Introduction
As a new YouTuber with very few or no subscribers, it is extremely troublesome to get views on YouTube.
It took me about a year to grow from 0 to 1,000 subscribers.
Today, I will share everything that I learned on how to get more views for your YouTube videos.
Why Are YouTube Views Important?
I want you to think of views, not as views, but as people.
Every view means that one person has watched one of your videos.
Every time this happens, this creates a new opportunity for you.
If the person likes what they see, they might watch more of your videos, ultimately translating into additional ad revenue once you are accepted into the YouTube Partner Program.
Importantly, many viewers will become subscribers, which creates the foundation for future revenue.
How Are YouTube Views Counted?
The YouTube algorithm wasn't intelligent in the early days of YouTube.
A high number of views was all it took to go viral on YouTube. Any click on a video counted as a view.
This was quickly exploited by some users who created clickbait titles and thumbnails to get people to click on one of their videos and then show them something completely unrelated in their videos.
As a result, YouTube switched from its "1 click = 1 view" model to "X seconds watched = 1 view"
YouTube doesn’t provide a clear definition of what counts as a view.
We know that if someone clicks on your video and then hits the back button, this doesn't count as a view.
Only for YouTube Ads, we have a clear definition: A view is counted when someone watches 30 seconds of your video.
For more details, check out my article How does YouTube count views, as well as YouTube's beginner’s guide to video ad metrics and insights and how engagement metrics are counted.
Why Is It Important to Get More Views on YouTube?
If you want to become a successful YouTuber, you have to optimize the entire video supply chain from the first impression, click, view, watch time, engagement, and becoming a subscriber.
Get a high number of views is an essential growth factor to getting more subscribers on YouTube.
A great video thumbnail + enticing YouTube video title increases the click-through rate of your videos.
Turn clicks into views by keeping viewers engaged throughout the entire duration of your video.
This allows you to optimize every important video metric on YouTube – that tells the newsfeed algorithm – that your videos should be recommended to more people. Most importantly, it helps you to raise your YouTube watch time.
- More video views.
- Higher YouTube watch time.
- Many likes, comments, and shares.
- Fast subscribers growth.
- More people take action after watching your videos, for example, to sign up for your newsletter or buy something from you.
If many people watched a video in the past, there is probably a reason for that. It must be worth watching.
Many people consider views a quality metric. This allows you to create strong social proof on YouTube quickly.
This, in return, can further improve your YouTube click-through rate and generate even more views for your videos.
YouTube Content Strategy
A good first step to increase your video views is by raising the overall channel authority of your YouTube channel.
If YouTube considers your channel to be an authority in your niche, your videos will be shown to more viewers who are interested in your niche.
Share exclusive content on YouTube
By creating content that people can’t get anywhere else.
If you are the only source of information that people share, you get 100% of the views.
Shorten your video production time
Be the first to make a video about something. Many times speed is more important than production quality.
If you publish something brand new and there are no other videos around, you get the first-mover advantage, and many new people will share your video on social media.
Plan your videos in advance
This way, you can recommend upcoming videos at the end of your video.
Think of your YouTube content strategy as playing 4D chess. You always want to be one step ahead of your audience.
Hook viewers in and get them to subscribe to your channel by promoting an upcoming video.
This way, they are forced to subscribe to your channel to get a notification once the promised video is live.
Increasing the number of YouTube subscribers boosts the number of impressions for future videos and helps you drive more views to your videos.
Understand why videos go viral
Creating viral videos is another option. This strategy is only recommended for some niches.
If your channel focuses on pranks or funny animal videos, it will be a lot easier than if your channel was about taxes and accounting.
Nonetheless, you can take inspiration from the structure of viral videos to improve your overall engagement with your videos. This typically leads to more views, higher watch time, and more shares of your videos.
Create video series.
There is a good reason why people binge-watch shows such as West World or Game of Thrones.
Once we are invested in something, we have a strong urge for completion.
You can use that to your advantage by creating longer video series that complement each other and provide the highest value if watched in sequence.
This way, viewing one video of your playlists almost always leads to watching 2 or more videos.
For example, you could create an About You series in the form of a vlog, where you answer questions about yourself and your business. You can check out this article with my Best Q&A Questions for Vlogging to kickstart your series.
Video Production Strategy
Improve your video production quality will naturally increase your watch time. The longer people watch your videos, the more videos YouTube will recommend to them, thus increasing your video views.
