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Cracking the YouTube Algorithm 2024, Best Creative Digital Marketing Company, Auxost, DV

Cracking the YouTube Algorithm: 7 Tips to Grow Your Channel in 2023

YouTube is the second-largest search engine on the planet. With a customer base of 2 billion users, YouTube has an insane engagement. Its customers watch more than 1 billion hours of videos every day. These videos range from tutorials to adorable baby videos and much more. But have you ever wondered why your youtube channel often features alike content? This is the result of the YouTube algorithm’s amazing work. The algorithm is a system of recommendations that chooses which YouTube video will appear first on the feed and rank higher than others.

Here’s an important question for creators, influencers, and marketers: how do you get YouTube’s algorithm to promote your videos to viewers and increase your videos’ views and comments?

Well, don’t worry; we’ve got you covered.

We’ll explain what an algorithm is in this blog post, go over the recent youtube updates (as of 2023), and discuss how to get the most out of YouTube in 2023. Prepare yourself for some extremely helpful insights and hacks, because understanding the algorithm is essential if you want to succeed on YouTube. This holds true regardless of how creatively you create content for the channel and manage it using a YouTube scheduler.

Cracking the YouTube Algorithm 2024, Best Creative Digital Marketing Company, Auxost
Table of Contents

1.What Is YouTube Algorithm?

2. Evolution of the YouTube Algorithm

  • 2005-2011
  • 2012
  • 2015-2016
  • 2016 and later

3. Youtube Algorithm in 2023
4. The YouTube Algorithm: How Does It Work?

5. How to Increase Organic Reach on YouTube?

  • Tip #1: Select a relevant subject.
  • Tip #2: Script & storyboard your videos to maximize engagement
  • Tip #3: Edit your videos to increase engagement
  • Tip #4: Enhance Thumbnail Clickability
  • Tip #5: Optimize your YouTube video title for clicks and search visibility
  • Tip #6: connect content and create playlists on youtube
  • Tip #7: To engage with your viewers, use the YouTube Premier function

What Is YouTube Algorithm?

The visibility and discovery of content on YouTube are influenced by a set of pre-processed computer instructions known as the YouTube algorithm. Using an assessment of a few factors, these instructions determine how to rank YouTube videos. It’s crucial to stay ahead of the latest modifications to the YouTube algorithm. This will assist you in adjusting your marketing plan accordingly.

Evolution of the YouTube Algorithm

Over time, YouTube’s algorithm has changed along with the website. Initially, YouTube focused mostly on how many users clicked on a video to watch it, but the algorithm is now finely tuned to analyze user behavior.

This is a brief timeline:

2005-2011

The number of times a video was clicked to be viewed was the primary concern of YouTube in its early years. This was a very fundamental metric that did not reveal much about audience involvement or behavior. It made it simpler for clickbait videos to gain attention, ignoring consumer interest in the process.

It was in this period that for the first time, a YouTube video reached 1 million views (Nike’s Ronaldinho ad, 2005) and 100 million views (Evolution of Dance, 2008).

2012

A new feature called “Time Watched” was added to YouTube’s analytics in 2012. This was as a result of the company’s announcement that it intended to put more emphasis on rewarding engaging videos that kept viewers watching. This meant that it mattered not just if your audience clicked on your video but also how long they watched it. In essence, YouTube had begun to optimize for time spent on the platform.

2015-2016

YouTube published a paper outlining its algorithm and how it affected its recommendation system. The article discussed how three factors helped the website’s users receive personalized recommendations:

1 – Watch history

2-  Youtube search history

3- Video completion history

Additionally, they carried out surveys to find out what users liked and preferred. This was a clear attempt to enhance and improve the personalization of youtube search and suggestions on their platform. This was done to keep users interested.

2016 and later

YouTube took the violation of its content guidelines more seriously in 2016. They had previously demonetized videos that didn’t adhere to their rules. However, it wasn’t until 2016 that they began informing creators and being stricter about content guidelines violations. This was because it was reported that they were “appearing alongside extremist and offensive content”. As a result, numerous major companies withdrew their advertising from the platform.

YouTube video monetization

Only after this, in 2017, did YouTube make its first major algorithm shift, tightening advertising regulations and changing the criteria for joining their Partner Program for channels that generate revenue. It also updated its age-restricted content policies later in the year.

Youtube Algorithm in 2023

The latest YouTube algorithm is much more complex and concentrates a lot more on enhancing user experience on the platform. The keywords in the title, the clickability of the thumbnail, and the description text of the youtube video are also known to play a key role in the mix to get more attention and eventually get suggested on the platform. Watch time and audience retention are essential to understand how the video is engaging the user on youtube.

