How to Increase Views on YouTube: A Step-by-Step Guide

Starting a YouTube channel can be a real challenge. After all, it can take a lot of work to get started and requires consistency over a sustained period of time to increase the video views and overall subscriber numbers. 

Even though getting started can seem daunting, and the path to increasing your YouTube views can be filled with ups and downs, we want to provide some actionable advise that can help you grow your channel. In this article, we will highlight 9 essential tips that will help you grow your YouTube channel. You should be aware that this article is not about going viral on YouTube, but rather about how to steadily increase your views and on YouTube while building your YouTube community.

What Are Views on YouTube?

First, let’s go over what a “view” on YouTube actually means and how YouTube tracks them. “Views” is the metric that YouTube uses to measure how many times your video or channel has been watched. Each time a viewer plays a video and watches it for at least 30 seconds, YouTube counts it as a view. If someone watches your video several times, each time is counted as a new view. So, the questions that we often hear: “Does watching a YouTube video on loop increase views?” and: “Does rewatching YouTube videos increase views?”, can both be answered with an emphatic “Yes!” 

You should also note that video views are also counted across all devices, whether a person watches on his phone, his tablet or his desktop computer. Moreover, a view is not limited to the people who watch your video on YouTube itself. If you decide to share your video on social media or embed a video in your blog, then people watching your video on those sites will also increase your video’s view count.

How to Increase YouTube Views: 9 Important Areas to Focus On

Now that you know what a view is, we can discuss the main issue of this article, which is how to increase YouTube views and subscribers. Below, we will show you 9 core areas to concentrate on for those asking “How can I increase my views on YouTube?”. 

1 – Know Your Audience

Understanding your niche and the content your viewers enjoy is essential for increasing YouTube views. It’s important to grasp their interests to identify in-demand topics.

This is the first step when answering the questions: “How to build an audience on YouTube?” and “How to increase my YouTube views?”

However, you should remember to consistently create content that solves your ideal customer’s problems or meets their needs and see how your YouTube community of fans gets bigger and your YouTube video views increase. Understanding your audience and providing them with consistently relevant and helpful content is a great way to grow your channel.

Focus on a Good Video Idea

Once you know your core audience’s preferences, you can start brainstorming video ideas. But what makes a good video idea that leads to an increase in YouTube video views? Here are a few questions to ask yourself when choosing a topic for your YouTube video:

1. Is the video feasible?
2. Does the idea excite me? 
3. What is my goal with the video?
4. Why would people want to watch a video that’s X minutes long about this topic? 
5. Can I package that idea into a good title & thumbnail? 
6. Is there any evidence that such a video can become successful?
7. Would my core audience like this video? But at the same time, does this video have the potential to attract new viewers that don’t know me yet?

This last question is especially important in understanding how to increase YouTube reach  while increasing YouTube followers.

You should always consider spending more than an hour on brainstorming video ideas. By focusing on finding ideas with high view potential before producing them, instead of running with the first idea only to find out that there is no demand for such a video, you’ll save time, money, and avoid frustration. 

2 – SEO Optimize Your YouTube Videos and Research Trends

Having a good YouTube video idea is very important. However, even the best video idea doesn’t help you if nobody finds your video in the first place. Your video needs to be found in the search results or suggested in people’s “Recommended” feed. 

If you are looking to increase the reach of your YouTube videos, then always be on the lookout for trends, keywords, and phrases that people search for on YouTube and then include them into your YouTube video title, description and subtitles.

Tap Into YouTube Trends and Challenges

Engaging with current trends or challenges is a great way to increase reach on YouTube. This can especially help you when it comes to the discoverability of your videos. However, you should ensure that trending content aligns with your channel’s long-term content plan or focus and is not significantly different than other videos.

