- Today you're gonna
learn exactly how to get more views on your YouTube
videos step-by-step. I should point something
out, right off the bat. This video is meant for advanced YouTubers so I'm not gonna repeat the same tips you've heard a hundred times already. Like share your videos on social media. Instead, you're gonna
learn advanced strategies that work fast. In fact, I use the same exact process from this video to quickly grow my views from almost zero to over a
hundred thousand views per month. I'm Brian Dean, the founder of Backlinko. If you want to get lots
of views on every video that you publish, make sure to
watch the rest of this video. Nothing's more frustrating
than creating a great video, putting it up on YouTube
and getting no views. Trust me, I can relate. When I first started on
YouTube, my videos struggled to get any views. Refresh, refresh, refresh. Still no views? But I stuck with it. Over the years, I developed
a process for getting views that actually worked. This step-by-step process
helped me grow my views, subscribers, and traffic in record time. Now it's time for me to
share this process with you and show you exactly
how to get lots of views on your YouTube videos. Let's kick things off
with step number one, get more audience interaction. Does YouTube pay attention
to how many people interact with your video? According to YouTube, definitely. In fact, they state that, "Videos are ranked based
on a variety of factors "including how well the title
description and video content "match the viewers query. "Beyond that, we look at which videos "have driven the most engagement." In other words, YouTube promotes videos that people engage with. So, if you can get more likes, comments, and subscribes, YouTube will
show your video to more people. The data backs this up. According to a YouTube
ranking factor study I did last year, audience
interaction signals turned out to be a huge
YouTube ranking signal. In fact, we found that
audience interaction signals like comments, likes, and subscribes all correlated with higher
rankings in YouTube. Okay, so how do you actually get more audience interaction signals? Here are two strategies that work great. First, give your viewers
a multiple choice question at the end of your video. Why? People love giving their opinion. But they hate thinking. So, instead of asking your
viewers to share their thoughts, give them an easy
multiple choice question. For example, in this
video, I outline a bunch of different SEO strategies. And at the end of the
video, I asked my viewers, which of two specific
strategies from the video they're gonna try first. Second, reply to every
single comment that you get. When someone see that you actively engage with your audience, they're
more likely to leave a comment. And more comments equals more views. Also, according you YouTube, quote, "If your viewers love what they see "and have positive interactions, "they're more likely to share your videos "and recommend them." That means even more views. For example, you can see that
I reply to all of my comments in the first week after
one of my videos goes live. Now, it's time for our second step. Promote your videos on Quora
and other online communities. Forums, Quora, Reddit, and
other online communities are awesome places to get more views on your YouTube videos. Here's the exact process. First, search for a
question that your video could help answer. For example, a while
back, I help published this video about link building. So, I searched in Quora
for keywords like SEO and link building. I came across this question. I knew that just linking
to my video as an answer would be spamming. So, I wrote out a helpful response that could stand on its own. Then, I embedded my video
at the end of my response in case people wanted to see more details. That's all there is to it. Now, it's time for our third step for getting more views on YouTube. Optimize for session time,
which is a little known metric that might be YouTube's number
one ranking factor right now. You probably already heard
about audience retention which is the percentage of
your video people watch. You may have also read
about total watch time, which is the total amount of minutes that people have spent watching your video over it's lifespan. Both of these are important
YouTube ranking factors. That said, there's one huge metric that not as many people
talk about, session time. Session time is the total amount of time that someone spends on YouTube after they start watching your video. For example, let's say
that you just published a video about the paleo diet and someone watches your
video all the way through. That's great, this will
boost your audience retention and total watch time. But here's where things get interesting. YouTube also pays very close attention to what the user does next. If they click away from YouTube or close their browser, that's bad. But if that person watches
another one of your videos, that'll increase your session watch time. Because your video is
keeping people on YouTube, they'll thank you by ranking your video in the search results and have you show up in the suggested video sidebar. In fact, YouTube has
said on the record that, "The algorithm for suggesting videos "included prioritizing videos that lead "to a longer overall viewing session." The question is, how you do
you increase your session time? Playlists. Playlists are awesome. Whenever someone watches a
video that's on a playlist, it'll automatically play the other videos on that playlist, boosting your
session time automatically. And from my own testing, I've noticed that creating playlists
has significantly increased my session time which has
dramatically boosted the views for all the videos on my channel. So, I recommend creating
