Growing a YouTube channel is just like nurturing a seed. It takes time, continuous effort, patience, and a little extra care!

And of course, it can’t be achieved overnight!

But there are a few things which can speed up this process. And in this article, we will cover the top 7 things that will speed up your growth on YouTube.

1. Research before you start creating videos

Creating video content takes a lot of time and effort. So, you might want to ensure that you are not wasting your energy on a video topic that has very little or even zero search volume.

Why?

Because if no one is searching for that topic then how can you expect to get more views for your video!

So, before you even work on the script or title, do an extensive research for selecting the best topic for your video.

This will help you ensure that your content caters to a larger audience and thereby increases your chances of getting more views.

The easiest way to do that is by leveraging the auto-complete feature of YouTube search

For example, if you have a food channel and you want to make a video on salads. From the search prediction, we can see that salad decoration tops the list. So, instead of talking a lot about salad making in your video, you can rather talk about ways and tips to decorate salad.

Apart from this, you can also use the following tools to do the keyword research for your video.

1. Google keyword planner – Google keyword planner is a part of the Google Ads interface, which allows you to just type in a keyword and find its search volume and related keywords.

2. Google trends – Just like Google keyword planner google trends is another free tool that helps you find out some trending video ideas.

If you are just starting off with your YouTube channel make sure you cover only a specific niche. Because YouTube defines the genre of a channel based on the type of content it has. If you put content from the different niche on your channel, YouTube won’t rank your channel for anything.

2. Create a hook within first 10 secs of your video

According to VideoNithch, approximately 20% of the people who start watching your video will leave within the first 10 seconds.

Also, a view is counted only after a person watches it for 30 seconds.

But there is a catch in the number of views displayed on YouTube!

When you upload a video on YouTube, views are counted as it is till 300 views but after that YouTube verifies the number of views with the help of a secret process (of course!) and then displays only the unique legit views.

And this is the reason why sometimes you see a discrepancy in the number of views shown on your video and in your YouTube analytics section. The same process is applied to the number of likes as well!

Now that you know how YouTube counts the number of views, let’s get into how can you create a hook that will make people stay on the video for longer than 30 seconds!

The best way to do this is by building curiosity at the very beginning of the video. You can do that by having a short intro about your video which tells your audience what they can expect from the video or just by asking some mindblowing questions that will make them stay on your video.

These hacks are very effective and are already used by a lot of YouTubers and SEO experts like Brian Dean and Neil Patel.

3. Rank higher by including keywords in the title and description

The cutthroat competition starts the moment you post your video on YouTube. Usually, the first hurdle that comes in front of YouTubers is ranking the videos at a higher position for a specific search result.

So, how do you make YouTube give preference to your video over others?

Well! The answer to this question is by helping YouTube understand what your video is all about. To do that, you can simply start by including the right keywords in your video’s title and description.

Make sure you spend enough time on this as it will do it’s magic only when you do it the right way!

To truly optimize your video for a particular keyword, we also recommend you to say the main keyword in your video itself. Now that YouTube is automatically generating subtitles for your videos, they are able to track what you are saying in the video and with that YouTube can understand what your video is about.

To make things even easier for YouTube to give preference to your video, try adding your main keyword at the beginning of your Video title. However, to prevent cropping of your main title, limit the number of characters in your video title to 50.

For the description, use the first 124 characters wisely to include some keywords as these characters will be shown along with your heading in the YouTube search result.

4. Win CTR battle with clickable thumbnails

Now that you have created an amazing video and published it, the next challenge would be making viewers choose between your video and thousands of other videos which are listing for the same topic.

The best way to ensure maximum clicks on your videos is by creating an enticing YouTube video thumbnail.

The YouTube thumbnail is the first thing people will see when they come across your video and by having an enticing thumbnail, you can improve the video’s CTR(Click through Rate) to a great extent.

In fact! YouTube itself reports that 90% of the best-performing videos on YouTube have custom thumbnails.

In a world where people take only a few seconds to decide whether to watch your video or not, your video will be judged by its cover!