SEO-Optimize Your YouTube Videos

YouTube is the second-largest search engine and requires strategic SEO for your content to reach the right audience. SEO involves knowing what people search for and integrating those keywords into your videos and channel. When it comes to the question of how to increase video views on YouTube, SEO optimization is definitely part of the answer. There are two steps you have to take when it comes to SEO:

• Knowing what people search for through keyword research
• Integrating the keywords into your channel and videos

And here’s how you do it:

Know what your target audience searches for through keyword research

One of the best hacks on how to increase YouTube views by yourself is to conduct keyword research, so you can see what your audience searches for on YouTube. There are tools such as Keywordtool.io or WordStream’s Keyword Tool that can help with that. While you are researching, write down a list of keywords that are related to your target keyword or topic and that people are searching for, as well as the search volume. You can then organize them into clusters that correspond to the different videos that you will make.

When you use the right keywords, your videos will not only appear on YouTube, but can also show up on Google search pages which can get you free promotion for your channel!

Even thought SEO is an important component in understanding how to increase your YouTube views, remember to not “keyword stuff”. Use keywords when it makes sense and in a meaningful way, not just for the sake of having them.

Integrate the keywords into your channel and YouTube videos

You can integrate your keywords in a number of different ways, that includes: 

• Video titles and descriptions: Add the target keyword (plus related keywords) to your video title and description. 
• Thumbnails: Create custom thumbnails with SEO keywords that reinforce the title.
• Hashtags: Use relevant hashtags to reach more viewers.
• Categories: Use categories to help YouTube get a better understanding of who you want to watch your videos.
• Tags: In addition to categories, you can also add tags to your videos to give YouTube more context about your content. 
• Captions and subtitles: Add captions and subtitles and make sure to mention your SEO keywords in your video. 
• Playlists: Integrate your SEO keywords into the titles and descriptions of your YouTube playlists.

Add Timestamps to Your Videos

Google announced in September 2019 that they’ll link to key moments in YouTube videos directly in Google search results. By integrating time stamps into your video, you can improve the user experience by giving structure to your videos and simultaneously increase the likelihood of your video being shown in Google and YouTube search results.

 3 – Generating Interest

When discussing how to increase reach on YouTube, we inevitably are talking about how to increase your views on YouTube. By creating eye-catching thumbnails and coming up with curiosity-piquing titles, you can create interest and increase the probability that someone will click on your video, and not somebody else’s.

Design Attention-Grabbing Thumbnails

Your YouTube video consists not only of the actual content and storyline, but you also need to think about what makes people click on your video in the first place. If you can’t get people to click on your video, then you can have the most amazing content, but it will never take off.

Learning how to increase your views on YouTube is about discovering what generates interest while packaging your video in an appealing way. The first way to do this is by creating custom thumbnails. Creating thumbnails yourself makes your videos look more appealing and signals a certain sense of professionalism. So, how do you create a good YouTube thumbnail?

There are plenty of ways to create good thumbnails, such as:

• Using the right thumbnail dimensions (16:9 aspect ratio, 1280 x 720 pixels) (see this article for more information on image sizes on YouTube and social media)
• Taking clear, high-resolution photos for the background or other elements
• Creating a simple, uncluttered design: A thumbnail should have a clean design (not cluttered) (3 objects max)
• Using bright, inviting colors
• Stick to one theme or idea
• Close-ups of faces tend to perform well

To increase the likelihood that a YouTube viewer clicks on your video, try showing a situation about to unfold, a dangerous thing about to happen, or an unbelievable item that no one’s ever seen before in your thumbnail. 

Alternatively, you can portray the feeling (the emotion) you are trying to create in the viewer. Do you try to astound her? Excite him? Make him dream of being on vacation? Try to come up with a thumbnail that depicts this feeling.

Warning: Make sure not to deceive users by promising something in your thumbnail that you don’t keep in your video. Eventually, you want not only an increase in your YouTube views, but YouTube followers increase as well. Using clickbait thumbnails will do everything but create trust with your viewers and are the opposite of how to increase followers on YouTube. 