You can improve your video quality by investing in a better DSLR camera or high-end smartphone.
Improve your lighting
Frequently, your camera is already good enough, but you have poor lighting.
You can solve this for cheap by filming outside. Sunlight always makes everything look great. Look out for a semi-shaded place to get consistent brightness from top to bottom, and then balance your camera exposure on your face.
Alternatively, you can get excellent LED video lights for your home studio. This gives you the flexibility to record videos whenever you want, independent of sunshine, outside temperature, or weather conditions.
Find interesting backgrounds
Even then, the best camera and lighting will still look boring if you're leaning against a white wall while filming. You can make your environment more interesting by carefully framing your shot.
When you're outdoors, work with your environment and create a whitespace around you. Learn the rule of thirds, and position yourself on the left or right line and frame something interesting from your background on the other line. This will automatically make everything look much more interesting.
When you're indoors, use an interesting backdrop with colors and texture and use furniture and props to create more depth.
In both cases, you can play around with perspectives by either filming with two video cameras from two different angles or by moving your camera around during the recording of your video.
Be more experimental, and don't be afraid to hop into your car for a quick road trip to find more interesting backdrops for your videos.
Invest in high-quality audio equipment
Often underestimated, audio is even more important than your video quality.
You could have the perfect image quality with interesting backgrounds, perfect lighting, and a crisp 4K video. Still, if nobody can understand you, for example, because you're mumbling or because there is too much background noise that your voice becomes inaudible, nobody will want to watch your videos.
Good choices are a wireless lavaliere microphone such as the RØDE Wireless GO II or the Sennheiser AVX-MKE2.
An excellent and my personal favorite when it comes to video shotgun mics is the RØDE VideoMic NTG.
You can either record directly into your camera with an adapter or get an external audio recorder such as the Zoom H6 and sync your audio during editing.
Improve your on-camera performance
Another great way to increase the number of views of your videos is by improving your on-camera performance.
Prepare a script in the form of bullet points.
WorkFlowy is a free tool that I use to write my YouTube scripts.
A video script will make your delivery more fluid by providing structure, allowing you to map out your message, and allowing you to follow your intuition rather than reading off a script.
Planning your script frees up a significant amount of mental capacity for your on-camera performance, which would otherwise have been occupied with thinking about your lines or keeping your eyes on the script.
Make yourself feel more comfortable and confident by putting yourself in a good mood.
- Put on your favorite suit or dress and think about using accessories.
- Put on makeup or get a good shave.
- Put on your favorite perfume.
- Style your hair.
Find a flattering camera angle that makes you shine.
Take your time, speak slower if you're nervous, take off the pressure.
You can cut out any periods of silence and bloopers from your final video. If something goes wrong, take a moment to collect your thoughts and then repeat the entire sentence.
Think of the camera as a friend and love the lens.
I find the best way to do this is to visualize someone's face, a person who you really, like in front of your camera, with the lens marking the spot just between their eyes. This will give you great eye contact.
People who watch your video can feel your eye contact while watching your videos.
Have fun.
Don't take yourself too seriously.
You might not feel comfortable on camera, but trust me, this is how you look and sound to everyone else all the time.
The more you film yourself and force yourself to watch your videos and listen to your voice, the more normal you will feel and the better your camera performance.
I recommend recording at least three times per week to build up and maintain your on-camera confidence.
Don't worry about little mistakes. Do you realize how often we make mistakes just during normal conversations with friends and family, even in our mother tongue? The answer is a lot! Also, it doesn't matter. We have a built-in auto-correction system that allows us to decode what someone means, even if they make a grammatical error or use the wrong word to express something. If anything, small little mistakes make you more relatable to your audience.
Use your hands and allow yourself to be more expressive.
I know you want to hold on to something. It's a normal self-comforting strategy when we are stressed.
But if you push yourself out of your comfort zone, you will realize that you will feel more confident when you move more confidently.
In other words, open hand gestures become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you will look and sound more confident.
Add a verbal call to action and other recommendations
There are many ways to directly influence and increase the number of YouTube views by verbally asking your viewers to take action. Here are some of the best examples.
Tell people about a specific video that goes into more detail on a specific topic of your video that you shared in a YouTube Card.
Point your finger to the top-right corner of your video (for that, you actually have to point to your top-left) And explain to them how they can watch this video.