And this is why thumbnails can be your trump card when it comes to winning the CTR(Click Through Rate) battle.

Creating a clickable thumbnail is a fairly easy task. You can create an enticing thumbnail by using a free YouTube thumbnail maker app like Picmaker.

To know more about which thumbnail type works better on YouTube and how to quickly create a professional looking YouTube thumbnail, check out this blog: “How to make a smashing thumbnail in 5 mins!”

5. Improve average watch time of your YouTube channel with playlists and end screen annotation.

It is no secret that YouTube ranks your videos based on average watch time.

But not many know that YouTube gives preference to videos of channels that have great watch times across their entire channel.

YouTube as a company wants more people to stay on their platform as long as possible. Hence YouTube rewards the best performing channel by pushing its content to the related videos section. This again leads to a phenomenal increase in the views of that particular video.

Now, let’s talk about how you can increase your channel’s average watch time with less effort!

• One way to do that is by creating a playlist of all the related videos on your channel. Playlists are a great way to increase the average watch time as it pushes your viewers to watch more than one video in a single session. Thus making viewers stay longer on your channel.

  But when you are creating a playlist, make sure you name your playlist in such a way that it precisely reflects the video content of your videos. Check out this article by google to know how to create a playlist on YouTube.

  
• The second way is to use end screen annotation in your videos. The end screen annotations will give your users a way to dive deep into your series of related content. The best way to leverage this option is to include a playlist of videos or to include a video which is related to the currently playing video.

If you notice, the annotation in the video and the current playing video are related as they both talk about the camera basics.

Check out this article by Google to know how you can use end screen annotation

6. Make your channel homepage brandilicious

Most people, after being exposed to your video will check out your channel’s homepage. If you want them to subscribe, it needs to look as attractive and professional as possible. Treat your youtube channel as a brand! The impression you create in your viewer’s mind in the first 5 seconds, matters a lot!

But, creating a custom channel art can be tricky because channel art looks different on different devices.

Check out this simple 7 step guide on how to make make a stunning YouTube channel art to get started with creating some professional looking YouTube channel art.

To create some professional looking channel art, you can use a free YouTube channel art maker.

7. Embed your YouTube videos on your blog or website

If your site or blog is getting some good traffic, then embedding your YouTube videos can do wonders for your views.

How?

Because once you embed your YouTube video on your blog or website, any view that you get on your video will reflect on your total view count. So, by embedding your video in your blog or website you are actually creating an extra inflow of more views for your YouTube video.

Check out this article by Google to know how to embed your YouTube video.

We hope our list of 7 quick ways to grow your YouTube channel helps you climb the YouTube ladder easily.

Did we miss any awesome way to grow your channel? What are your top 7 ways to grow on YouTube? Let us know in the comment section.

Youtube has unequivocally become the ultimate platform for video marketers and its numbers speak about its importance for brands.YouTube is the darling of online video marketers and there is no doubt about that.

It is understood that quality content plays a major role in boosting the performance of the videos, but there should be a significant marketing effort put in to it. This is possible only when we understand what makes a video click and how to make it click. That is when Analytics comes to our rescue. YouTube has some interesting metrics but that alone would not help. Here are a few companies that can help you in online video content marketing.

1. VidIQ

VidIQ helps you to organically grow your viewership and subscribers on YouTube. Right from video SEO to identifying influencers and engaging them to tracking conversations around your brand VidIQ will take care. They help brands, Agencies and Networks in coming up with the right market research that will help them in creating relevant and appropriate content for their target audience. Their insights also take into account the engagement across Facebook and Twitter.

2. Vidooly

Vidooly is a video marketing and analytics suite that helps in building a strong base for you on YouTube. Their intelligent analytics suite helps content creators, brands and MCNs to maximize their YouTube organic views, build audience base and earn more revenue. Their services include video tag suggestions, the best time for uploads, search rank analysis, competitor tracking, subscribers behavior analysis, influencers collaboration and testing which are all focussed on organically growing your brand reach.

