How to get more views on YouTube – essential tips for businesses

Video is an essential business marketing tool and the top place for people to view promotional films is YouTube. It’s second only to Google for visits on the internet and a massive 5 billion videos are viewed there every day. The competition for this audience is steep. So how do you get more views on YouTube? Here are our essential tips for businesses to optimise your channel and YouTube videos so they can be found by your customers.

Keywords are key

The first thing to understand is that YouTube is not just a social media platform; it’s also a very powerful search engine. The keywords you use in your video title, description and video tags are important for helping potential customers find your uploads. Do some keyword research around the terms people put into search engines to find businesses, services and products like yours.

Upload often

YouTube notices channels that are refreshed with new videos and will rank these higher in searches. Plan a schedule of videos and upload them at regular intervals rather than all in one block.

Think long play

You can have a YouTube channel, upload videos and watch them for free because it’s financed by ads. The payoff is that YouTube wants to keep viewers on its platform for as long as possible. If you upload longer videos they’ll love you for it and rank yours over shorter films on the same topic. Five minutes or more is a good length to start with but don’t be afraid to share videos of 30 minutes or longer. YouTube wants to steal people away from their TVs. 

Create playlists

Once you’ve done your keyword research create playlists of your videos using these. You can also add other people’s relevant videos.

First impressions count

YouTube users are more likely to click on and view a video with an eye-catching thumbnail cover. Optimise your YouTube video thumbnail by uploading one you’ve designed using a good image overlaid with the title.

Customise your transcript

Your YouTube video will be transcribed automatically to make it accessible to all. It’s worth checking that transcription to make sure it says what it’s meant to. The robots sometimes get things wrong.

Calls to action

There are a few different ways you can call your audience to action while they are watching your video:

• Use YouTube cards to add a pop-up message during your video to point viewers to your other uploads
• Add links to your website in your video description
• Ask people to subscribe to your channel in your video and in your description – subscriber numbers boost your channel’s credibility and ranking with YouTube
• Ask people to comment on your videos as this also gets credits from YouTube’s ranking robots.

If you want to find out more about using video as a marketing tool or need help to get more views on YouTube then get in touch with our team of Southampton-based PR and marketing experts.