The same approach works for YouTube End Screens too. Just mention, in the last 20 seconds of your video, that you put the link to another video or playlist right there on the screen and ask your audience to click on it.
You can also give your viewers instructions on how to search and find a specific video by typing in a particular phrase into the YouTube search bar.
Or recommend to them watching one of your YouTube playlists that can be found by visiting your channel page.
Another great way to get more views is to tell your viewers about an upcoming video.
This can be combined with asking your audience to subscribe to your channel and turn the bell on to receive a notification once the new video goes live.
Use the magic of video editing
There are a lot of ways to make your videos more interesting via the magic of editing. The entire idea is to break up your video into many small chunks that can be more easily digested.
By giving viewers interesting new information, both visually and audible, you constantly trigger their reticular activating system, resulting in more focus and attention to your video.
Think about adding a nice 2-5 seconds intro to your videos that show viewers your video title or topic with your signature channel music.
This technique also works great for outros, especially when combined with End Screens.
By breaking your video up into smaller chunks, you make it easier for your audience to process what you just said without overwhelming them.
Short transition scenes with section title and music further structure your video and allow viewers to understand your videos better.
Adding music and sound effects is another great way to add depth to your videos. If you sign up for a paid TubeBuddy subscription, you get free access to over 250,000+ songs and sound effects.
YouTube Strategy
Have a regular publishing schedule
A regular publishing schedule will help you to get more views on your YouTube videos.
One of the reasons is that you will be more likely to publish new videos consistently if you set up a regular publication schedule.
Recording and editing new videos regularly will improve your on-camera performance and editing skills, making your videos more enjoyable over time.
This, in return, encourages more viewers to come back and watch more of your videos.
YouTube channels that publish regularly are more likely to grow and keep new subscribers.
That's because YouTube takes the act of subscribing as an indicator of interest and will recommend newly uploaded videos to new subscribers.
If someone subscribes and too much time passes until you upload a new video, the YouTube algorithm might decide to prioritize other creators' videos over yours instead.
While you have to work hard at maintaining a regular posting schedule, it's actually much more efficient than you might think.
You can film videos in bulk and then schedule them for future publishing so that your audience has time to see each of them (remember that they may not get around to watching everything the day that it's uploaded).
Your fans will be more engaged if they know when you plan to post, which is why we recommend making a habit out of setting consistent dates and times for your video uploads.
The best way to get this started is by committing to at least one video per week, even if it's for the sake of getting into the habit of regularly uploading videos.
When you grow accustomed to uploading often, you notice that you already have an audience waiting eagerly for each new upload.
Maintaining a regular posting schedule will lead to greater success on YouTube and allows you to focus on creating content rather than thinking about when to create it.
Publish on the same weekday and time to create habits
Having a regular schedule is great. What's even better is to have a specific weekday and time when you schedule your video upload.
This way, you can verbally remind viewers of your YouTube videos when uploading your next videos.
Example: "I upload new videos every Tuesday, 9 AM Eastern time. So make sure to check in next week when my next video goes live!"
All of us love patterns and naturally build habits around them.
Remember watching new Game of Thrones episodes on Sundays?
That wasn't a coincidence; that was on purpose.
Once people noticed these patterns, they started to block out time for their favorite TV show or even scheduled watch parties with friends and family.
The same works for YouTube. When your channel becomes predictable, you will notice that your most loyal fans will be right there on time the second your video goes live.
I use a tool called TubeBuddy to schedule all of my YouTube videos in advance. You can check out my full TubeBuddy review here, where I share how it helped me grow my channel from 0 to 3000 subscribers.
It even allows me to add freshly uploaded videos to multiple playlists the moment a video goes live and even schedule my first comment.
Reply to all YouTube comments
Reply to all of your comments will help you get more video views by creating more engagement with your audience on YouTube.
It may seem like a small thing, but it’s a lot more effective than you might think.
The reason this works is that YouTube counts commenting as a strong engagement indicator and will recommend more videos to those people who comment.
This can be further amplified by creating a conversation in the comments.
Commenters also feel more appreciated by the YouTube creator and are more likely to come back to watch more videos and to comment more.
It’s easy to get a bit overwhelmed with the number of comments you get on YouTube, especially if your channel is starting to grow.