3. Tubularlabs

Tubularlabs’ dashboard is very simple to use and shows extensive insights on video analytics. Gives you brand and industry intelligence by identifying trending topics and videos by searching a directory of its channels and videos. Tubularlabs is the best tool to kickstart a hypertargeted video campaign. They also provide optimized marketing and sales campaign management by bringing down your costs in media planning and buying.

As part of a successful video content marketing strategy, Analytics is a great way to keep track of your performance and creating content after understanding the market pulse. A clear data on your performance will help you cut costs and increase your brand reach in the shortest time possible.

      The objective of every business is to sell more… right? In the competitive business environment, many small and large business owners are constantly facing a common dilemma – to increase their business sales. Their usual step to this is to spend more for AdWords, or they are spending more time performing SEO, in their attempt to increase their website traffic for their business.

      However, there is a new and perfect sales strategy that will surely allow you to increase your business sales. So then, a well placed Explainer video might be worth considering if increasing conversions and sales is on your to do list.

      Here are 10 ways how explainer videos can increase your sales.

1. Engages the Viewer:

      There is a philosophy is that the audience should be engaged in the sales process. Engagement measures the extent to which a viewer has a meaningful brand experience. An explainer video engages the customer immediately. Studies show if a customer is not interested within 8 seconds, they will navigate away from the page. While customers may be disinterested in a great deal of dull text, animated explainer videos captivate customers.

2. Easy to Understand:

      Text can be interpreted in a number of ways that means that your audience may miss your main selling points. However you tell a story there is no confusion, because videos tend to create less clutter than straight copy and stagnant photos. An explainer video will take the guess – work out of explaining what is you are offering.

3. Explainer Videos are the New User Manuals:

      A text can easily be misread and misunderstood. But an explainer video only can replace your boring text manual and a talkative salesperson.

      Explainer videos provide their audience with a clear and meaningful idea of your business and website. It’s equivalent of a face-to-face business demonstration. In a simple sentence we can tell ‘Explainer videos are your next sales team’.

4. Make your Sales Pitch Memorable:

      Explainer videos can be used for sales presentations, inducting and training staff, or even as components for educational slideshows, to live up all the information you are conveying to potential clients, or imparting to your students and pupils.

      Imagine, when a dreaded PowerPoint comes out in a sales meet (Death by PowerPoint), if a 60second explainer video that gets your message over in a fun and engaging way. It will leave your prospects wanting more and understanding what your product or service is all about. So you not only get the online benefits but also maximize usage by using in sales meetings.

5. Generates High Traffic:

      Explainer video engages your viewers and urges them to remain on your website for a longer. Explainer video helps minimize visitors confusion and answers questions they have about your business.Also explainer videos have power to keep your web traffic on your website for longer and reduce bounce rates (i.e, the rate at which users move away from your website).

      Once viewers finish watching the video, they are more likely to take the next step. This is why it is important that your explainer videos offer up what the next step is, such as buying from you, registering for your e-newsletter, or picking up the the phone to give you a call.

6. Up the Interest level in your Product or Service

      Explainer videos tells your viewer, why you love selling the products or service, what is your passion or your drive for selling the product. Also explainer video tells them why people want or need your item or service to up their interest level.

      All else, explainer videos are perfect for creating interest and being shared. They are evergreen and go on and on being viewed and converting leads into sales consistently.

7. Explainer Videos are Shareable:

      The great thing about explainer videos is that because they are often humorous and engaging people share them too. This means that people start sharing your content via platform such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. When a viewer shares your explainer video it increases your chances for making another sale.

8. Relates with your customer:

      Explainer videos answers the viewers main query “Why Should I buy this?“ with a relatable storyline. Displaying your product/service benefits with a real life situation or a story in a video can be really powerful. Because when people can relate to the service or product being offered, they can see a real need or want for buying it.

9. It’s an Elevator Pitch:

      An elevator pitch is a short, 30-60 second introduction to your company that focuses on the value you offer to the viewer. According to a research, if you simulate the auditory and visual senses you increase your viewers understanding of your pitch by 74%.

