How to Outsmart YouTube’s Algorithm: A Tactical Guide to Video Promotion

From the beginning of the year YouTube decided to change the rules of the game for video marketing in general. How to build a successful tactic of your video's promotion under the new conditions?

Tactic №1: CTR increasing

CTR is a percentage of people who watch your video in search results and click the preview link. YouTube gives particular attention to this one dimension. If users actively click your video, YouTube starts to show it closer to the top of ranking.

So, how to increase your CTR without using clickbait? Use square and round brackets in headlines.

Studies show that people click more actively on headlines with brackets for 38% more, than headlines without it. That happens, because text with brackets allows the user to get a short additional preview of the content.

By the way, Brian Dean (entrepreneur and SEO-expert) has already mentioned it in the post about content-strategy for 2020. Besides that, you can visit his YouTube channel and make sure there are brackets as well.

Tactic №2: feedback improvement

Feedback means such metrics as likes, comments, reposts and subscribers. More metrics you have, the higher your videos are ranked.

Backlinko wrote about it in early 2017. There is a strong correlation between elements of feedback and positions of your videos in search.

Which means that traffic directly depends on 'interaction'. If your channel is a fledgling one, it's possible for you to buy some likes and subscribers at first to give relevance to it. Viewsta will help you with that. This service has great prices, and you can always negotiate individual terms.

The question is "How to make people give feedback?". At first start asking questions to your subscribers with certain response options.

Don't just ask like that: "Leave in comments, what you think about that", but do it in another way, for instance: "Write down, which of these steps you'll try in the first". People adore sharing their viewpoints, but they hate thinking.

Then give users an opportunity to subscribe to your channel. It means that instead of "Subscribe my channel", add a reason to do it "Subscribe my channel not to miss new videos". Some youtubers say like that: "The more users subscribe to my channel, the more qualitative content I can provide".

Tactic №3: Video embedding

In 2018 Justin Brigs analysed approximately 100,000 videos and 75,000 different channels on YouTube. As a result there was a quantity of domains, referring to video, in the sixth place among the most significant factors, correlated with videos' positions.

The easiest way to use this tactic is video embedding on your own website (if there is one).

Media-content helps your readers to get additional information about the theme of the article. Also you can make a practical video for a theoretic article to let people see how it works in real life. You can use video embedding in press-releases, guest posts and any other content, where it's an appropriate feature.

Tactic №4: Tags' optimization

That's not a secret that tags help your videos to be ranked better in search results. But a lot of newbies use it in the wrong way. Even Brian, when he just started to use YouTube, tried to use tags almost in each video, where it was possible. On the principle “the more the better”.

Video's ranking doesn't depend on different useless tags you use. That happens because tags must transfer the main content's theme to YouTube. If you use different words, interrelated badly, YouTube won't get the content.

Instead of tags' abuse, you better create a certain pattern for its filling.

1. The first three tags must contain the main key. For instance: “How to promote a video”, “How to promote a video on YouTube”, “How to promote a video on the top”.
2. Then goes synonyms of the main key. For instance: “Video's promotion on YouTube” or “YouTube promotion”.
3. At the end add 2-3 tags of categories, characterizing the common content's theme. For instance: “Promotion on social networks”, “SMM”, “Internet-marketing”.

Tactic №5: To get on recommended videos

When it comes to video's optimization on YouTube, the majority thinks about getting to the first search position by highly competitive requests.

But it’s not the only place where your creativity is shown. Mostly element 'recommended videos' brings to an author more views than a classical search does.

There are two the main factors behind getting videos in recommendations:

1. Content type, which you usually look through.
2. Videos, which you're watching at the moment.

For instance, if you watch hundreds of videos about a video's promotion on social networks, YouTube will recommend more content like that.

When you optimize the content under keywords, which are used by other popular channels, an opportunity of getting to their recommendations becomes higher.

That's why just find promotional videos with a high quantity of views in your niche and borrow their keys as synonyms and tags of categories for your new videos.

Tactic №6: Increasing of watch time

YouTube expert John Madden called video's watch time the main factor of virality on that social network. Let us remember that it's not a notorious 'retention' of an audience, but the total quantity of hours, minutes and seconds, which were spent by users on your channel.

If the viewer watches your videos until the end, YouTube's algorithms get it as he likes your content. The more likes you have, more often your videos are shown up in search results, according to CreatorAcademy on YouTube.

How to increase your watch time:

1. Make the plan, write down the scenario and formulate a thesis for your videos. It's not enough to just determine the monologue's theme and turn on the camera. Also you can lose viewers because of, for instance, fragmented storytelling or out-of-focus.
2. Change the elements of new videos. Nothing oppresses YouTube's viewers as a static and not changing image. Try to experiment with angles of shoot, music, visual elements. Make your videos fresh and exciting.
3. Buy views with high retention from proven providers, which work only with real viewers.

Viewsta.com is just the kind of provider, which has been pleasing its users with uninterrupted delivery of views, likes and subscribers from all over the world on YouTube for a long time.

Tactic №7: Description optimization

Besides header and tags YouTube uses description under videos to understand better its video-content. So, if you optimize the description, you'll get more views.

How to optimize description for YouTube's video:

1. Write down at least 100 of words for that element to tell users and YouTube the point of content.
2. Use the main SEO-key in the first 2-3 sentences of description. It's the same as websites' optimization for search systems.
3. Use for several times target keyword and its synonyms, but don't do website's reoptimization. More about how keywords impact your video ranking.

Try these tactics, don't be afraid of buying views and likes for your videos, shoot qualitative content and you'll get through this!