The YouTube Algorithm: How Does It Work?

YouTube’s stated mission is to provide everyone a voice and a window to the world. However, one of its lower-ranking goals is to keep users interested for extended periods. This is in order to increase the number of ad interactions.

Why is this secondary objective important? Because YouTube recommends videos that achieve this objective of exposing users to more sponsored content.

Relevance, engagement, and quality make up the three key criteria used by YouTube’s algorithm. YouTube examines the pairing of titles, descriptions, tags, and content with an individual search query to determine relevancy. Watch time, engagement, and frequency are only a few of the user responses that make up engagement. A channel’s capacity to demonstrate trustworthy authority determines its quality ranking.

In addition to these three criteria, YouTube’s algorithm also considers a user’s previous views and a video-specific assigned score. It takes into account, novelty and the frequency of a channel’s uploads among other attributes.

This combination of statistics allows YouTube to suggest videos that speak specifically to a viewer’s interests, continuing a narratively static viewing material chain.

There will be six separate locations where these videos can be found on YouTube:

  • Search results
  • Recommended Streams
  • Notifications
  • Channel Subscriptions
  • Trending Streams
  • YouTube Home Page

YouTube’s ranking system is always changing, evolving, and adapting, just like any search algorithm, in an ongoing effort to more accurately define and fulfill user involvement.

How to Increase Organic Reach on YouTube?

All things considered, keep in mind that the YouTube algorithm follows the audience when using it. These tips can assist you in increasing the number of views on your channel if you currently have a YouTube marketing strategy in place.

Tip #1: Select a relevant subject. 

Let’s begin with the pre-production stage. You must choose a topic that aligns with the search intent of your audience for your content to be of exceptional quality and be suggested on YouTube.

How do we go about doing that?

Explore your topic on YouTube. Look at the videos that are related to your topic and search intent to evaluate what has worked and what hasn’t. Look at the videos from your competitors and read the comments to learn what their viewers had to say. This will provide you insight into what appealed to them and what they could have missed in the video. You can now include these left out things in your videos. Verify that the search’s keywords are appropriate. You can make a better video for your audience if you pay attention to these cues.

If you’re doing a video on how to shoot a product video at home, for instance, you could discover that most videos use a low-cost lighting setup that not all audiences would find affordable. Here’s your time to fill that content gap; you can provide your audience options that can fit a wider price range or even demonstrate various methods, such as utilizing natural light to get the same effects.

Tip #2: Script & storyboard your videos to maximize engagement

Research is followed by scripting your video. While a word-by-word script is not required, having an outline is definitely encouraged for your YouTube video. An outline helps you make sure you cover everything while avoiding unnecessary side trips.

The hook is one of the most crucial components of a YouTube video. The initial 20 seconds of your video, known as the “hook,” are what draw viewers in. It can can determine whether they’ll watch all the way through or not. To effectively explain what you’re going to discuss in the video and how it will benefit them, your hook should give the audience a reason to watch it.

How should your hook be like?

Vanessa Lau (an online entrepreneur, social media educator, and content marketing expert) suggests that your hook should be short and move sooner into the main content of the video. The longer it takes to get to the video’s juicer section, which provides answers to your audience’s questions, the more viewers will leave the video.

You must create an overview of the topics you want to address in the video in addition to the hook. Write these as short bullet points to help you stay on track and focus solely on information associated with the search intent. Even if you did take a lot of pauses or went off track, you can easily cut them out during your edit.

A call-to-action is the final element of your YouTube video script that is required. After you’ve finished your video, tell your viewers what to do next. For example, suggest watching another video with more details on the same subject, leaving comments with their queries, subscribing to your channel, signing up for your newsletter, etc. This is significant because if the audience chooses to watch another video, they will increase your watch time credits, and if they subscribe or leave a remark, they have engaged with your video. Therefore, it’s crucial to take advantage of this chance.

Tip #3: Edit your videos to increase engagement.

After you’ve shot your video, you need to edit it so that it will be more interesting to watch for your audience. Due to this, you must pay attention to a few crucial aspects of your video. Repetition, breath pauses, irrelevant material, and tempo are a few of these.

In essence, you optimize the videos for greater retention and thus higher watch duration by removing the fluff, adding visual and auditory cues, working on the sound design, and optimizing the pacing of your videos.

Keep in mind that there are various video editing styles available and that the process is not a hard science. While most of the mistakes we’ve discussed so far are more or less universal, you should also look at the analytics for your videos to see what is and isn’t effective in terms of editing.

Utilize the information you have about your audience and their viewing habits once you have uploaded a few videos on youtube to improve the engagement of your videos.

