4 Tips to Improve Your YouTube Video Performance
Improving your YouTube performance is both key for YouTube and for your own network. Here are a few tips:
- Your YouTube Click-Through Rate determines your video performance.
YouTube’s main concern is that their viewers spend as much time as possible consuming their video content. So it is no wonder that much of your success on your video depends on your average click through rate to measure how often viewers will click to watch your video content after seeing an impression (which is tracked every time your video thumbnail is shown to a potential viewer).
YouTube uses this information to determine if it will push your video to others as a suggested video or recommended video in the search results. The better your click-through rate, the better chance you have at YouTube pushing your video for you. So as a general rule, a great click-through rate equals more discovery.
What does this mean for you? For you, this means putting more time into the title, description and thumbnail of your video to make sure it’s as attractive as possible.
- The Watch-Time Rule
The second most important factor in YouTube’s algorithm is the average watch time of a video. YouTube wants you to watch more but click less. This is called “Audience Retention” which measures how well your videos keep people watching. The longer they watch the better….
Your goal is to keep them engaged for as long as possible.
Here are a few tips:
a. Let viewers know that they made the right choice by clicking your video and put the hook in the first few seconds of the video.
Get right to the point and before you even introduce yourself, introduce what you will be talking about.
b. Avoid long endings; when the video is over…just end it….Do not just drag the outro on and on. This will really hurt your watch time.
c. Deliver on your Thumbnail. Make sure what you advertised in your thumbnail is what the video is about.
d. Suggest another video. Instead of always asking people to like and subscribe, make sure you also suggest another video that the audience might be interested in. Getting more viewers to watch more of your video content keeps them more engaged and only helps your stats.
e. Don’t get caught up in video length. It’s a myth that longer videos perform better. Let your video be as long as the content dictates.
- YouTube’s future is NICHE
YouTube is getting further and further away from generic entertainment and getting more focused with niche channels and audiences. No longer are the days in which you can gain thousands of subscribers with inconsistent and generic content. The more focused you are the better you will succeed.
- Own Your Audience
This is by far the most important of all the tips. You have already worked hard to get an audience on YouTube so now you need to make sure you get to keep what you earned. You have to first understand that you OWN nothing on the YouTube platform…..all of your subscribers belong to YouTube.
Consider this…in 2017 PewDiePie’s (over 70 million subscribers) YouTube channel was shut down temporarily over a video that broke YouTube rules. YouTube sent a very clear message to video creators everywhere – we own your channel and can shut it down when we want.
So if your channel gets demonetized or even worse shut down by YouTube, you instantly lose your entire subscriber base and all of that hard work you did. In a blink of an eye you have no contacts, no leads, no list, nothing.
Beyond just he ability to shut your channel down we have seen how YouTube policy changes, updates and algorithm changes (like minimum watch times, click through rates etc…) can effect a channel revenue and exposure overnight.
To avoid this you need to scale up your video content creation business and start collecting your viewer data like emails and information immediately.
Direct them to your website and a email magnet to get them to sign-up. This does two things, provides a safety blanket for yourself and even better provides a way to monetize your audience by contacting them directly.
The next step is to have your own Netflix style site where you can charge subscriptions for additional and more exclusive premium content. This is great for generating leads but also making more money.
You may not end up with 100% of your subscribers giving you their email address but you still end up with a strong list of highly interested subscribers.
If you would like to learn how you can get your own Netflix style site check out our Internet TV page here.