Gateway videos, the complete guide!

uberdanger

I Love YTtalk
Joined
Mar 29, 2013
Messages
2,345
Reaction score
1,899
Age
27
Channel Type
Gamer
Hello everyone, I'm Jonathan aka "UberDanger" aka "Mild caution", and today I'll be writing this guide about gateway videos. Before I start explaining what they are, and how they're essential to your growth, I'd like to introduce myself shortly.

Most of you probably don't know me, since I'm not exactly the most active member on this forum. I've written a few guides in the past on here, here's a link to a few of those:


Today I'll be focusing on "Gateway videos", I've used the term loosely in several of these guides, and also just in general on this forum in the past. To explain shortly, what are gateway videos?

As the name suggests, they are videos which are supposed to act as a gateway for people to your channel. Simple enough right? at least it sounds that way. First we have to look at which factors that decide whether a video is gonna drive traffic to your channel.

First of all, views. For a video to turn into an effective gateway video for a larger channel like my own, it will need to have a few hundred thousand views, to effectively drive traffic to my channel. Basically when a video is big enough to grow on it's own and attract traffic, is when it's effectively big enough to become a gateway video. You can of course also refer to a gateway video on a smaller scale, but I'll be using my own channel as an example since it's the one I have the most experience with. Naturally the more views a gateway video has, the better a gateway video it is. Both in terms of aggregating viewers, but also in that if people see a video with million of views, they actually have a tendency to subscribe more often.

Now everything I wrote is good and dandy, but HOW do you turn a video into a gateway video? A couple factors are obvious, and should already be considered when creating content. Does it incentivize people to subscribe for more? If so how? And how can you improve that?

One of the main things that make a video grow, is watch time, and consistent viewership in general. A "gateway series" is a series of videos that are all linked together, and are all big enough to be traffic driving machines. My main series "the adventures of full ad/ap" is an example of a gateway series, which is really great for exponential growth. People click on one, and click on the next, and click on the next etc.

This gives me a really big watch time on all the videos, making them all grow on their own, but for each video that gets big it also drives traffic to all the other videos. So the more videos I make for this series, the more I effectively increase my exponential growth.

So now you have a basic understanding of gateway videos and gateway series, but how in the hell does that benefit you? Especially if you're a smaller channel? Well first of all it will give you a better understanding of traffic source building in general, and what I mean when I write that in my other guides, or when you ever see that term referred to. On top of that you'll also be better equipped to act accordingly if one of your videos is turning into a gateway video, perhaps turn that into a series?

If you have any questions post them below, I know this isn't a conventional topic for me to write a "guide" on, however a LOT of people have been requesting that I elaborate on this term that I throw around so loosely. Any other guides in specific you'd want me to write?
 

Jukenut

I've Got It
Joined
Apr 14, 2013
Messages
166
Reaction score
68
Channel Type
Gamer
Gateaway videos are actually really important to be a successful channel. People read your guide, never make them, then ask why they can't grow. Although I have little views in my gateaways videos (compared to yours), they are the main reason for the growth of my channel.

Thanks for taking your time to make guides and help smaller channels out
 
  • Like
Reactions: uberdanger

SethHeart

I've Got It
Joined
May 21, 2013
Messages
175
Reaction score
31
Channel Type
Gamer
What would be counted as gateway videos? Really confused by what you mean on this. I understand what they are but how would you come about making one yourself?
 

uberdanger

I Love YTtalk
Joined
Mar 29, 2013
Messages
2,345
Reaction score
1,899
Age
27
Channel Type
Gamer
What would be counted as gateway videos? Really confused by what you mean on this. I understand what they are but how would you come about making one yourself?
I wrote this guide so I wouldn't get this question anymore ;(
 
Joined
Jan 12, 2015
Messages
19
Reaction score
6
Age
37
What are the characteristics of gateway videos? From what I understand is that, gateway videos are one of the most popular videos on your channel, and will drive most traffic to your whole videos. But, how exactly to create one video that has lots of views?
 

uberdanger

I Love YTtalk
Joined
Mar 29, 2013
Messages
2,345
Reaction score
1,899
Age
27
Channel Type
Gamer
What are the characteristics of gateway videos? From what I understand is that, gateway videos are one of the most popular videos on your channel, and will drive most traffic to your whole videos. But, how exactly to create one video that has lots of views?
Not neccesarily, a video that engages people to go watch more of your content, is essentially a gateway video. Then having 500,000 views on it makes it an EFFECTIVE gateway video ;P
 

Brickpro

GFX artist, Tech Reviewer, VFX!
Joined
Jan 9, 2015
Messages
311
Reaction score
47
Location
Portland,OR
Channel Type
Youtuber, Director, Designer, Other
This is a sweet article! I wish I could get some of the Video Creator Books.
 

Wadj0s

Active Member
Joined
Feb 3, 2016
Messages
25
Reaction score
5
Location
France
Channel Type
Youtuber, Gamer, Other
Thanks a lot for this article, you write very good advises but for the gateway video, I don't find it easy to do. I mean, it's basically doing (a) small video(s) that can go viral in some sort, right? Or some video(s) to introduce your channel, your playlist?