5 Ways to Grow Your YouTube Channel

Building your video around a single topic or keyword is the best way to drive traffic and grow your YouTube audience. Marketers that don’t know SEO risk missing this step to rank videos but it’s crucial to include it if you want your videos to get the maximum amount of viewers. Use a keyword tool like KeywordTool.io, which is specific to YouTube, to look for the most searched keywords in the niche you want to target.

It’s important to pick your keyword before you craft your video content as it helps you construct the best information around that specific topic. It also helps you remember to include your keyword naturally throughout the content so YouTube picks it up when closed captions are added. Once you choose a keyword, check out the videos that currently rank for that topic to make sure you’re on the right track in terms of intent and always optimize your title and descriptions. By doing this, you will generate more search traffic with SEO on YouTube.

Of course, the best way to grow your YouTube channel is to create and distribute great content. But that content doesn’t always have to be built from scratch. Some of your best videos can be created from engaging, valuable, useful, and actionable content you have already.

Many people go to YouTube to find answers and how-to tutorials especially during the COVID-19 pandemic where people binge-watched 4 billion hours of ‘how to’ videos in just one year. So content that solves problems for your audience is a great way to drive traffic. Perform a content audit to discover the blogs, guides, and other high-performing pieces you currently have and think about how to repurpose them to create relevant and engaging videos.

So your content may be great, but does your channel look appealing? If you want visitors to take your YouTube channel seriously and subscribe, you need to look professional.

Improving your organization’s social branding will help users immediately recognize your content. So, if you have a blog or website, you probably already have some sort of look and feel to differentiate yourself from other individuals and/or companies. So it makes sense to carry over that branding to your YouTube channel. Here’s an example from gaming titan Nintendo with 8.12 million subscribers they provide great content about games and consoles that feature short videos of gameplay and behind the scenes snippets.

If you’re running YouTube by yourself or as part of a small organization, it can be extremely beneficial to personalize the channel by participating in videos. When you put a face to a brand, your audience can more easily connect with you as an individual. This is especially important for vloggers; fitness, life, or business coaches; and solopreneurs.

Every video you make doesn’t need to include your face, but you should feature regularly enough to engage your audience. Additionally, if you are this type of YouTuber, use a photo of yourself on your channel (not your logo).

One of the ways you know for sure that viewers are engaged with your channel is when they ‘subscribe’ to see any new videos that are posted. Ask viewers to subscribe to your channel in each video that you upload, and keep engaged with your existing subscribed users. (You can see your list of subscribers, here).

Never pay for subscribers. This will only bring down your engagement and hurt the authenticity of your account in the long run. Remember, if you don’t ask your viewers to subscribe, you may be missing out on a lot of potential followers. After all, the more subscribers you get, the more chance you have of increasing watch time on YouTube.