10 Ways to Promote Your Youtube Channel for FREE

If you’ve decided to go down a vlogging route and have started creating and publishing Youtube videos, then you need to make sure you promote your YouTube channel so your videos don’t flop.

It’s really easy to publish your content but without promotion how are people going to find your videos and see your content?

I’ve put together 10 brilliant ways to promote your Youtube channel and increase your views, a few simple changes to your normal Youtube tasks could see a big traffic change.

[1] Make sure your titles are engaging

Just like any other form of social media or blogging you want people to click into your content, the only way to do this is make sure people are drawn into your content and want to click.

Make sure you use persuasive writing, ensure its clear what your viewers will get out of the video, and most importantly solve a problem for your viewer.

Look at your current titles and decide would you click on it? Do you know what the video would be about?

You need to make the viewer curious about what is going to happen or help solve their problem – I made a video about how to make clickable titles every time!

[2] Concentrate on SEO

Youtube is ultimately videos and vlogs, but the average user will use YouTube like a search engine, normally to solve a problem or find a video detailing something they are struggling with.

This means its crucial you concentrate on your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to make sure your videos show high in your results.

Titles and descriptions should have keywords you want to rank for, make sure you define your categories and tags because this helps Youtube categorise your video and help show it to a relevant audience.

71% of my traffic on my YouTube channel is from search that I won because I used TubeBuddy and VidIQ to optimize my titles, descriptions and tags.

[3] Promote yourself

If you’ve got a number of videos, the ideal action is for your watchers to watch all of the content.

Make sure you reference your older videos in new ones, leave links in the description and then if your watchers are interested its easy for them to find your older link and click through

[4] Share across platforms

Most social media platforms have a native video uploader, upload a snippet of your video with links to the full Youtube video.

This way wherever your audience are they have a very clear direction of how to access your Youtube videos.

It may be that they don’t usually use Youtube to find content but if it lands on their facebook feed they’re more likely to click through – clicking through from external websites shows Youtube that your content is valuable and is more likely to increase your ranking

If you need help with sharing your videos and building your brand – check out my resources page, packed with great tools I use personally to help grow my brand and get noticed on YouTube.

[5] Subscribe Buttons

You can subscribe to Youtube videos by clicking in the description, but a lot of viewers won’t read the description or even click through to subscribe.

You need to make it abundantly clear WHY they should subscribe to your channel and make sure you add a nice big subscribe button within your video.

It’s really simple to do so take a look at how to add a subscribe button into your videos

[6] Add Thumbnails to your videos

Hopefully by this point you’ve got a video, a short catchy title and a description full of the keywords you want to rank for.

Hopefully, all of this means your videos are ranking higher in searches. But wait there is one more thing you absolutely NEED to do to make people click your video.

Our brains are hardwired to react to visuals so make sure with every video you upload a custom thumbnail image which is bright and details what your video will do.

While YouTube will auto create a thumbnail, by creating a custom one you can make sure your viewers can see instantly what your video will be about.

Use the right YouTube thumbnail size

If you’re going to spend the time to create a professional looking thumbnail, start with the proper sizing and dimensions.

Per YouTube’s guidelines, your thumbnail image should be 1280 x 720 pixels, with a minimum width of 640 pixels. An aspect ratio of 16:9 is ideal as it’s used most often in YouTube players and previews.

Be honest & accurate in your thumbnails

If you click bait users to viewing your videos by misleading them with thumbnails and headlines, this will hurt your brand and reputation.

Not only that, but YouTube will stop showing your videos in search results if your bounce rates are too high.

The thumbnail is meant to give context, so providing an image that does not depict what is in the video will harm you rather than benefit you. Find the most important point or part of your video and create your thumbnail around that.

[7] A complete profile

Many people skip straight to creating content but don’t skip out on your profile it’s a really important aspect to making sure your viewers return.

Maintain a consistency across your other social media channels / website and most importantly have very visible contact details.

If your channel is going well then companies may want to contact you for sponsorship deals, your watchers may want to send you an email

Why have Multiple Social Media Accounts?

Having a social media presence is key things for companies in this day and age.

Especially with the different types of social media accounts out. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. is key to get the word out about your company, brand, youtube channel or blog to your chosen target audience.

Social media has been a growing trend for businesses over the last few years, and for good reason. Before you begin dabbling with multiple social media sites, a strategy needs to be put in place that includes:

• Consistency: Instead of posting when you have time, post something at the same times every day so your audience knows when to expect it.
• Quality content: Don’t just post content to post it. Have something meaningful to say that your viewers will want to read.
• Engagement: Interact with your audience through social media, whether it’s by answering questions they post or by asking questions yourself.
• Images: Don’t just post links and text. People love pictures and infographics. Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. Businesses that have used infographics have grown in traffic 12% more than those that don’t.

 

[8] Caption your videos

In this day and age the internet needs to be accessible to everyone, that includes people with impairments, it’s so easy to make your videos accessible and add subtitles / closed captions to your Youtube videos.

This will increase your reach to people without accessibility issues too, so many people watch videos with their phones on mute you’d be amazed how many are skipped over if they don’t have subtitles it’s a really untapped market you need to address.

Why Accessibility Matters

It’s time to set a universal standard for accessibility. How many people have visited your channel and left without complaining because of its inaccessibility?

• There are 466 million people around the world who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.
• Up to 71% of people with disabilities leave a page immediately if it is not accessible.
• Only around 360 million people speak English as their first language.
• 60% of YouTube views are from non-native English speakers.

Invest in video captions to reach that sizeable audience. Captions are essential to ensuring that your videos are accessible to the wider public.

The Impact of Captions on Your YouTube Channel

How do the statistics of videos with captions compare to video content without subtitles?

When it comes to watch time, subtitled videos increase view time by more than 12% and are watched an average 91% to completion. In comparison, videos without subtitles are only watched 66% to completion. When subtitles are included, 80% more people watch videos to completion.

[9] High Quality Content

Let’s be fair, you can create rich SEO descriptions, fill out all your profile, have active subscribe buttons etc. etc. but if your content is weak then people won’t return, they probably won’t even watch the entirety of your current video.

Just like any other form of blogging / vlogging or social media content will always be king. Make sure the videos you are creating are what your ideal audience would be looking for, that the video ultimately answers a problem, that you’re clear and engaging and most importantly that you are yourself.

Anyone can create a factual video what makes your videos unique is you. So inject some personality and let your viewers really get to know the person behind the camera

This goes for how to package your content as well. A great video with a bad thumbnail can destroy all your hard work. Make sure you know what a good thumbnail needs to look like – check out this deep dive blog into thumbnail size, styles, designs and best practices.

[10] Answer your fan mail

Hopefully if your videos are doing well you will start getting comments on your videos – answer them! Respond to your fans and engage with your community.

These are your viewers and subscribers, by making them know you ‘see’ them they’re more likely to return to your new content. Plus engage enough and you will get ideas for new Youtube videos, questions they need answering – its basically free market research very specifically from your audience.

So there you have it, 10 ways you can improve your current Youtube promotion with just a few simple changes.

What’s a Youtube skill you’d like to learn?