You might be surprised to know that video views don’t appear to have much of an effect on your ranking in the search engines. Good start huh.
Well there’s a reason why you need to keep reading. Even though views don’t do much to help your videos rank, they do mean that people are watching your videos. You may think that this is self evident but let’s take a closer look.
What causes people to watch our videos?
The title and the video thumbnail get the click. The title should be relevant and even a little unexpected. If it creates curiosity even better. For example the title of a marketing video for a CRM software company could be ‘Why I Always Do These 5 Simple Things Prior to Closing a Big Sale’. The idea is to make an appealing hint about your subject without actually spelling it out. Leave the reader asking: What 5 things?
Video Titles don’t need to be complete sentences. They do always need to contain your exact keyword phrase plus some additional text. The title of your video gets the click and your video begins to play automatically when someone lands on the page.
At this point it’s the content of your video that takes over. It’s a good idea to have ads turned off for your important videos so your viewers don’t get distracted. This of course doesn’t apply if you’re monetizing your channel using YouTube advertising.
There are techniques for holding the attention of your viewers that increase likelihood of watching your video to the end and seeing your full message. Some these techniques include:
- refer to something interesting that’s coming at the end
- anticipate objections to your content
- use the language and expressions of your audience
We want people to view our videos so they will get to know us and take some kind of action. These actions can be:
- click on a link
- make a phone call
- subscribe to our channel
- leave a comment
- share our video
- become customers
All of these actions are trackable and the resulting data helps us to see which videos get the longest views, the most comments and shares among other things.
Getting views is great but one of the best things about YouTube is the functionality that allows you to find and target your market. To get targeted views, look for YouTube channels that your customers would subscribe to and check the video comments and discussion areas.
Look for people who leave meaningful, not spammy, comments and make a note of their channel in a spreadsheet. Send them messages, view and comment on their videos. Ask them to subscribe to your channel.
The key is to allocate resources so this gets done consistently. Over time you’ll experience steady growth of subscribers to interact with and share your content. This increases your view count fast and is a guaranteed way to rise above the crowd.
