Do you have a YouTube channel for your business or organisation and do you want to boost your YouTube video views?

You’ve already taken the time to create videos (or had them made for you) and posted them onto YouTube, but maybe they haven’t quite had the number of views that you would have hoped for.

Whether you’ve got a new channel or you’ve been posting content for a while, increasing the number of views that each video has within your channel has the following benefits:

  • Increased brand recognition of your business or organisation
  • Increased awareness of the services that you provide
  • Gives the opportunity for potential prospects to ask questions, which gives you an opportunity to overcome any objections they may have for your service
  • Attracts more subscribers to your channel.

Here’s 5 simple steps to help you boost your YouTube viewership and get more views on your videos to take your channel to the next level:

Optimise your video titles and descriptions

YouTube isn’t just a video platform, it’s an incredibly powerful search engine too, and being owned by Google mean that well optimised videos appear not only in YouTube search results but also in Google Search results.

Firstly, you’ll need to conduct a little research, and compare the results to your existing videos.

Type the query that you think most people use to find your video into YouTube. Look at the videos that you’re competing against for that search term. Note what video titles they are using. Have they made their titles more compelling? Have they included keywords (the words that people type into a search engine to find what they are looking for)? What keywords have they included?

Now go back to your video and change the video title. Keep it concise and ensure that the title reflects the content of your video.

After, do the same exercise, but now look at the video description – what do competing videos have in their description? How compelling does it describe the video? What calls to action have they got in the description? Do they have any links in the description and could you do the same to drive traffic to a page that’s relevant to your video content on your website?

Video descriptions should be detailed and provide your viewers with an overview of what they can expect to find or learn within your video. If relevant, add a call to action to get viewers to do something after watching your video, for example, “Book a call with one of our team to find out if this programme/service is for you”

Create high-quality content

This doesn’t just apply to the visuals, although they definitely are important, the CONTENT is equally important.

Make sure that what you’re communicating within the video is highly relevant to your target audience, that it comprehensively answers questions that your viewers may have in a simple way (it’s wise to regularly ask your viewers to post any questions that they have in the comments, and to take the time to go and answer them regularly).

The more effort you put into creating unique and interesting content, the more likely it is that people will watch your videos and share them with their friends/family/colleagues. Aim for videos that are informative and entertaining, rather than just promotional material.

To get more ideas for video content, take a look at comments that you’ve had on your videos, perhaps there’s frequent questions that are popping up that you could answer in another video. If you don’t have any comments on your views, look at other videos that you’re competing against to see what questions are being asked on those videos.

Develop an eye-catching thumbnail

Ever thought about what makes you want to watch a video on YouTube?

If the thumbnail (the image that you see next to the video title before you press play) is dull and boring, you’re far less likely to get a view.

Thumbnails are your first chance to make a good impression, and the first thing viewers notice when they browse YouTube, so create a thumbnail (image) that is eye-catching. Use bold colours and text in your thumbnails to draw attention. You can create these easily yourself in Canva or if you have a marketing department or comms team, be sure to give them a detailed brief about your required thumbnail and show them examples of other thumbnails that have worked for competing videos.

It’s worth researching what videos your video is competing against in YouTube search results, and analysing what thumbnails they are using, and what elements you think have made that thumbnail a success.

Take advantage of YouTube analytics

To prioritise which of your existing videos to work on first, look at your YouTube analytics.

Check out how many views each of your videos has had, the click through rate (this is the percentage of people that have clicked to view the video from search results), and how long they are watching the video for.

Determine how much of your video they are watching before navigating away or to another video. You may need to change your video content based on that learning, if viewers are stopping watching your video halfway through, they are missing key information, but it also shows you where you’ve lost your audience and will help you to determine what changes you need to make.

If your click through rate is low, it means that you need to improve your video title, description, and thumbnail.

Engage with other YouTube channels

Network with your stakeholders/partners/collaborators by posting comments on their videos! The more you network, the more they are likely to leave comments on your views, and more engagement means that your videos will get more views!

Don’t be afraid to reach out to other video creators to find out if there’s an opportunity to create a video together if you both have a similar audience and are not in competition! That way you can leverage their audience too

They say an image says a thousand words, so imagine how powerful video is! Follow the process above to get more views on your existing videos, and you won’t just notice an increase in views, but also in comments, and if you’ve posted links to your website, and uplift in website traffic too!

Interested in finding out more?

A 15-minute conversation with us to discuss your goals and how our strategy sessions will help you to achieve those goals costs you nothing!

Simply call our friendly team on 01245 791969 or drop us an email to [email protected] to arrange a confidential chat.

The Social Accelerators, founded by Caroline Thomas in 2010 advises clients around the UK on strategic marketing of your public sector funded programme, service, project or portal.

Her firm designs and runs digital marketing campaigns, conducts online research and designs online client journeys that get the results you need across social media, websites and email campaigns.