      You can use your pitch to accomplish three critical tasks such as Raising Money, Building Trust, Acquiring Customers. However many sales interactions occur in the virtual environment, so making your elevator pitch a video is the key to standing out from the crowd, sharing more information in a shorter period of time, and snagging those critical initial customers.

10. Adds Personality to your Business:

      The old phrase that ‘People Buy from People’ is still true. A customer will buy from the company that they like more. Using an explainer video allows customers to see not only products, but also personalities.

      In online businesses, particularly, demand because the lack of a face behind the website can put people off. An explainer video can reflect your personality and make web visitors feel they have not come to a virtual equivalent of an empty shop.

      So, your business, sales or demo explainer video is ready and you’re sure it is going to be a hit. Now what? However getting a great video is only the start…

      To maximize the impact of your new explainer videos on potential customers the key approach you will need to take is to promote your video. You want to ensure that as many potential customers within your target market to watch, and share your new video. Many of them know that YouTube is one of the most popular and successful video sharing websites for business nowadays. Every 60 seconds, 60 hours of video uploaded to YouTube. There are actually over 6 billion hours of video watched each month on YouTube, almost an hour for every person worldwide. So here are 6 simple promotional tips for your new Explainer video.

Have a note before you promote:

• Target your fans and loyal customers first
• Sell your new explainer video with Metadata
• Blogger Outreach
• Targeting niche communities
• A note on paying for views

Simple Marketing Tips for your new Explainer Video:

1. Promote Your Video across the Web:

      Once you’ve created your new explainer video, you want to promote it across the web. At the very least, post it to YouTube and on your own blog. You can also post to your Facebook profile.

      Rather than focusing on your video go viral, make a good, high-quality video and then add it to the web your potential customers are already visiting (Your website, Google places Listings, Facebook Fan Page). You can post or submit on site like thestartupvideos.com which will share reviews of startup and videos to millions of people around the world. Finally use your social media presence to drive people to the video and solicit their input.

Most popular video submission and sharing sites:

• YouTube
• NetFlix
• hulu
• DailyMotion
• MetaCafe
• Myspace Videos
• Yahoo! Screen
• Vimeo
• Break
• TV
• Veoh
• UStream
• Justin.tv
• VideoBash
• VEVO

Explainer Video on Your Homepage:

Where can you get the maximum exposure for your new video? Everyone’s answer could be most visited part of your website right. Website Homepage can include videos where they directly relate to the products and services you are trying to promote. So you will get a better response from your Landing Pages by getting extra views. This will immediately expose your video to more people. And it will help website pages to convert.

It is also important to include social sharing buttons on your website homepage, so people can find out more about your business capabilities.

2. Place Actionable Content next to the Video:

      Video landing page increases the conversions to 80% and according to a recent study 21% of video viewers either call or make a purchase after viewing an explainer video.

      There you should make it easy for your viewer to do “something” after watching your video. The action “something” might be calling your business and/or making a purchase. But don’t make the viewer look far to find your desired action.

3. Video SEO:

      Search Engine Optimization will improve your website and YouTube video rankings within search engines. If the video is in the stage of uploading and while publicizing your website there are a few easy steps you can take to ensure people will want to view your videos.

Title:

This is what people will see when searching for videos on search engines. The title should be short and one that will catch people’s attention enough to encourage them to watch your video.

Description:

This is another promotional awareness tool for the people to find more about your capabilities. In the description you should include your website address, telephone number, email address and postal address of your business.

URL:

Adding a word “video” in your URL will optimize your video content in the search engines easily on your site.

Keywords:

You should enter one or more keywords and it is also important to include keywords in your video title and description.

Tags:

Keywords also known as tags are likely to be chosen by customers in search engines when they are trying to find products and services. There is no limit in using number of tags and you can use up to a total of 500 characters. Separate each tag with a space and also ensure each tag is a single word or phrase. Use the tag which will drive the most traffic. It will also be useful to include tags for your company name and the topic of the video, along with the other potential search terms.

Thumbnail:

After the video has been processed you can also choose a thumbnail image that people will see in search results. YouTube will automatically select three images directly from different parts of the video and then you can pick one which will attract the most clicks on your videos.