I recommend using the TubeBuddy Canned Comment tool to create comment reply templates that allow you to answer the same questions that show up over and over again with the click of a button.
You can install the free TubeBuddy extension here.
To learn more about TubeBuddy, also check out my in-depth review where I cover how TubeBuddy helped me to get from 0 to 3000 subscribers.
Add cards to promote videos and playlists
YouTube allows you to add info Cards within each of your videos.
This feature allows you to cross-promote your other videos and playlists in every video and is a proven tool to generate more views for your YouTube channel.
It works best with verbal and visual reminders that you shared the link to a specific video or playlist in a YouTube Card and then to point your finger in the top-right corner of the video.
From your point of view, looking at the camera means you have to point to the top-left side since the camera will flip everything.
To make this work, I recommend writing down a list of 1 to 3 related videos when you're crafting your video script, so you can easily mention it.
Add end screens to your videos
Another great way to promote your YouTube videos is by adding End Screens to your videos.
This YouTube feature allows you to display various clickable overlays on top of the last 20 seconds of your videos.
You can add an on-screen subscribe button to your channel, link to specific videos or playlists, or allow YouTube to automatically recommend one of your videos, of which YouTube believes that an individual viewer is most likely to click on.
I created End Screen templates with TubeBuddy that I can apply to new uploads with one click.
I highly recommend personalizing each End Screen with 2 to 3 related videos to increase the probability that someone click, maximizing the highest number of views per viewer.
Write a captivating description for each of your videos
YouTube gives you 5000 characters of descriptive text for each of your videos.
I always follow the following strategy.
First, I add a brief description to the top of each video to optimize my videos for YouTube SEO.
Next, I share links to specific videos, playlists, and website links I recommend in my video.
The evergreen list of my most popular videos for each video description closely follows this.
Sharing video links in your description is a potent tool to increase your YouTube videos.
I use TubeBuddy Bulk Search & Replace tools to update my video descriptions in bulk whenever I want to cross-promote different videos.
You would be surprised how many actually read your description and click on more videos.
Experiment with different YouTube content formats
You can increase the number of views on your YouTube channel by experimenting with different content types.
Not everything has to be a regular YouTube video, although these will be responsible for most of your total views.
Shorts are YouTube's latest content type that is heavily favored by the YouTube algorithm.
That means that whatever you publish will have a much bigger organic reach than regular videos. Best of all, all views count towards your total view count.
Start with live-streaming on YouTube
It's a great way to increase your views and build a sense of community with your audience. It's also one of the best ways to increase your YouTube watch time.
Publish important videos as YouTube premieres
Premieres work great for your pillar content. Every time you create something special, don't just publish it; create an exciting event around it with a scheduled Premiere.
You can get more people to view your video right after publication, which sends important ranking signals to the YouTube algorithm, helping you to potentially push your video into the evergreen category that YouTube recommends over months and years.
Create community posts to promote your videos
Did you know that YouTube has a community post feature?
It's super cool and allows you to share anything from plain text to photo posts.
The best part is, they don't compete with your videos.
That means you can publish your video and instantly create a community post with a link to your latest video, asking your audience to watch it.
This works like a charm and has helped me boost my video views dramatically.
Content Optimizations
You want to optimize every aspect of your videos to get more people to click on them, to watch and engage with them.
Write a click-worthy video title
Start by optimizing your video titles and making them click-worthy.
Here is what you should focus on.
Articulate what this video is about with clarity.
What's the main benefit of watching it.
And who should watch it?
Combining these three factors will ensure that you get more views of your videos from just the right people.
You can also check out this article, where I share how to write the perfect YouTube video title from scratch, and this article, where I explain how to optimize existing YouTube video titles further.
Add an attractive thumbnail to your video
Your title and your thumbnail are the biggest factors for improving your video click-through rate, which leads to more views.
You can read this article to learn how to design beautiful thumbnails for your videos that are almost guaranteed to attract many views for your videos.
One of my favorite thumbnail strategies is to AB test different thumbnails against each other with TubeBuddy's Click Magnet feature.
Click here to get the free TubeBuddy extension to try it yourself.
Write and optimize your video description
Adding the right keywords to your video description will ensure that your video is optimized for YouTube SEO.
Such videos are more likely to show up in YouTube search results, which can be a significant booster for your YouTube views.
Add tags to your videos
Tags are another important ranking factor for video SEO. They help YouTube better understand what your video is all about.