a few different playlists that each have four to five videos. Then, put these playlists
on your channel page. As a quick pro tip, I recommend using benefit-rich playlist titles. That way, more people actually click on and watch your playlists. For example, I used to name my playlists whatever came into my head. That led to boring playlist titles like Link Building Strategies
and White Hate SEO. Today, I give my playlists
a compelling name that will encourage people to click. And if you check out my channel page, you'll notice that I
now use playlist titles like How to Get Higher Google Rankings and Advanced SEO Strategies
and Case Studies. With that, let's get
into step number four, which is to optimize your
videos around video keywords. You might've noticed that YouTube videos are dominating Google search results. In fact, over half of all Google
results contain one video, most of which are YouTube videos. If you optimize your video around keywords that already have videos on
the first page of Google, you can get more views. I call keywords that have video results in Google, video keywords. Not the most creative name,
but it gets the job done. You see, many Google search results only link to web pages. But, video keyword results
reserve a section of the page specifically for YouTube videos. These are the type of keywords that tend to be video keywords. Why is this so important? Well, let's say you
wanted to create a video around the keyword YouTube marketing. When you search for
that keyword in Google, you don't see any video results. Even if you create the best video about YouTube marketing ever made, it's not gonna rank in Google. So, how do you find video keywords? It's easy, just search for
your keyword in Google. If you see at least one YouTube video in the search results, you
just found a video keyword. And give yourself a high-five. With that, it's time for step number five. Optimize your channel
using the PAS method. When I first started out on YouTube, I didn't put a lot of thought into optimizing my channel page. Instead, I focused a 100% on
each video that I published. I thought to myself, "My
channel doesn't matter "as long as my videos are
optimized, I'm all set." As it turns out, I was wrong. The more I studied successful channels, the more I realized that
they put a lot of effort into optimizing their channel to maximize views and subscribers. Sure enough, when I finally
optimized my channel, my views and subscribers
significantly increased. For example, my old
channel had an ugly header that cost me about five bucks. Even worse, my videos were
listed in random order. There wasn't any rhyme or
reason for how my channel was set up or structured. Today, my channel is
professional and appealing. It's also keyword optimized for terms that my target audience searches for. More on that later. With that, it's time for me
to show you how I optimize my channel using the PAS method. The P-A-S in PAS method stands for Playlists, About, Subscribers. First up, we have playlists. We already talked about playlists and how they can help you
improve your session watch time. So, now that you have
some playlists set up, it's time to add them
prominently to your channel page. That way, when someone clicks over from one of your videos to your channel, you'll have a bunch of awesome
playlists for them to watch. For example, you can see that my channel has three playlists strategically
placed on my channel page. Next, it's time to optimize
your pages about section. So, why is your channel's
about section so important? First, your about section
helps YouTube understand what your channel is all about. Just like with the video
description and video tags. So, it could help your video SEO. Also, a well optimized
channel can rank in YouTube for popular keywords. To optimize your about
section, just include keywords that you want your videos to rank for without keyword stuffing. For example, you can see
that my about section content sounds nice and natural. But, I also make sure
to sprinkle in keywords that I want my videos to rank for. Finally, it's time to
optimize your channel to get more subscribers. Imagine that you just
watched a great video. But, when you go to that
video's channel page, it looks like this. How likely would you be to
watch more of their videos? Or subscribe to their channel? Not very. On the other hand, let's say
their channel looked like this. You'd be much more likely
to subscribe, right? Of course, this channel is about Star Wars which makes it automatically awesome, but you get what I mean. Fortunately, it's not hard to create a nice looking channel. All you need, is a channel icon, a professional channel art banner, and a trailer that briefly tells people why they should subscribe to your channel. Let's dive right into step number six. Promote your high-retention
videos as a card. Sometimes you have a video on you channel that has the potential to be huge. It just needs a little push. Here's how to give it that little push. First, log into your YouTube analytics and click on audience retention. Then, look at the average
view duration column. This is the average amount of time that each person spends
watching your video. If you can get more views on a video, that already has a high view duration, that video will rack up
lots and lots of watch time. Which means YouTube will
promote the heck out of it. The best way to send more
people to that video, feature that video as a card
on one of your other videos. To do that, just head over to a few of your most popular videos and add a card that links to the video
you want to promote. For example, this video from my channel has an average view duration
of five minutes 22 seconds. I haven't done much to promote this video and that's probably why it