Write “Must-See” YouTube Titles and Descriptions

The second way you can increase your views on YouTube is by coming up with a “must see” title. With YouTube titles, you want to get in the habit of writing for emotion and not just describing the video. The real question revolves around why people should care about one particular video.

The answer, once again, is emotion. A great title taps into the viewer’s deepest fears and desires. It promises to change your life in 30 days with a new workout routine, or it scares you into pulling all your money out of the stock market. Either way, an enticing title makes you want to click it.

Here are some tips on how to increase YouTube video views by coming up with a good video title: 

• Choose a simple title (easy to read): YouTube is present across the globe, and many don’t have English as their first language. So when coming up with a title, make sure that non-native speakers understand it just as native speakers do.
• Use punchy language. Get straight to the point. Don’t say: “Here’s why XYZ benefits your health” or “5 habits to become more healthy.” Instead, say: “X will make you live longer.”
• Don’t be vague
• Don’t try to be clever with puns
• Don’t use too many adjectives or complicated words
• Include relevant SEO keywords
• Keep your titles under 50 characters. This gives you the most room to create a compelling title, while also ensuring that it won’t be cut short in search results.
• Listicles, question-based titles and hyperboles (“insane,” “…of all time”), “Best-of” lists and “how-to” titles have high search volume and are liked by viewers
• Focus on the outcome: What value or benefit do you provide? 
• Use specific, impressive numbers: People like numbers. 
• Appeal to user curiosity: We humans are curious beings. We want to be in the know, and so you should consider using your video title to appeal to user curiosity.

You should also spend some time coming up with engaging titles. If you can’t think of a captivating title yourself, try using AI tools. Use ChatGPT or other AI tools to give you title variations on your ideas by telling it to add more emotion or make the title shorter.

Once you have a good title, focus on the video description. Make sure to accurately describe your video in your YouTube video description. You should also add relevant SEO keywords to your video description, as well as links to other videos of yours, products, and your social media profiles. Lastly, don’t forget to include your SEO hashtags in your video description. 

4 – Perfect Your Content

When creating your content, you should keep in mind two things. First, make sure viewers can grasp what your video is about in the opening moments. Second, remember that on YouTube, quality reigns supreme! YouTube’s algorithm favors videos with high average watch times, so the best hack related to how to best increase YouTube views by yourself is to focus on creating content that keeps viewers hooked for minutes, not just seconds. 

Put More Effort Into Your Video Intro

Your video intro is especially important. This is because it has two roles: 

1. It has to generate interest in your viewer
2. It needs to explain what your video is about and introduce your story in a quick and easy-to-understand way.

Keep in mind that the video intro is the first thing viewers will see. And if they don’t instantly understand within the first ten seconds what your video is about, they may stop watching. You must “hook” the viewer and arouse emotions. Tell the viewer why he or she should stick around for the full video. 

Learn How To Tell Engaging Stories – Quality Is More Important Than Quantity

This is probably the most important part when it comes to understanding how to increase YouTube views and subscribers. Once you have completed your introduction, it’s time to build an engaging story that people will want to watch.

On YouTube, you need to entertain in order for people will watch until the end and for the algorithm to suggest your video to a wider audience. Take viewers on a transformative journey and focus on making your viewers feel something at the end of a video — inspired, motivated, curious, excited. There’s no better way how to increase your YouTube followers and how to build a loyal audience on YouTube that keeps coming back to your videos and initiates a YouTube views increase for all of your videos over time. To create better content that your audience loves, study your retention curves and improve the points in your video that people are skipping or where people quit watching.

5 – Promote Your Content

Boost Your Engagement With a Call to Action

Wouldn’t it be nice if most viewers…

• Shared your video with their friends?
• Subscribed to your YouTube channel?
• Liked your video?
• Watched multiple videos of yours?
• Engaged in the comments? 

The truth is: Even though they might have liked watching your video, most viewers don’t think about taking those actions. So you need to remind them that this helps you and encourage them to take action.