I recommend using the TubeBuddy Keyword Explorer tool to find keywords with a high search volume on YouTube but very few competing videos.
Transcribe your video and add subtitles
Subtitles are the third YouTube SEO ranking factor.
What many people don't know is that YouTube automatically creates subtitles for you.
They do this, so they can treat your video as an article and use the same keyword analysis tools to understand the content of your videos better, so they can recommend it to people interested in similar topics.
I recommend using a more advanced tool such as Otter for more accurate results, including proper punctuation marks and capitalization, as well as the ability and use custom dictionaries for words such as your brand name or even the word YouTube with a capital T in the middle.
Add your video to playlists
Adding your videos to one or more playlists is a great YouTube hack that allows you to get more views. By categorizing videos into different categories, you make it super easy for viewers to binge-watch similar videos in one go.
Not everyone will watch playlists, but the few people who do, often watch 10 to 20 videos back to back, giving you a big boost to your total channel views.
I use TubeBuddy's Playlist tools to sort my YouTube playlist automatically, so the best-performing videos are always at the top.
Channel Optimizations
To get more views on YouTube, it is imperative to optimize your YouTube channel as a whole as well.
There are two options for optimizing your YouTube channel, your channel description, and your channel keywords.
Add a description section to your YouTube channel
Start by opening up your YouTube channel's about page, then click on the Customize Channel button at the top.
You will be taken to YouTube Studio.
Switch over to the Basic Info tab and start typing in the description text area.
There is a limit of 1000 characters or roughly about 500 words.
Think of your channel description in terms of big-picture YouTube SEO keywords.
It's more important to use broad category keywords here rather than being too specific.
YouTube just needs to know the overlapping theme of your channel that connects most of your videos.
Add channel keywords
To update your channel keywords, switch to YouTube Studio and open the Settings tab on the left.
A new popup will show up.
Navigate to the Channel tab and click on the keywords text form.
You have up to 500 characters of text; that's about 250 words total.
Use some of the same broad-range topic keywords that you already added to your channel description.
In doubt, do a bit of extra research via the TubeBuddy Keyword Explorer tool.
Upload a welcome video
A welcome video on your YouTube channel can help you to increase your video views.
How?
Because it will auto-play your welcome when someone opens your YouTube channel page.
You can upload two different welcome videos. One for people who are not subscribed to your channel, and another one for subscribers.
Use your welcome video to welcome viewers and give them recommendations of what they should watch first.
I recommend highlighting some of your most popular videos and playlists to get people to binge-watch more of your videos.
Add links to your channel
Did you know that you can add links to your YouTube channel to increase views?
Visit your YouTube channel about page, and then click on Customize Channel.
On the Basic Info tab.
Scroll down to the Links section and add up to 5 links. I recommend links to your most popular playlists or videos.
A little lower, you find the Links on the "Banner" setting.
Here you can select how many links you want to feature on your channel top bar.
I recommend only showing one link since only the first link will show the link title. All other links will only show favicons, which might be confusing if you link to YouTube videos and playlists.
YouTube Optimizations to Boost Views
Get your videos on the YouTube homepage feed
There are two ways to get your videos featured on the YouTube homepage to attract more video views.
The first and easiest way is to make videos optimized for specific keywords, topics, and high watch time.
YouTube will recommend these videos to new viewers who have recently been searching for and watching similar videos.
The second way is to create a viral video that passes YouTube's internal community and advertiser guidelines.
Once a video surpasses a certain number of views and watch time, YouTube might recommend it to a much wider audience on the homepage feed.
This approach is much more difficult and requires a profound understanding of how YouTube works to press all the right buttons to make a video go viral and get thousands of people to share it with their friends, family, and co-workers.
Get your videos suggested on other channels
How to get your videos suggested on other peoples' videos to increase views.
This is a rather simple task.
Find out which videos on a specific topic are already doing really well on YouTube.
You can use the TubeBuddy Keyword Explorer tool to find the best ranking video for any keyword.
Watch the top-ranking videos and take a lot of notes.
Then build a new video outline based on the most important ideas from the top-ranking videos and add your twist to it. I use a free tool called Workflowy to outline all of my videos.
Film your video and aim to be more entertaining in your delivery than the top-ranking videos.
When you optimize your videos, use the best hashtags of the top three competing videos and add them to your tags.
