When you’re just starting out on YouTube, getting your videos seen can be a difficult task. There’s plenty of dodgy ways to boost your views and subscriber count, but in the long-term those kinds of practises will likely hurt your chances of achieving anything on this platform.
Quality first
At the end of the day, it’s the quality of your videos that will most likely determine whether you “make it” or not. No number of tips, guides and SEO can make an objectively bad video be a success. Do your videos entertain viewers? Are they educational? Does a viewer not feel like they’ve wasted their time watching them? If none of those questions can be answered with a yes, feel free to close this page and work harder on your videos.
As a relatively new YouTuber myself, every single view I get is important. Every viewer is a potential subscriber. And every subscriber is a potential fan, who’ll stick around and watch every single one of my videos.
Using my three tips, you won’t suddenly get hundreds and thousands of views. Like I mentioned, there’s no magic formula to success. It’s all about getting a few more people to watch your content with a minimal amount of work required.
Build a website for your YouTube Channel
If you write a script for your videos, I highly suggest you build a website and convert your scripts into posts. I can do that in about half an hour. To get more views, you simply embed your video into that post.
A website is also a great place for a potential fan to get to know you better. Create an About me page and maybe embed a contact form. You’ll never know if that might come in handy.
Why do I recommend this? It’s simple: This gives potential viewers and fans another way of finding you. By having a website, you will not only be present on the largest video platform, but also on the largest search engine.
You could then extend this into building up a mailing list, to which you send out your videos every time you upload a new one. That way you won’t be reliant on the YouTube notifications which appear to frequently fail to work.
Promote your YouTube video on Reddit
Reddit can be a great way of gaining views on your videos. But beware, Reddit hates self-promotion. There are certain subreddits that’ll appreciate a direct link to your video, one example would be /r/DIY. But more often than not, you’ll be hampered by downvotes.
Here’s what I’ve found works: Take for example my video on Notion. There is an unofficial Notion subreddit, to which I am subscribed to. Instead of just posting my video, I created a text post in which I described the things I’m talking about in the video. I also added a handful of screenshots and linked my video at the very end.
A handful of people ended up watching that video and I even gained a new sub out of it. It’s not much, but as someone just starting out, every bit helps.
Get social
If you’re talking about products in your videos, it’s always a good idea to mention them directly in your social media posts. I’ve done that for many of my videos, and I’ve generally found that companies will at the very least give your tweets a like.
Some companies will do more than others. I got a lot of views from the official Unraid account who not just liked but retweeted my video and left some replies.
Before mentioning a company or product in a tweet or post, make sure you check out their page and just look at the kind of content they’re re-sharing. Then simply adjust your content to be similar to what you’ve seen.