10 Strategic Ways to Increase YouTube Watch Time

Communication through visual media grabs the most attention. Video content delivers the message more easily than any other means and can reach a wider audience.

That’s why YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, just behind Google.

If you are desirous of using this platform to convey information, you should be ready to put in more effort to see the results. The watch time of videos determines the success of your videos.

Why use YouTube?

Before we move over to look at the tips to increase watch time, we should first understand the reasons why YouTube is popular.

• Video content transports the message easily to many, in comparison to text or others. Can you believe that a human brain can process visual content nearly 90% more than text?
• The cost factor is the most attractive one. To post a video on YouTube, you don’t need a big budget.
• Video content through YouTube garners more audience through sharing. When sharing happens like wildfire, your content reaches far and wide.
• Videos created through YouTube are smartphone-friendly. The platform is enhanced to be used to its best abilities on a smartphone.

With all these merits, how easy is it to keep your audience engaged with your content on YouTube? Easier said than done? Well, not if you follow these amazingly easy tips. Check them out!

         Related guide: Download YouTube, Facebook, And Instagram Videos On oDownloader.com

10 Most Worthy Ways to Increase Youtube Watch Time: 

1. Post engaging videos consistently

YouTube is all about content. If people are searching for the type of content you upload, they should be able to find you easily. The information that you post should be interesting and engaging.

To do this, you should have answers to these questions:

• What is the purpose of the video?
• What makes it special and different from the rest?
• Who is the target audience for your content?

Once you are sure of the above, you can create and post content regularly. If you want to see better results, post a video at least twice a week. Fix the days of the week when you will post the videos so that viewers longingly expect them.

2. Keep an eye on the quality of your video

YouTube has become highly competitive and for the same genre, you can find hundreds of videos. To rank better, make sure your content quality is the best.

People start to ignore you if you try to copy, even though your videos are stunning. To create original and quality content, you have to build on your strength through research. Find out what your viewers prefer, how competitors are acing it, etc.

3. Optimize videos for SEO

When your video ranks better in SEO, you have the edge over others. It helps viewers to find your channel. How can you optimize SEO?

• You should find the main keyword your video will be targeting. Make sure it is a long-tail keyword and not general, to increase your visibility.
• Say the keyword in your video so that YouTube identifies it while processing.
• Include the keyword in your title and description tag.

4. Target the first few seconds of your video

The first impression is the best, haven’t we heard? Try to keep your audience glued for the first 15-20 seconds, or else they will look for something better.

Within the first 2 minutes, a drop of 60% in viewership is estimated if your video is not an attention-grabber. To make your first few seconds interesting you could use YouTube Intro Maker, which helps in creating the best intros. These few seconds should be informative, entertaining, and to the point.

5. Pay attention to the title and thumbnail

People use some search terms to find the videos. If this becomes your title, your videos will catch the viewer’s attention.

Both your thumbnail and title must be able to attract viewers. But don’t overdo it, as some YouTubers place an attractive title just to mislead. Viewers will soon skip you and even your worthy videos will not gather attention.

The thumbnail is what makes people stop at your videos, the next being the title that arouses interest.

6. YouTube analytics

This is a fabulous tool to analyze your watch hours. It gives you statistics of where the watch time dropped and where it showed an increase. This gives a better understanding of the viewer?s perspective to increase youtube watch time further.

For example, if the stats indicate drop-in hours during the first few seconds, it means your intro is boring to the viewers. If you find that watch hours are more in videos you appear than where you give a voice-over, it means the audience prefers that.

7. Covert traffic through your website

If you have a website, place your YouTube videos on the website to pull more viewers. People who visit your site will be tempted to check out your videos too. With so many Plugins available, embedding your channel onto the website can be done in a jiffy.

This is one good way to organically increase your watch time.

8. Interact well with viewers

Don?t stop by posting the videos alone. Interact well with your YouTube community to get better engagement. You could consider hosting live Q&A sessions. Respond to queries of your viewers through comments or emails, and make use of the community tab to post important updates.

All these can go a long way in influencing your viewers and increasing your watch time.

9. Create a playlist

Viewers lose interest and become bored when they have to search for a long time for the desired videos and YouTube watch time gets fluctuated. Creating a playlist can be a blessing in such cases. They will be able to get all videos on a similar topic in the playlist. Task simplified, viewers happy!

10. Live stream

Live streams are the best when it comes to academic videos or gaming-related ones. It brings you closer to the audience and helps to increase the watch hours. To find out what content your viewers want from you, live streams are the best way.

All these are proven methods to increase your YouTube watch time. You spend a lot of time creating and editing videos, and if you want to see the result, you should follow these best practices.

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