Review the video descriptions of the top-ranking videos and see if you can copy some of their ideas for your video.
Make sure that you add subtitles to your videos. I recommend using Otter, which does an outstanding job in terms of accuracy and punctuation detection.
Now that your video is optimized make sure to promote it to as many relevant people as possible to drive up early video views and watch time.
If you pass YouTube's internal video quality and relevancy score, they will automatically recommend your video next to other related videos.
Since you optimize your video for the top 3 ranking videos, you can likely get a good amount of traffic from the best-performing videos.
If your video is performing better than the currently ranking videos in terms of watch time, the chances are high that your video will eventually outrank them.
Optimize for YouTube search
How to get your videos to rank high in YouTube search results so you can get more views.
If you are just starting your YouTube channel, and YouTube doesn't have enough data on how good or relevant your videos are to potential viewers, they will not recommend it to new users initially.
The only exception is if your video is targeting a topic that has nobody else competing for it.
Now, I don't want you to go out and make super-random videos about topics nobody has ever heard about.
Why? Because nobody is searching for it.
Example: You title your video "fsldjhflsdjhfksbhf". Yes, you might be unique, but what are the odds that someone will type this phrase of random characters into the YouTube search field? Nobody!
Instead, focus on finding keywords with no competition but a high search volume.
I use TubeBuddy's Keyword Explorer tool to find thousands of such high search-volume, low-competition keywords for any niche or industry.
Another approach to rank high on YouTube search is using the first-mover advantage.
Use tools such as Google Alerts to find the latest topics and news and then make a video about it.
You have to be fast. The moment you read a breaking-news, pull out your camera, film, edit, and upload your within an hour, and your chances of ranking are very high.
Here is the trick.
Because your video is the first and only video on a specific topic, viewers have no other choice than to watch your video.
This will give you all the necessary ranking signals, such as high watch time, for YouTube to interpret your videos as high-quality and relevant, which leads to YouTube recommending your video in YouTube search, giving you thousands of free extra views.
Supercharge your views with playlists
How to get more people to watch your YouTube playlists to supercharge your YouTube views counter with binge-watching superfans.
First, make sure that you create relevant playlists for different themes and topics of your videos.
Optimize each playlist.
Make sure that your playlist title contains relevant keywords.
Write a detailed description of your playlist. You can add up to 5000 characters to each YouTube playlist.
Make sure to add as many relevant keywords to your playlist description as possible.
Ensure that your playlist privacy is set to Public so that it will show up on your channel and YouTube search.
Pro-tip: Turn your regular playlist into a YouTube Series.
The benefit of having a series is that YouTube is much more likely to recommend other videos from your series playlists in the recommended videos section, leading to more views for your other videos.
Keep in mind that each video can only be in one series at any time, so select your series playlists wisely to get the biggest effect.
Promote Your YouTube Videos
Blog
- Write a blog post to accompany each video
- Embed videos in your articles
- Publish a transcript of your video as a blog post and link it to the original YouTube video
- Add a sidebar to your website or blog with a feed of your YouTube videos
Resources page
- Create a recommended resources page on your website and share some of your most popular videos
Podcast
- Create a video version of your podcast
- Publish audio-only versions of your videos as podcast episodes, and share the link of the original YouTube video in the episode description
Email list
- Grow an email list with a powerful lead magnet. Whenever you upload a new video on YouTube, send out an email blast to your list and ask them to watch your latest video
Membership site
- Create a paid membership site or community on a platform such as Patreon. And share early access to your upcoming videos.
YouTube
- Ask people to subscribe
- Ask viewers to turn the notification bell on
- Mention upcoming videos at the end of your video
- Promote videos with community posts
- Share a link to your YouTube video on your page or personal profile
- Share short clips of your YouTube videos
- Create Stories on Facebook when your video goes live
- Share a link to your YouTube video on Instagram bio link
- Share short clips of your YouTube videos
- Create Stories when your video goes live. Add the swipe-up feature with a direct link to your video.
Tiktok
- Share short clips of your YouTube video.
- Share the link to your video in a tweet.
- Add a promo Story to promote your video
Clubhouse
- Have an audio-only premiere of your YouTube videos. At the beginning and end, explain how people can watch the full video on YouTube.
- Become an active, and valued member in relevant Subreddits. Once you have established yourself, check-in with the moderators if you can share some of your YouTube videos there.
