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YouTube is always changing and evolving. For a long time, videos of cute cats and dogs skating are no longer on the stock market. Today, YouTube has become a place for marketers to work.

More than a billion hours of video are watched on YouTube daily, more than the combined videos of Netflix and Facebook.

If used effectively, YouTube can become a very powerful business tool. You need to get more free views on YouTube to boost your sales. This article will teach you 16 ways to get more views on YouTube, build your brand and boost sales. First, we need to explain a little about making a video on YouTube.

How to make a video on YouTube

Design your video

Before making videos for YouTube, you need to design the content you want. Prepare a storyboard for each scene or part of the video. Think about the message you want to convey to the audience. See where in the video you want to ask the audience to take a practical action (calls-to-action). After watching the video, you must ask people to do something important.

Write the script you want

Write the script according to the video you designed. Include appropriate and pleasant writing language for the audience. If your video is for beginners, then don’t use technical terms. If you are making a specialized video, you must include specialized industry words to gain viewers’ trust. If your illustrated script is short, don’t make the main script too long because you will affect the show and not make for a good viewing experience.

Organize the scene

Is your video animated, live, or realistic? What kind of decoration do you need during the video presentation to attract YouTube followers? Answering these questions is important because they make your video look more professional. Invest in branding to add it to the background of videos and small images (thumbnails) and achieve a quality video.

Prepare yourself

If you are acting in a movie or just directing it, you must prepare and practice, so everything goes smoothly. Details become a problem when making a YouTube video, so practice for any mistakes you make while filming.

Edit your video

After shooting a few scenes, you can edit the video to remove small mistakes or out-of-proportion scene elements. You need to check the naturalness of the sound and remove the sounds that do not fit the whole video.

Upload a YouTube video

In the YouTube program, you can upload the video, which includes the title, singles, and a description for the audience. These contents help the audience to find your video. If you want to make more than one video on a certain topic, you can make a playlist and add the next videos. Add cards and captions to videos to help users track your channel more efficiently.

Increase views on YouTube

1- Prepare persuasive content

If your videos are not good, then the number of messages and ads in them will not matter. So how do you create compelling content to get more views on YouTube? Well, one of the best ways is to make self-learning videos (how….?).

According to Cochran, one of the most famous YouTubers: “When you ask people about their needs and desires and then provide them, you have created a wonderful event. They think you read their minds!” As a result, always look for content that solves the main problems of your customers or fulfills their needs. Doing this will build a loyal group of fans and get more views on YouTube.

2- Encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel

Have you heard the saying, “Your best customers are your old customers?” In other words, customer ratings are a powerful way to grow your business. Well, the same situation prevails on YouTube.

One of the easiest ways to increase YouTube views is to encourage existing viewers to subscribe so that the more subscribers you have, the more views your new video gets. How should you encourage viewers to subscribe?

The best way is to plan subscription requests at the beginning and end of each video.

Please do not ask them to subscribe to your YouTube channel. Ask them to activate the notification bell after clicking “Subscribe.”

When a viewer subscribes to this subscription method, they will be notified whenever they upload a new video. Increasing your subscribers is vital to getting more views. So ask your viewers to subscribe now!

3- Prepare a list of videos (playlists) to encourage viewers

YouTube’s statistics “show the top brands on YouTube and advertise these videos twice as much as the 25% at the bottom”.

Why are playlists so effective? Because they have displayed automatically (Auto-play). It’s hard not to pay attention to the videos you enjoy because they play back-to-back. A cognitive principle in the sense of “loss aversion” is involved.

The easiest way to create a playlist is to refer to the desired video and click on the “+” icon at the bottom of the video.

So you can create a new playlist or add it to an existing playlist. To increase your video views on YouTube, prepare a playlist of your best content and publish it today!

4- Advertising other videos with end screens and cards

Cards and landing pages are tools you can use to promote videos and increase views on YouTube. First, to access these features, you must verify your YouTube account. To do this, click on your profile picture in the upper right of the page and click on “Creator Studio.” Then click on the “Status and Features tab”:

On this page, you can view and launch additional YouTube channel features. Now let’s take a closer look at the end pages and cards. End pages are specific formats you place at the end of videos to conclude content and highlight calls to action.

Cards can be displayed as bloopers at any point in the video and can be used to direct people to another video or playlist. Or you can create a poll card, which is a great way to ask your viewers what content they like (remember tip number one?!).

You can see the use of both tools on the oberlo YouTube channel:

To add end pages and cards to your videos, go to Creator Studio and click “Video manager,” then click “Videos.” Find the video to which you want to add an endgame card and click “Edit.” When you are on the Video editor page, you can add end pages and cards by clicking on the menu items at the top of the page:

Cards and landing pages are powerful tools, so use them to create calls to action in YouTube videos.

5- Adding a watermark to your videos

With watermarks, you get more subscribers and free views on YouTube by promoting your channel through your videos. A watermark is an image that you can put in all your videos. Most brands use their logo. Viewers are prompted to subscribe to the channel when they hover over the watermark. For this reason, the Shopify YouTube channel uses a watermark called “Subscribe”:

Again, you need to verify your YouTube account to upload the watermark. You cannot specify whether watermarks are displayed on some videos and not on others. Either way, they either show up on all your videos or don’t.

Click “Branding” in Creator Studio to add a watermark to your videos.

Then click on “Add a Watermark” and upload the desired image.

You can use this simple tool to promote your brand on your YouTube channel.

6- Activate the Embedding feature

You spent a long time making a great video, and now viewers want to share it on their websites and blogs, but they can’t because you forgot to enable embedding.

It would help if you allowed viewers to embed your video on their websites and blogs to reach new audiences and views. If this feature is included in the video, then when the viewer clicks on “share” at the bottom of the video window, YouTube will also show them the “Embed” option:

When they click on it, they can copy the video’s embed code and add it to their blog or website.