Reading into the dips and spikes in the audience retention chart is one of the simplest methods to interpret this data. Dip highlights where viewers may have stopped watching the video because they lost interest. These can help you identify the areas of the video that require work to make them more interesting. Spikes, on the other hand, let you know what has resonated with your audience and frequently indicate when viewers have used the rewind button to watch a video again. Additionally, you should take note of this because it is a terrific indication of the kind of content that interests your audience. You can build on what is already working.

Tip #4: Enhance Thumbnail Clickability

The thumbnail for your video acts as a digital billboard and is essential in persuading viewers to watch. It has a big effect on your click-through rate. So what attributes do a clickable thumbnail have?

Relevance: Ensure your thumbnail design of your youtube videos aligns with your niche and video content. For instance, if you’re creating tech-related content, like phone reviews, opt for a futuristic design with minimal text. If you’re featuring a recipe tutorial by a renowned chef, focus on visuals that showcase the chef and the dish.

Stand Out: Your thumbnail should catch the viewer’s eye amidst other youtube videos on the search and homepage. Research how other thumbnails within your niche look before creating yours.

Examples of Effective Thumbnails:

  • James Charles includes a human aspect in his thumbnails by frequently including his face or hands. If you’re a vlogger or want to build your brand, this strategy is beneficial.
  • Nick Nimmin uses text graphics and his face in the thumbnails to provide a preview of the video’s content. These visuals contain alluring words or phrases associated with the video.
  • The Bright Side channel uses bold, attention-grabbing colors (BOGY colors) to stand out against YouTube’s default grey background. This strategy has proven successful in increasing visibility.
  • Movie streaming platforms like Netflix often use still photos from their content to pique viewers’ interest and draw them in. Movie reviews, the introduction of trailers, and interviews with well-known people frequently follow this trend.

Don’t forget, the ideal size for a YouTube thumbnail is 1280 x 720 with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a minimum width of 640 pixels. Keep the file size below 2MB to ensure easy uploads on YouTube.

Tip #5: Optimize your YouTube video title for clicks and search visibility.

Your video title plays a crucial role in determining your Click-Through Rate (CTR) on YouTube. If your title doesn’t catch the viewer’s interest, they’re less likely to click on your video. To make your title effective, focus on using keywords that both help your video rank in search results and engage your potential viewers.

Start working on your title even before you begin scripting and filming your video. To find the right keywords, YouTube is your best resource. Utilize YouTube’s auto-recommend search bar by entering keywords related to your video’s topic. It will suggest popular topics and show you videos that are ranking for those keywords.

Instead of only using simple phrases, it’s best to search for long-tail keywords, questions, and statements. These tend to be better at drawing clicks. You can also click on the search results to see which videos are ranking and what thumbnails they are using.

To further refine your keyword selection, consider using tools like VIDIQ, which is specifically designed for YouTube keyword research. It provides data on search volume and also rates the keyword’s competitiveness for ranking on YouTube. For example, a keyword with a high search volume might be enticing, but it could be extremely competitive. Small or medium-sized channels might find it more beneficial to target keywords with lower search volumes to improve their chances of ranking.

VIDIQ’s trend alert tool is another valuable resource. You can set up trend alerts to monitor emerging trends in your niche. This tool notifies you when relevant phrases or keywords start trending, allowing you to capitalize on these trends before they become oversaturated.

By creating a thoughtful, keyword-rich title that aligns with your target audience, you can boost your video’s click-through rate and overall performance on YouTube.

Tip #6: connect content and create playlists on youtube

Connecting content and making playlists is one of the most time-tested strategies for extending viewers’ attention spans. In essence, this involves creating videos that you can link to one another and adding them to a playlist. A viewer can be led to the next segment of your video while it is still playing by using the playlist, the finish screen, or even a link in the description.

The nice thing about playlists is that they greatly increase your watch time by automatically playing the subsequent videos as one is started. Your view time and retention will be impacted if the videos in your playlist are not related to one another.

Tip #7: To engage with your viewers, use the YouTube Premier function.

You can watch and experience your most recent posted video with your audience using YouTube Premier. These can be scheduled, letting you talk live and reply to comments while also informing your audience when your next video will be live.

This interaction, which occurs soon after you publish a video, gives YouTube a good indication of how interesting your content is. Additionally, it helps you understand how your viewers are feeling as they watch your videos and can offer a wealth of fresh information and insights.

Understanding the YouTube algorithm is vital for success on the platform. Over the years, the algorithm has evolved to prioritize watch time, engagement, and content quality. By following the above strategies and staying updated on algorithm changes, you can enhance your visibility and engagement on the platform.

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