What Most of You are Doing Wrong

[Yachts For Sale]

My two cents worth: Painter says that the problem with reddit is that it results in views with low audience retention. This makes sense to me; if somebody is on reddit it is because that is where they want to be...otherwise they would be on youtube looking at videos. The same is true for facebook and twitter. People view these sites because they give them what they are looking for at that time. Sure, they hop in to youtube for a moment to watch a video, but they quickly hop back to reddit, facebook, or twitter. So audience retention of views generated from external sites such as reddit are low.

However, to discount reddit as a valuable source of new viewers is very bad advice in my opinion. Reddit (and other sites) serves to put a youtube channel on the radar of hundreds of thousands of new viewers and potential subscribers. In all likelihood the same viewer that hopped in and out of a youtube channel whilst on reddit will return to that same channel at a later moment when they feel like watching some videos. At that moment, youtube is where they want to be. Their retention will be higher, and the channel will most certainly benefit.

I also really liked the comment of PictureFit too when he said

And the problem for the majority here isn't the fact that they just don't know SEO. It's the fact that they are all looking for that quick fix

I suspect that many of the posters crying out in frustration because their month old channel with 3 videos still hasn't been discovered are either in their late teens or early twenties. This is a really great age to be, especially because there is still so much to learn about life. The story about the old bull and the young bull on top of a hill looking at a herd of cows comes to mind...but I really couldn't tell it here

 

[Idec Sdawkminn]

My normal tag procedure is to start to type in the title of my video into YouTube search and pick the top 2 search phrases that most closely match my video. Then I make one with my channel name. 3 total.

So, for example, the video in my signature is called "Little Baby's Ice Cream - This Is a Special Time (Horror Version 2.0)". My tags are "little baby's ice cream commercial", "little baby's ice cream remix", and "horror versions".

 

[javacentral]

Great tips! I'd say, though, do both! I feel like you can spark the video with your posts to facebook, twitter, G+ and all that but keep it going with what you said. Great titles, tags and descriptions.
ALSO I recommend tubebuddy. Great for figuring out the rankings of your tags compared to other people.

 

[Tabbes]

Thanks Nick, this is a good tip to keep in mind!

 

[ApexxWolf]

Solid advice here! Definitely don't be lazy with the metadata :]

 

[Cherry Tung]

My two cents worth: Painter says that the problem with reddit is that it results in views with low audience retention. This makes sense to me; if somebody is on reddit it is because that is where they want to be...otherwise they would be on youtube looking at videos. The same is true for facebook and twitter. People view these sites because they give them what they are looking for at that time. Sure, they hop in to youtube for a moment to watch a video, but they quickly hop back to reddit, facebook, or twitter. So audience retention of views generated from external sites such as reddit are low.

However, to discount reddit as a valuable source of new viewers is very bad advice in my opinion. Reddit (and other sites) serves to put a youtube channel on the radar of hundreds of thousands of new viewers and potential subscribers. In all likelihood the same viewer that hopped in and out of a youtube channel whilst on reddit will return to that same channel at a later moment when they feel like watching some videos. At that moment, youtube is where they want to be. Their retention will be higher, and the channel will most certainly benefit.

I also really liked the comment of PictureFit too when he said



I suspect that many of the posters crying out in frustration because their month old channel with 3 videos still hasn't been discovered are either in their late teens or early twenties. This is a really great age to be, especially because there is still so much to learn about life. The story about the old bull and the young bull on top of a hill looking at a herd of cows comes to mind...but I really couldn't tell it here

I don't quite understand why we have to discredit others while giving our opinion on a topic. To each their own. There's nothing wrong with using multiple methods to reach your goal, whether that is view count or retention rate. There is also nothing wrong with wanting to succeed at an early stage or young age. We ALL start somewhere.

 

[Dave B]

Everytime I come back to YTTalk I see the same exact problem. People upset that they can't get views, people giving advice to post more on FB groups, G+ groups, Reddit etc... Why on Earth are you relying on outside website to drive traffic to YouTube? Is YouTube not good enough at driving its own traffic? It's owned by Google...

This is EXACTLY what many of you need to do. FIX YOUR TITLE, TAGS and DESCRIPTION. Download the chrome extension VidIQ (Free). It allows you to see how everyone tags their videos. I can see your videos and I see the same trends every day.

Example of video that gets no views:

Title: I love Coffee
Tags: "coffee", "love", "happiness", "youtube", "video", "ilovecoffee", "summer", "#coffee", "vlog," etc...

Seriously, this is no joke. Go look at your tags. I bet they look similar to the example above.

Example if you want to get views:

Title: Starbucks New Cascara Latte Coffee Review | What is Cascara?
Tags: "Starbucks cascara latte", "Starbucks cascara", "Starbucks coffee review", "Starbucks cascara review", Starbucks cascara latte review", "what does cascara latte taste like", "what is cascara," etc...

Do you see a difference? This video is more focused, narrow scope and will probably rank well on YouTube. Realize that YouTube is an indexing library. Instead of the dewey decimal system (book libraries), it relies on Titles, tags and descriptions. Learn how to find keywords that you can rank in the top 20 and you will be on the first 2 pages of YouTube for that keyword. Keywords are literally what people are searching for.

Best of luck.

Nick

I agree that titles, tags & descriptions play a big part and are very important but I think this over simplifies how to be a success on YouTube.

I disagree in regards to not using external platforms. I believe that YouTube will favor your channel if they see that you are attracting viewers from external sites i.e. basically pulling viewers attention away from other sites and attracting them to YouTube is a good thing. For example, if you can get your videos embedded on related popular blog sites I assure you that your channel will benefit greatly from this.

Was there any reason you chose VidIQ over Buddy? (not trying to argue, just genuinely curious)

I second this