Post Shorts

Following the massive success of TikTok and Instagram Reels, YouTube has enabled viewers to upload vertical short-form videos as well. YouTube Shorts have a higher probability of going viral. Moreover, YouTube Shorts give you a chance to generate attention and maybe even get people to become aware of your longer-form videos. However, you may be wondering how to increase YouTube Shorts views?

There are some tips to relating to how to increase reach on YouTube Shorts and how to increase views on YouTube Shorts that you should follow:

• Open with an attention-grabbing statement. The first five seconds are the most important. If you don’t capture someone’s attention during this time, they might scroll past. Consider asking a question or telling someone what they’ll learn if they watch the entire video. 
• Keep it simple and stick to one topic. Since YouTube Shorts are limited to 60 seconds, you want to get to the point… fast.

6 – Build Relationships

YouTube is more than just a search engine or a place to watch videos. In reality, it’s like a big online hangout. In order to get more people to watch your videos, you need to connect with your viewers and other creators. When you talk to the people who watch your videos while answering their questions, they’ll feel special and want to watch even more. You can also consider connecting with other channels to get more visibility and increase your YouTube video views that way. Sometimes the key to getting more YouTube views is by teaming up with other channels

Build a Strong Relationship With Your Audience – Engage With Your Community

It isn’t enough to just regularly share videos. When it comes to the question of how to build an audience on YouTube, you also need to actively engage and foster a community with your audience if you want to increase your YouTube followers and increase your views on YouTube.

So how can you accomplish this? You can start by responding to the comments under your video, engaging with your subscribers, and answering their questions. Other viewers will be more likely to comment on your video if they know they’ll receive a response.

If you want to take it up a notch, you can host a live stream or do Q&As or polls on the YouTube Community tab. In your videos, you should also consider integrating your fans’ comments and messages and posting challenges.

As we’ve mentioned earlier, asking your community what they’d like you to make videos about is a fantastic way to create videos that people want to watch. If you engage authentically, viewers will notice your channel and you can build a loyal audience. It will also be much easier to increase views on your YouTube videos because your fans will keep coming back to your videos. 

Collaborate With Other YouTube Channels

YouTube collaborations are a good way to increase YouTube reach while also increasing YouTube followers. This is because collaborations will get your channel in front of a new audience that likes watching videos coming from similar creators. When looking at how to increase your YouTube reach, you may consider collaborations, since they can help you get seen without having to rely solely on the YouTube algorithm sharing your video. 

The key to a successful YouTube collaboration is finding the right partner. Here are a few tips on how to do YouTube collaborations:

• Collaborate with creators in your niche that share similar passions as you do
• Brainstorm video ideas before you reach out to collaborators
• Pick a video collaboration style (in-person, remote, video takeover, etc.)
• Focus on authenticity, not only on potential reach
• Promote collaborations to boost reach 

Keep in mind that the ultimate goal of collaborating with other channels is to create value for viewers. However, the best part is gaining new viewers as a result of working with a content creator they already know, like, and trust.

7 – Promote Your YouTube Videos and Make Them Accessible

To increase views on YouTube, you need to be your own marketer. Let people know that you have a new video out. And do so not only on YouTube. Create additional content such as previews and announcement posts and post them on your Instagram, Facebook, TikTok accounts, as well as on your blog, in your e-mail newsletter, and whatever marketing channels you use.

Leverage Your YouTube Channel and Your Other Social Channels To Promote Your YouTube Videos

It is important to show your viewers that you have videos on similar topics already uploaded on your channel and that they should check them out. By doing this, you can increase the likelihood of getting more views on not only one video, but also on multiple older ones.

There are plenty of ways to promote your videos to increase YouTube views, such as:

• Using YouTube cards within a video to recommend other content on your channel
• Using YouTube end screens to suggest more content to watch at the end of a video
• Pasting a link to a related video in your video description

You can place cards throughout a video to suggest related YouTube videos on your channel. Consider using end screens to direct people to another video or a YouTube playlist of yours and to encourage your viewers to share the video or subscribe to your channel. 

