The more watch hours you have on YouTube, the more likely YouTube will surface your videos in search and recommendation features. To boost your watch hours, you need to attract a large audience and keep them engaged with your content.
One way to do this is by using pattern interrupters. These are visual or auditory elements that change a viewer’s thought patterns.
1. Optimize your videos
When YouTube ranks videos, it cares a lot about a metric called watch time. This is the number of minutes viewers spend watching your video.
A great way to increase your watch hours is to optimize your videos. This means using the right keywords in your title, description, and tags. It also means using a call-to-action at the end of your video to encourage viewers to watch more of your videos.
Another way to optimize your videos is by creating a video playlist about your overarching topic. This will help YouTube understand how your video relates to other videos on your channel. It will also help your video rank higher in search results. Also, embedding your videos on your website can also help boost your video’s watch time.
2. Create playlists
You can captivate your audience’s attention with multiple videos that work together to tell a story. These playlists will appear as suggestions for users who search YouTube, and they will help you improve your channel’s search ranking.
Create a video that welcomes viewers and explains what they can expect from your playlist. This will add value to your videos and increase the amount of watch hours you get.
Use the YouTube end screen feature to link to your videos and playlists. You can also include a list of recommended videos in the description of each of your videos. This will give viewers an option to continue watching your content after they finish the first one. This will lengthen your session watch time, which is another important metric for increasing your rank on YouTube.
3. Create branded videos
Creating branded videos is one of the best ways to increase your YouTube watch time. Branded videos are videos that incorporate your branding and logo, which helps viewers remember your company. Creating brand videos can be easy with tools like Storyblocks and VideoHive.
Another way to increase your watch hours is by using the lookalike audiences feature on YouTube. This allows you to target your videos to people who are similar to your current audience.
Lastly, make sure your videos are engaging and have a compelling story. A good way to engage your audience is by adding humor or a surprise element to your videos. Also, use whiteboard animation, which has been proven to increase engagement by 15%. This will ensure that your audience stays engaged throughout your video.
4. Create a website
YouTube allows creators to build a page for their work and market it there. However, you have to abide by the video platform’s design specifications. Building a website with Strikingly gives you more creative freedom to create a page that will effectively represent your brand.
Whether your viewers stick around or not boils down to engagement. If you can keep them engaged, they will keep coming back to your videos. To do that, you have to be smart about the way you organize your videos.
One effective strategy is to use YouTube playlists. This makes it easy for your viewers to find what they’re looking for. It also helps you segment your audience. Organizing your playlists can increase watch hours on your YouTube videos by providing a more organized experience for your viewers.
5. Share your videos on social media
If your audience can’t find your videos on YouTube, they won’t be able to watch them. This is why it’s important to share your videos on social media and on your website.
YouTube uses watch hours to determine how your videos should rank in their search and recommendation features. This means that you have to optimize your videos so that they will be engaging enough for viewers to want to watch them.
One way to do this is by adding chapters to your videos. This will allow viewers to easily jump to the parts of your video they are most interested in. It’s also a good idea to include the key words from your title and description in the chapter titles, as this will help YouTube understand what content to recommend to users.how to increase watch hours on youtube
