attract the eye! Just don't go too overboard!
III. Channel Design - I won't go over everything to do with your channel layout, but there are a few important features that help make you look like a more professional YouTuber. Theses wont necessarily help with views immediately, but as more people browse your channel, having a professional look will make people want to subscribe or watch more of your videos. Most importantly, spend time on your background. The background of your channel occupies a large portion of the screen for all your potential viewers, so if it hasn't been thought out well or done properly, it's like a big mustard stain on your tie at a job interview. Make sure your background is something you are proud to display to the world! To that point, make sure your featured video follows the same rationale. It should be a recent video, so as to display what your channel is doing at the moment, but it also must be a good video. Now, understanding that you want to make all of your videos good enough that any of them will impress potential viewers, I also get that some turn out better than others. Display a video that exemplifies your channel! There are other things you can do to make your channel look better as a whole, but much of it comes down to personal preference, so use your best judgement!
3. Tags
Since tagging my videos properly, I have seen an increase of views on my channel of about 800%. Like many newer YouTubers, I didn't understand the significance of tags until I was neck deep into uploading. There is, believe it or not, a wrong way to tag your videos. I would like to stress the importance of tagging your videos before I explain my method, since this seems to be the one part of uploading that people get too lazy to do every video. Earlier I mentioned how important it is to make your videos appear interesting and attract peoples attention, that way more people will actually watch them. The one problem with my example, when I said that your video should stand out from the list of search results, is how to get the said video in those search results. What's the point of dressing up real fancy if you're not going out? All the work you do goes unappreciated if people can't find your videos. Give your videos a chance on the front page of a search result by using this method.
First, make 2 columns in your mind (or on paper if you so desire), for the sake of example I will be theoretically tagging a 'Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Let's Play' video. In the first column, I would have different names for the thing I am recording; this could be used for things like skits, vlogs, tutorials and other things that are in no way related to gaming, so this is at your discretion. In the second column, include things that you are doing with that game/tutorial/whatever.
It should look something like this:
Call of Duty | Let's Play
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2| LP
COD | Gameplay
COD BLOPS 2 | Commentary
You'll notice that everything in column 1 is essentially the same thing. This also applies for column 2. Now that you have these columns (preferably much larger than my example), you can stat forming tags. Take column 1 entry 1 and column 2 entry 1 (Call of Duty Lets Play) and use that as your first tag. Next, take column 1 entry 1 and then move on to column 2 entry 2
(Call of Duty LP). Repeat this until you have used all entries in column 2, then move on to column 1 entry 2 and start all over again (i.e. Call of duty: Black Ops 2 Let's play, so on.). Use AS MANY TAGS AS YOU CAN! I can not stress this enough, you want to have a fantastic amount of tags so that whenever someone looks anything up related to your video, your video will be a search result.
Beyond that, use your best discretion for tags. Make sure not to make them too broad, either!
I will be happy to answer any questions you may have, just send me a personal message on YouTube and I will surely see it. I hope these steps will help you in your endeavors, as I know they have helped me. Here is the video version of basically everything I just said, cheers!
