Can you beat the YouTube Algorithm?
If you're an aspiring YouTuber, look no further. This post will tell you everything you need to know on how to optimize the YouTube algorithm.
Hey guys, Abhinav here! Today’s dose of knowledge is going to involve a topic that may be relevant to almost all of you dear readers, so make sure you pay attention.
YouTube, a wonderful tool for relaxation, studying, working out, and basically anything else you can think of. The platform is so vast and diverse, that you can find almost anything you need instantly. I’m sure many of you have thought about becoming a content creator on YouTube - some of you probably already started a channel. Maybe you were inspired by the content of your YouTube idol, the loads of money Mr. Beast makes on his multiple channels, or even just making one for fun.
There can be a lot of reasons why you wanted to create a YouTube channel, but I’m sure the common question is, “How can I grow my channel successfully?” Well, you have come to the right place.
The YouTube Algorithm?
All the videos that are on your recommended page always seem to have videos personalized to your taste. Well, that’s the work of the YouTube algorithm. The algorithm serves your personalized videos on six different sections of the platform: Home, Trending, Search, Subscriptions, Notifications, and Suggested Videos.
To figure out what videos and channels users are more likely to enjoy watching, YouTube observes the user’s activity on the platform. They observe what videos users watch and don’t watch, how much time they spend on each video and their level of engagement in each video. Because YouTube bases their algorithm on engagement, they force you to create engaging content that the audience can actually enjoy - in other words, it’s harder for you to take the easy way out. Now let’s go to how YouTube’s algorithm serves the six different sections of the platform: Home, Trending, Search, Subscriptions, Notifications, and Suggested Videos.
Home
The videos of the channels you subscribed to will show up first on your home page. Other videos that you may like will also show up - this depends on how well the video did and your watch history. If you want to get your videos on someone else’s homepage, just identify your audience and create genuine content that your audience will enjoy.
Trending
Hopping over to the Trending page, YouTube ranks these videos based on view count and rate of view growth in this section. These videos are not customized for your taste, but they can definitely give you some insight into how a successful video can be created.
Search
The two biggest factors that affect your video search rankings are keyword relevance and engagement metrics (let me explain).
Keyword relevance
If you want your YouTube video to be ranked, try optimizing your video based on popular search queries. For example, put relevant keywords in your videos’ titles, descriptions, tags, etc. Your video has a greater chance of popping up in front of the user if you include the relevant keywords.
Engagement Metrics
If you want your channel to be successful, engagement is key. If you want to drop a watermelon from the roof of your house, don’t stall like an idiot and drop the melon when your viewer is half asleep. Instead, make sure you put engaging content throughout the video leading up to the drop of the watermelon - the viewer should be on edge. As you may have guessed by now, watch time is a key metric to engagement. If your average watch time is low, think about making some changes.
Hold up, how are you going to get any engagement if people don’t know about your video in the first place? That’s where your thumbnail comes in. The thumbnail is what you see when you’re looking for what videos you want to watch. Creating an eye-catching thumbnail is key to getting viewers’ attention.
Some suggestions for creating an eye-catching thumbnail:
Consider a talking person in your thumbnail because humans tend to gravitate towards other humans (who knew).
Make it colorful. Use contrasting colors to make it stand out, but don’t overdo it and make it a clown fest. No one likes clowns.
Now you’ve got people to notice. If you want them to stick around, make a series or show, add an exciting short clip of your next video, or just tell your viewers what your next video will be about. Make sure you get the viewers hooked. You want them to look forward to your next video. Take Mr. Beast for example. He does extremely crazy things. The dude doesn’t even need a teaser for his next video. People just look forward to whatever crazy stuff he’ll do next. Be like Mr. Beast (if you can afford it).
If you follow these suggestions given, you will get ranked on the viewers’ searches.
Subscriptions
There is a subscription page where viewers can view the videos of the channels they are subscribed to. This isn’t the only benefit to channels with a ton of subscribers. Along with many factors, YouTube ranks its videos based on the video velocity metric. Video velocity is measured by the number of subscribers who watch your videos right after its published. If people like your content, of course, they’re going to watch your videos as soon as they come out.
Notifications
This is a small section, but notifications can also play a role in gaining viewership. The only way to use the notification to your advantage is by asking your viewers to “hit the bell icon”, but that’s not even possible if you don’t have viewers to begin with. Make sure to optimize your videos first and gain subscribers.
Suggested Videos
Every person is different, so each person’s YouTube experience is different. You might like cat videos, while I might like tech gadget videos. Each user’s suggested videos are tailored to their interests. How is it tailored to the user’s specific interests?
YouTube first analyzes the user’s activity history and gets hundreds of relevant videos. The videos are then ranked based on engagement and satisfaction, how often each viewer watches the videos of the same channel or videos of the same topic, and how many times YouTube showed the viewer the same video. Now you know what you need to work on to get your videos recommended to other potential subscribers.
Example
If you want to know how an extremely successful channel call Airrack went from 0 to 1 million subscribers in a year, watch this video (the dude is genius).
Conclusion
That’s it for today's dose of knowledge. I’m sure these facts and suggestions about growing your knowledge can help a lot of current and aspiring YouTubers. Let me know if this post was helpful to you or not in the comment section. Thank you so much for reading, and make sure to watch that video above! Until next time, stay positive but test negative!
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