doesn't have that many views. So, I added a card from some
of my most popular videos to that video. That way, my video will rack
up more total watch time and get promoted across
YouTube's platform. As a pro tip, you can also
feature the same video on your channel page. Just set that video to appear at the top of your channel page
and, bada-bing-bada-boom, more people will see that video. Let's move right along to step seven, the Facebook preview. This is a little hack
that I recently discovered and it works great. So, you already know that
you should promote your video on social media sites
like Twitter and Facebook. But if you just link to
your video in your post, you're making a big mistake. Instead, I recommend using
the Facebook preview. Let me show you how this works
with a real life case study. I wanted to get more views
on this YouTube video that I published on my channel. So, the first thing I did
was grab a clip of my video and uploaded it to Facebook. This clip should be
between 30 and 90 seconds. Then, I wrote a post that
contained the title of the video. You don't need anything fancy here or to sell your video that much. Short and sweet works best. That way, the focus is on your video. I also mention that the
full link to the video is in the comments. I left a comment that linked
to my video on YouTube. This strategy worked out great. My Facebook preview video was
viewed more than 3,000 times. And lots of those people went to YouTube to see my full video,
which led to a huge spike in views on day one. And that's all there is
to the Facebook preview. Let's move right into step number eight, optimize your videos
for SVO, get more views. It's crazy, everyone and their
mom focuses 100% on ranking their videos in YouTube search and they sleep on suggested video. This is a very, very bad idea. In fact, the vast majority
of views on YouTube don't come from YouTube search. They come from the
suggested video sidebar. Even though I rank for a
lot of competitive keywords, I actually get more views
from suggested video than YouTube search. That said, how do you
actually get your videos to appear as a suggested video. The secret is to optimize your video around the same keywords
that popular videos are optimized around. I call this process SVO,
suggested video optimization. Here's exactly how it works. First, find a popular
video in your industry. Now, the exact number
of views that you want to look for will depend on your niche, but in general, the more views
this video has, the better. Next, create a video on the same topic as the popular video. But make it even better. You can make a video better
by including more content, making your advice more actionable, or including more visual elements. Finally, optimize your video
around the same keyword that the popular video
is optimized around. Specifically, you want
to use the same keywords that video uses in your video
title, description, and tags. If your video is awesome enough, YouTube will pop your video
next to that popular video, leading to lots and lots of views. Okay, so, now it's time for out last step to help you get YouTube views, create emotionally compelling titles. It's no secret that the right thumbnail can get more clicks on your video, which will lead to more views. But, I don't see as many people
talk about your video title. The truth is, your video
title can make or break your entire video. In fact, YouTube states that according to their own internal
data, "Well written titles "can be the difference
between someone watching "and sharing your video or
scrolling right past it." That's why I make sure
all of my video titles are optimized for SEO. But, also to generate clicks. From lots and lots of testing, I've found that emotionally compelling
titles work best on YouTube. Now, emotional titles have been shown in industry studies like
this one by BuzzSumo to get more clicks on articles. As it turns out, this also
applies to video titles on YouTube videos. The best way to add
emotion to your video title is to pop your title into the
American Marketing Institute's headline analyzer. This tool will rate the
emotion of your title. You want your title to get
a score of at least 25% but in general, the higher the better. If you title isn't
racking up a high score, consider adding these
emotionally compelling terms to your title. For example, when I put this video's title into the tool, it gets a score of 33.3% That's more than good enough. Let's cap things off
with a quick bonus tip, publish your videos at the right time. So, what's the best time to
publish a video on YouTube? Believe it or not, but
there's data on this. Specifically, a study by a YouTube network called Frederator,
recently shed some light on this question. They found the best time
to publish a YouTube video to maximize views is between
12 and 4 P.M. eastern during the week and between
9 and 11 A.M. on the weekend. They also found that
the best days to publish are Thursdays and Saturdays. So, that's my nine-step
process to help you get more views on YouTube. Did you learn some cool
new stuff in today's video? Then, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel right now. Just click on the subscribe
button below this video. Also, if you want exclusive
SEO and traffic techniques that I only share with subscribers, head over to Backlinko.com
and hop on the newsletter. It's free. Now, I want to turn it over to you. Which technique from today's
video are you gonna try first? Are you gonna make more emotional titles? Or try the Facebook preview? Let me know by leaving a
comment below right now. About session, section. When I first started out, on YouTube... Playlists, is that how you say it? Now what? I heard that, too. I think it's eight or nine. That explains it.