      Therefore all of the key elements mentioned above will increase the chances of your video being noticed and viewed by a significant number of potential customers. If you want to read more about Video SEO you can also have a look into our previous blog article:10 Tips to optimize your Explainer video for search engines

4. Review Your Video marketing Statistics & measure success:

      It is important to review your video marketing statistics regularly to find out your video success. Review, which of your video is most watched on video sharing websites such as YouTube. YouTube has its own measuring system known as YouTube Analytics, for you to gain personalized result on your video. Additionally you can also measure your video success on your website pages through Google Analytics.

      YouTube Analytics help to establish who your viewers, their demographics and to know where viewers are finding your videos. You can also see which parts of your videos people watching and if they are watching them right until the end. YouTube helps you to establish how many people watch your videos and whether each viewer watches one video or multiple at once. Additionally it measures which of your videos people are enjoying the most and subscribing to. Also YouTube Analytics help you to understand how fans interact with your videos and whether they like, dislike and share or comment on them.

Conclusion:

      Finally along with all the above steps, it is also important to keep an eye on the latest video marketing methods being launched other than multiple channels such as your website and social media channels.

      For example, YouTube will officially launch offline feature to boost video views. The offline feature will be free and allow the viewers to keep video clips to be viewed offline without an internet connection on Smartphones and other mobile devices for up to 48 hours. Ensure your videos also have a presence on these.

      We live in a picture-crazed society and people prefer videos over reading. Video encourages longer view times and more engaged site visitors, which will boost your analytics.

Statistics shows that 17% of people spend less than four seconds on a website, but they are willing to spend 2.7 minutes watching a video online. If you are thinking of how to create an attention-span-eternity on your explainer video, here are the following tips to optimize your explainer video for search engines.

1. An Impressive title:

      Create the explainer video title that will catch the potential viewer’s attention. While passing a magazine rack, what compels you to pick up a magazine? Definitely most of the people’s answer would be “Title”.

      The title contains the key phrases that are relevant to your brand or service. Do some keywords research that your audience will most likely be searching, but not just filled with keywords.

2. Interesting description:

      The description gives you more space than title to explain in depth what your video is about. And so optimize your explainer video’s description with keyword-rich description to allow search engine index it and rank it higher, and for users to better understand.

3. Best keywords:

      Smart keyword placement is the foundation of successful SEO. The users may be searching for a totally different set of keywords than you thought. So the keywords and keywords phrases should related to what you are promoting and also should have high search volumes to get more traffic.

4. Tags:

      Tags are useful for search terms you use in your title text and description, including names and branding. So optimize your explainer video with important keywords or phrases instead of using complicated or terminology. Think what your targeted audience might be searching for when looking to find your brand or service and then tag your video with these terms in mind.

5. Thumbnail:

      Good usages of thumbnails will let the user to decide which video to watch. Users like to watch a quick snapshot so they can decide if they want to invest their time in the full video. It’s an important enough factor in getting people to view your video that it’s worth going through the process for each site you have uploaded.

6. Video sitemap:

      The easiest way for search engines to find your video content is to make use of video sitemap. By submitting a video sitemap to search engine, spiders can find your video content and index it accordingly.

7. File name:

      When saving your explainer video, choose a keyword friendly file name. Use only appropriate keywords in your file name so that the search engine understands what your video is about.

8. Transcripts:

      Search engines can’t index the spoken content in video. Transcripts are textual representation of the spoken content in a video and audio. Associating videos with text transcripts is almost like leaving “breadcrumbs” for search engines to find and index your information in search engine result pages.

9. Embedding options:

      Which will catch Google’s attention and reward your site in Google search. Help your video go viral. Allow other users access to the coding that will allow them to embed your video on their website or blog.

      Blogs and social media shares are really boost views, and help your message to get new audiences outside of YouTube. This will boost your rankings in search engines.

10. Reasonable video length:

      Keep the length of the explainer video reasonable (5 minutes or less). If the video is too long, user may get bore. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, but make sure if your video exceeds more than 5 minutes be very certain that most viewers will be able to remain engaged.