With ads
- Film a channel trailer and promote it with YouTube video ads. This will get your views on your trailer video, increase the number of subscribers and boost your long-term views on your channel.
Qr codes
Create a QR code of your YouTube channel URL and share it everywhere, especially anything print.
- Business card
- Letterheads
- Poster
- Flyer
- PowerPoint slides
TubeBuddy allows you to share special links that always link to your most popular or most recent video. These also make great QR codes.
Email signature
Share a link to your YouTube channel and/or latest video in your email signature so each time you reply to someone, they can see those links.
Collaborate With Other Youtubers
If you collaborate with other creators in your niche, you can get many eyeballs on your channel.
Teaming up with other creators allows both of you to get more views for your videos and grow subscribers.
Choose collaborators whose viewers exist in the same niche as your channel if you want to double your audience.
The idea of collaborating with others can be intimidating to new YouTubers.
At first, you may feel hesitant, but once you get started, you'll quickly realize that the process moves along much more smoothly than you anticipated.
Start by creating a list of potential collaboration partners in your field. Focus on channels that have about the same number of subscribers or a slightly higher number.
Brainstorm a couple of potential video ideas that both of you could collaborate on.
Reach out via email with a short, personalized email.
Tell them what you love about their channel and give details about one of their most recent videos, so they know that you actually watched it.
Finish your email with 1-3 ideas for a potential collaboration.
When you're sitting down to brainstorm and plan your collaboration videos, plan two videos from the start, one for each of you.
Make sure that both of you verbally mention the collaboration and at the end of the video.
Add Cards, End Screens, and links in your description for each other's YouTube channel and collaboration videos.
Agree on a mutual publishing date, and promote each other's videos on social media.
Collaborations are an excellent opportunity for two similar channels to swap and combine audiences, especially when both channels are similar in style and topics.
YouTube View Hacks
Share links to specific videos within playlists
A very cool hack that you can use to get more views is adding your video to playlists.
When sharing a video on social media or via email, don't share the link to the video itself but the "video within the playlist".
For example, v=mffVD9JIl3g is the ID of the video I want to share.
And the list=PL7RtObNabLpLXZfntpiWusGh13sIGPj1W is the ID of the embedded playlist
The index=1 refers to the position of the video I want to share from the top of the embedded playlist
So the URL should look like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mffVD9JIl3g&list=PL7RtObNabLpLXZfntpiWusGh13sIGPj1W&index=1
Should you buy views for your YouTube videos?
Unfortunately, many YouTubers are not willing to put in the work or are too impatient to get YouTube views organically.
They hope that they can somehow achieve real success on YouTube if they just get the numbers of subscribers and viewers up ASAP.
Many shady YouTube services on the internet promise quick results by buying subscribers, views, comments, likes, etc.
There is just one problem with all these fake views: they are not from real people but rather from bot farms and hacked computer systems that not only don't produce results but can actually hurt your YouTube success.
Here is what the YouTube algorithm rewards.
Views from real people, who ideally watched similar videos as yours before, and who watched a large percentage of your video, and took action in the form of liking, commenting, subscribing, and checking out some of your other videos.
In such a case, the new subscriber will see more of your videos in their newsfeed, and YouTube will recommend your videos to other, similar people.
Here is what you get if you buy 1000 YouTube views from scammers:
Views from fake bots, and hacked computers, that watched 10 million random videos that have nothing to do with your channel or niche before you.
They don't watch a high percentage of your video, probably only 5-30 seconds at most, just to count as a view, so the scammer can make more money by letting their bots watch more videos from other paying customers.
The bots won't subscribe to your video. They won't like, comment, or share, click on your channel or watch any of your other videos.
The views also follow a totally unnaturally pattern and are often delivered all at once within a few minutes.
YouTube can interpret this one of two ways, and none are in your favor.
Either YouTube thinks that your video was totally irrelevant to 1000 people because they left your video after a few seconds. Because of that, YouTube might downrank its internal quality score and show it to fewer people in the future.
Or YouTube might detect this unusual behavior as bot activity and punish your channel for using illegal means to grow your channel.
Next Steps
Now that you have a good idea of what it takes to get more views for your YouTube videos, it's time to think of other aspects of your YouTube channel that you can optimize.
You can learn more about this on my YouTube blog.
