Subscribers outside of friends?

[Jorpheus]

Hey guys, just wondering if anyone else struggles to get subscribers outside of friends or people you know? Or does anyone have any tips on how to get your content to a larger audience? Much apprecriated

 

[subversiveasset]

You want to make sure that you're getting good organic traffic through YouTube search, and for this, you have to optimize your titles, tags, and descriptions to feature keywords that people would reasonably be searching for (that aren't overcrowded by bigger/more famous youtubers).

Once your videos are discoverable, then you'll want to make sure that people would actually want to click on them. This means updating your thumbnails.

From there, you want to see if the people watching your videos like them enough to watch a good amount of them. (This would be your audience retention in your youtube analytics). If people aren't watching through, then you can't hope for them to subscribe.

But if you have good search visibility, and you have good audience retention, then if you're still not converting to subscribers, you may want to make specific and explicit calls to action in your videos...just tell them, "Hey, if you liked this video, remember to subscribe!" (since some people may honestly forget.)

It looks like your channel has some sort of issue...the home page shows no content! So anyone visiting your channel would think you have no videos...and so they probably wouldn't click on your videos tab to see that you actually do have videos.

 

[Jorpheus]

You want to make sure that you're getting good organic traffic through YouTube search, and for this, you have to optimize your titles, tags, and descriptions to feature keywords that people would reasonably be searching for (that aren't overcrowded by bigger/more famous youtubers).

Once your videos are discoverable, then you'll want to make sure that people would actually want to click on them. This means updating your thumbnails.

From there, you want to see if the people watching your videos like them enough to watch a good amount of them. (This would be your audience retention in your youtube analytics). If people aren't watching through, then you can't hope for them to subscribe.

But if you have good search visibility, and you have good audience retention, then if you're still not converting to subscribers, you may want to make specific and explicit calls to action in your videos...just tell them, "Hey, if you liked this video, remember to subscribe!" (since some people may honestly forget.)

It looks like your channel has some sort of issue...the home page shows no content! So anyone visiting your channel would think you have no videos...and so they probably wouldn't click on your videos tab to see that you actually do have videos.

Thanks for that! I'll be sure to look at better titles and way more tags than I'm currently doing. I'm trying to get on making a channel trailer but at the moment I'm inspiration searching!

 

[subversiveasset]

i think even if you don't have a channel trailer up yet, you should try to put some sections on your home page...because I really want to stress that to me, it looked like you had *no videos*. Most people wouldn't click on the "videos" tab.

As far as SEO goes, I looked at one of your videos, and I thought that instead of adding *more* tags, you should just use *more specific* tags, if that makes sense. There is another thread called "What Are Your Best Tagging Tips" where I wrote a much longer comment.

I see in one of your videos that you use tags like "games" "gamers" "gaming" and "series". With these tags, youtube assumes that you're trying to reach people who are searching for the word "games" or "gamers" or "gaming" or "series". Firstly, no, you're not trying to aim for that, and secondly, even if you were, these tags are so generic that there'd be no way for youtube to think that your video is the one people would want to say.

Even for short tags that are relevant, like "firewatch," the problem is that these tags are so saturated that there's no way for you to get your content on the first page -- youtube can fill page 1 with people with way more subscribers.

So you need to think more creatively about longer tags that still describe your content and that still get some decent search traffic from youtube. For example, I would never do a tag just for "Game name." It would always be at least "game name let's play". And I probably would do another one for "game name let's play episode #" (for whatever the episode number is). and I might also have "game name walkthrough" or "game name gameplay" or something like that.

But I think the big issue is that your descriptions don't reinforce any of your tags...remember: youtube uses titles, tags, descriptions, and submitted subtitles. So you want to use all of these to your advantage.

 

[Jorpheus]

i think even if you don't have a channel trailer up yet, you should try to put some sections on your home page...because I really want to stress that to me, it looked like you had *no videos*. Most people wouldn't click on the "videos" tab.

As far as SEO goes, I looked at one of your videos, and I thought that instead of adding *more* tags, you should just use *more specific* tags, if that makes sense. There is another thread called "What Are Your Best Tagging Tips" where I wrote a much longer comment.

I see in one of your videos that you use tags like "games" "gamers" "gaming" and "series". With these tags, youtube assumes that you're trying to reach people who are searching for the word "games" or "gamers" or "gaming" or "series". Firstly, no, you're not trying to aim for that, and secondly, even if you were, these tags are so generic that there'd be no way for youtube to think that your video is the one people would want to say.

Even for short tags that are relevant, like "firewatch," the problem is that these tags are so saturated that there's no way for you to get your content on the first page -- youtube can fill page 1 with people with way more subscribers.

So you need to think more creatively about longer tags that still describe your content and that still get some decent search traffic from youtube. For example, I would never do a tag just for "Game name." It would always be at least "game name let's play". And I probably would do another one for "game name let's play episode #" (for whatever the episode number is). and I might also have "game name walkthrough" or "game name gameplay" or something like that.

But I think the big issue is that your descriptions don't reinforce any of your tags...remember: youtube uses titles, tags, descriptions, and submitted subtitles. So you want to use all of these to your advantage.

Thanks for the advice! I'll be sure to do more work on tags, descriptions and titles!

 

[Kate's Adventures]

Outside of working on tags, description etc I would say sharing it to communities who might enjoy your videos and connecting with people who make similar content on YouTube (not sub4sub, comment if you genuinely have an interest in what they do). A very small proportion of my subs are people I know, it comes with time and some tweaking to the things you're doing already.

 

[Mr Danny]

Social media is also a very useful tool. Twitter and Reddit are just two of many sites where you can promote your videos and help you reach a wider audience. That, combined with all the previous advice, should set you off on the road to more subscribers. Good luck!

 

[Jorpheus]

Social media is also a very useful tool. Twitter and Reddit are just two of many sites where you can promote your videos and help you reach a wider audience. That, combined with all the previous advice, should set you off on the road to more subscribers. Good luck!

Thanks![DOUBLEPOST=1456772462,1456772405][/DOUBLEPOST]

Outside of working on tags, description etc I would say sharing it to communities who might enjoy your videos and connecting with people who make similar content on YouTube (not sub4sub, comment if you genuinely have an interest in what they do). A very small proportion of my subs are people I know, it comes with time and some tweaking to the things you're doing already.

Thanks very much!

 

[antcortezhaynes]

Hey guys, just wondering if anyone else struggles to get subscribers outside of friends or people you know? Or does anyone have any tips on how to get your content to a larger audience? Much apprecriated

Definitely YouTube Search and related videos. I feel like you can DEFINITELY burn out your social media friends over time by posting your stuff so much ( i would definitely know lol ) So it comes time to really crack down on SEO and other marketing strategies

 

[TheSwedishTraveler]

Of my friends, two are subscribed, what I know of anyway, but a few who hasn´t got an account see the videos as well!
I use Reddit as well!