How to get more views on YouTube

It goes without saying that when you upload a YouTube video you don’t want the ‘You’ part to accurately describe who sees it. But getting your video noticed can be a massive challenge. In this article, we’ll talk through some simple tips and tricks to make getting YouTube views that little bit easier.

YouTube Key Words are the Key

Key words are one of the most straightforward ways of making sure your content gets to the right people. You can make choosing the right ones easy by using the search bar to find out what people search for on YouTube. If you’re a rapper, for instance, type in ‘best rap’ to see what comes up, but don’t press enter.

Screenshot of how to use the search engine to optimise YouTube key words.

You can then select the most applicable search terms and add them as keywords to your video; in this case, it might be ‘best rap songs’, ‘best rap beats’ and ‘best rap songs of 2016’. This takes the guesswork out of the equation, as you’ve tailored your key words to what people are definitely looking for.

Don’t neglect the description

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation, is the fancy marketing term for getting your stuff to show up on Google. You need to make sure it’s clear what your video’s about to make this happen. The answer here? Really really really long descriptions. Half a sentence isn’t going to cut it. You want to include every possible detail so that search engines can figure out what’s going on in your video (remember – they don’t watch it) and then make it show up in the right searches.

Organise your YouTube channel

Use playlists to organise your videos into categories based around key words. It’s easier for people to navigate your channel – people don’t want to have to trawl through video after video to find the one they want – and again, makes it clearer what your videos are about. It sounds obvious, but also make your titles clear – ‘newrapbeats.mp3’ is not in the slightest bit helpful!

Make the most of social media

It’s common sense to share your videos to different channels (and if you’re not already doing this, start now). But also make sure you use each channel strategically. Posting the same thing multiple times on Twitter (where Tweets disappear down the feed very quickly) is far more acceptable than doing the same on Facebook (where their spam algorithm will send you plummeting into oblivion). On Instagram, it’s important to have really strong visuals and also think about how the ‘grid’ looks as a whole. Make the most of pinned posts and Tweets too – if you really want to drive views to a particular video, this is a way to make sure it’s the first thing people see.

Remind people to subscribe

Amassing subscribers is essential for driving long term traffic to your channel. At the end of each video, give people that extra push they need and remind them to subscribe to your channel. (P.S: Twine has a YouTube channel.)

Image of YouTube subscribe button.

And last of all (or perhaps first)…

Make your content good! It’s no use having ideal keywords and a book-length description if your actual video is as boring as being kept on hold for three hours so that you can renew your dishwasher insurance. Just saying.

Becca

Becca

Becca is the Marketing Executive at Twine. She loves literature, music, film and make-up. She spends a lot of time complaining about the mismatched angles of her winged eyeliner and stalking drag queens on Instagram. Otherwise, she’s helping Joe by writing blog posts and keeping Twine’s social media running.