8 – Video and Channel Setup Tips

People who liked watching one of your previous videos are the best candidates to enjoy other videos of yours. So to get more YouTube video views, optimize your channel and videos by organizing your videos into playlists around a main topic.

Create YouTube Playlists and Series

YouTube playlists offer you multiple benefits related to how to increase your YouTube video views:

• Playlists and series around a common topic bring a sense of order to your channel.
• Playlists encourage people to binge your content and bring more watch time to your channel. If you click on a video that’s embedded in a playlist, the next video in that playlist will automatically start as soon as the current video ends. As a result, a viewer can watch several related videos without lifting a finger, resulting in increased watch time of your videos. Videos with high watch time have a better chance of being promoted by YouTube’s algorithm.
• A third advantage of creating playlists is that people who liked watching your videos are more likely to enjoy your other videos in this series as well.

Create a YouTube Trailer Featuring Your Best Content

If you’re still wondering to yourself how can I increase my views on YouTube, then you should definitely consider creating a YouTube trailer. A YouTube trailer is a short video that is shown to new visitors that click on your YouTube channel. It’s a fantastic opportunity to:

• Show new viewers what kind of content you create
• Highlight the benefits your channel provides
• Encourage them to subscribe
• Make visitors watch more of your videos

How does a trailer help you get more views on YouTube?

Consider your YouTube trailer as your company card. It’s a signboard showing who you are, what you do, and why you do it. A nice short video that conveys your story, ambitions, and vision is the best way to do that. Make sure to sprinkle your personality throughout your trailer. Personality is key on YouTube.

How do you set a YouTube trailer?

You can create your trailer and upload it to YouTube the way you would with any other video. Simply head back to your channel homepage and click the “Customize Channel” button. In the “For New Visitors” tab, you can now select the trailer video that you uploaded as your “YouTube trailer”.

9 – Check Your YouTube Analytics Often

The best YouTubers take their analytics very seriously. They use the data to constantly improve their videos, their titles, their thumbnails, and much more. This is how they constantly increase their followers and views on YouTube. You need to regularly check your YouTube Analytics and analyze what’s working in your niche to build a YouTube channel that flourishes over time.

In YouTube’s analytics section, you can detect how many impressions your video received and how many people clicked. These metrics metric are important to analyze in order to understand how to increase the reach of your YouTube videos. If your video got no impressions in search, then maybe you should make sure you are doing your keyword research correctly. 

If, on the other hand, you’re wondering how to increase your YouTube views, then look at how many people saw your YouTube video (impression count) and how many people clicked on your video (view count). If you have a high impression count, but only very few people clicked, then you should work on your title and thumbnail. If many people clicked your video but quit watching after a few seconds, then go back to our tips on improving the intro of your YouTube video. 

Similarly, you can find out if there is an obvious retention danger zones that you consistently lose viewers in by looking through your retention curve. Watch time is one of the most important ranking factors when it comes to how often your video is suggested to other viewers by the YouTube algorithm. 

Beyond looking at your own data, you can learn from the best creators in your niche and on YouTube in general and find out what they do differently and why some of their posts are performing so well. Social media benchmarking tools can make it easy to analyze what’s working and also where you can improve your videos. By using a social media benchmarking tool, you can analyze the best performing videos of creators in your niche and understand what makes those channels successful. Learning from those channels is a great first step in finding out how to increase your YouTube video views.

Conclusion

There you have it! 8 tips that you can use today to get more views on your YouTube videos.

If you are interested in improving your YouTube performance and increasing your views, Fanpage Karma offers a free 14-day trial of their all-in-one social media tool which can help you gain the insights you need. 

Additionally, Fanpage Karma offers a free weekly webinar that is designed to show you how you can improve your overall social media performance.