How To Promote Your YouTube Channel: 10 Reliable Tactics

Knowing how to promote your YouTube channel is an obstacle that more creators face than you think.

YouTube is the second most visited site on the web right now, with the average person spending 6 hours on it per day consuming video content. It’s a perfect place for promotion. 

With long-form video content making a comeback, and many different brands now looking to run integrated ads, it’s the perfect time to start growing your channel and we can give you the all important tips for optimum promotion. 

Here are our top 10 tips on how to promote your YouTube channel:

Choose Google-friendly keywords 

To understand how to promote your YouTube channel, you need to know what keywords to use. Your audience will not just be using the YouTube search bar to find videos they’ll also be using Google. Seeing as Google places video suggestions at the top of the search results page, you’ll want to ensure your video lands there.

To do this you can use Google’s own Keyword planner (part of Google Ads) as well as your own research using the Search Engine Result Page (SERP) to understand which keywords display videos and which display webpages.

Use concise, descriptive video titles

Once you have your keywords it’s time to put together a title. For this you’re going to want to keep it short and sweet, we recommend 60 characters or less so your title doesn’t get cut off when displayed. On a similar note, remember to have your keyword in the first half of the title as most readers will focus on the first half and skip the rest. 

Lastly, try to be engaging rather than “clickbaity”. We know it can be very tempting, but clickbait will have a negative impact on your reputation in the long run.

Create custom thumbnails 

Thumbnails are just as important as titles in terms of catching a potential viewer’s attention. YouTube can auto-generate one for any video created, but many will come out blurry or out of focus. This is why we’d recommend you to always create your own for each video you make. 

Here are some rules of thumb when it comes to making them;

1. Keep the resolution at 16:9 and with a width above 640px preferably 1280 x 720 px
2. Stick to JPG, GIF or PNG for formats 
3. Keep all thumbnails below 2MB 
4. Add colour and text to draw in clicks
5. Remember to keep consistent branding across all videos

Fill out your profile information

Knowing how to promote your YouTube channel is knowing how to promote yourself too. Producing a compelling profile can be one of the easiest ways to promote your YouTube channel and increase your SEO presence. Let your viewers know your uploading schedule so they can come back and see more of your content, and remember to include links to other socials or contact methods to help you land some partnerships and collaborations.

Optimising your video descriptions 

Another aspect a lot of creators overlook is the description of the videos. This can be another key learning point for knowing how to promote your YouTube channel. 

It’s important to front-load your keywords into your description by incorporating them into the first 100 – 150 words, which will appear above the ”SHOW MORE” button. For the rest of the description, you can do a variety of things such as creating a “contents page” for timestamps throughout the video, adding relevant links such as playlists or socials and even adding hashtags, as long as it abides by the YouTube hashtag rules! 

Lastly, remember to keep your character limit to 5000 so you don’t overload your reader.

Remember your metadata

YouTube’s guidelines on metadata focus on two main points when it comes to the use of keywords. Firstly remember to be honest in your use and secondly go for quality over quantity. You can use these for tags and categories features, but keep tags in the tags sections rather than your video description!

Strive for high-quality content

Even the best videos in the world can be weighed down by poor video quality. Always try to make sure your content is at a professional level before posting. Using a decent camera, soundchecks before recording and learning some basic editing skills will go a long way.

Interact with your fans

If you want to know how to promote your YouTube channel effectively, you must learn to interact with your fans. Continuing the engagement in and outside of your videos is crucial. Simple things like replying to fan comments, “hearting” and pinning can show your audience you’re there ready to show them some love for supporting you!

Try Q&A’s

A Q&A can be another great way to increase engagement between you and your followers. By asking your audience for questions through comments, emails or tweets you can help build your community and let your fans know who you are and your story. 

Create a series

Consistency will pay off! Posting videos on a regular schedule can keep viewers coming back. Choosing a catchy and keyword-friendly name and similar thumbnails can help the audience identify any new episodes whenever they’re posted and will keep them engaged and craving more.   

And that’s our list of how to promote your YouTube channel now it’s your time to get out there and put it into practice!  

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@ Socially Powerful