To enable embedding, go to Creator Studio and then to the video editing page.

Then click on “Advanced Setting,” scroll down to “Distribution options,” and check “Allow Embedding.”

Finally, check whether your videos are embeddable so that viewers are encouraged to share your content.

7- Promote your video on other social channels

If you have followers on other social channels, let them know when you upload a new video to YouTube. The best way to do this is a short teaser. In the example below, we have created a one-minute teaser for a new YouTube video. We then posted it on Oberlo’s Facebook page and linked it to the full video on Oberlo’s YouTube channel.

To make things easier, use a social media scheduling tool like Hootsuite or Buffer. Don’t limit yourself to social channels. You can also embed YouTube videos on website pages or blog posts.

Don’t forget email marketing. Industrial email marketing is a powerful tool in sales discourse, with an 18% open rate and 66% purchase rate. It is not very complicated.

On the Oberlo site, we also send simple emails to let our subscribers know when a new video is released.

8- Know the importance of “Watch Time.”

YouTube introduces its algorithm under the title Search and discovery system. This algorithm determines which videos:

• Be shown on the main page.
• Be presented as suggested videos.
• Show up in search results.
• It was shown in the Subscriptions tab.
• Show up in notifications made by viewers.

In addition, algorithms affect not only individual videos but also affect entire YouTube channels. YouTube’s algorithm is complicated, but the most important thing is that this algorithm is largely based on “Watch Time.” Every uploaded video (along with every YouTube channel) is rated by Watch time.

The amount of time people spend watching your videos is known as Watch Time:

In short, YouTube rewards quality. The higher the quality of your video, the more time people will spend watching it. This will increase the Wath Time minutes. Therefore, YouTube will support your videos and channel.

Maintain viewers as much as possible, and don’t be afraid to promote other YouTube channels on your channel.

9- Optimize video titles

Be careful; YouTube will penalize you if you use keywords unrelated to your video. Also, include 60 to 70 characters for your title. Doing this will create a compelling title and ensure it’s not too short of ranking in search results. Finally, don’t forget people’s interests.

You should use keywords that help your videos rank in search results, but to get more views on YouTube; you should include titles and descriptions that are pleasing to the visitors. Overall, we aim to strike a balance between accuracy, awareness, and appeal.

As the famous author David Ogilvy writes, “When you write the main title, you have spent eighty cents of your dollar,” so you should pay close attention to your video titles.

10- Optimize your channel

Optimizing your channel is vital to strengthening your brand and your YouTube video views. YouTube offers many ways to improve your channel. In this context, Daniel Wellington acts as follows:

Now let’s look at some of the main components:

Build a strong and stable art brand.

Your YouTube branding should align with your website and other social channels. That is, use the same logo, images, and colors. Your profile photo should be 800×800 pixels. If this image is displayed smaller, it still looks good. Your banner should also be at least 1440 x 2560 pixels; Creator Academy on YouTube has designs to help you design your banner.

Optimize your YouTube channel description.

This description is displayed in the “About” tab of your channel. You are allowed to use 1000 characters in this description. What should you write in the description of your YouTube channel? So let’s start with a brief description of your brand and the benefits of your products.

Then explain to the visitors the reasons for watching your videos. Do you teach them anything? Is your channel mostly about entertainment? As a result, inform the visitors about the content of the videos. In the description of the YouTube channel, just like the title of your videos, put the keywords you want.

Add social channels, links to your website, and a way to get in touch.

In other words, make it easy for visitors to learn more about your brand.

Add channel keywords.

When you have searched for and decided what keywords your channel will rank for in the search results section, click on “Channel” and then “Advanced.” Then put the keywords in the “Channel Keywords” box.

Showcase your channel with a video trailer that best encapsulates your content.

Your YouTube trailer is a short video shown to new visitors to your channel. This is a fantastic opportunity to:

• Show visitors the type of content created
• Highlight the benefits of your channel
• And encourage them to subscribe to your channel

Finally, activate the related channels feature.

According to Seyed Balkhi, the founder of list25 (which has more than 2.3 million subscribers and 582 million views), “One of the biggest mistakes of business channels is to turn off the “related channels” feature on YouTube.”

Turning off this feature will remove your channel from the YouTube suggestions section. As a result, you lose the network effect of YouTube as a powerful tool.

In short, optimize your YouTube channel and make sure your information is complete.

11- Make persuasive thumbnails

A thumbnail is a small image that acts as a video preview screen. This thumbnail is very important if you want more free YouTube views. When you upload a video, you can choose one of the auto-display thumbnail images.

Create and upload your custom thumbnail image instead. According to YouTube’s report, 90% of top YouTube videos use these images for good reasons.

(If you don’t have a thumbnail yet, you need to verify your YouTube account to access this feature).

An efficient thumbnail will help your videos stand out.

According to YouTube, “Thumbnails require the vision of artistic direction for branding and should not be left out.”

It would help if you thought about your thumbnail before you start filming. This way, you’ll get some footage for a compelling thumbnail image. A good thumbnail is eye-catching, persuasive, on-brand, and indicative of video content.

Generally:

• Light colored backgrounds
• Close-up image of the face
• Paste text and
• Consider subtle branding (like a small logo or watermark).

So what to do about technical specifications?

Your thumbnail should:

• It has dimensions of 16:9, the common ratio among YouTube players.
• It has a resolution of 720×1280.
• The file size should be less than 2 MB.
• JPG, GIF, BMP, or PNG format.

To make thumbnails, you can use free image editing and graphic design tools like Canva. Remember that thumbnails are one of the best ways to grab people’s attention while browsing YouTube, so create a compelling visual.