How to Grow on YouTube in 2023

YouTube has become the second-largest search engine with more than one billion users and 500 video hours uploaded every minute. Having a YouTube channel is undoubtedly critical when it comes to marketing. It is one of those social media platforms, also the second most popular search engine after Google. Gaining popularity and growing your YouTube channel will get you a large audience, which will help you create a powerful impact on your business or brand. However, the question is—How can you create a strong YouTube presence? Here are a few tips you can follow and learn to grow your YouTube channel in 2023. 

1. Have a Clear focus for your Channel

Ensure that your channel has a clear aim. It will apply to both the types of videos you will create, and the topics you cover. Users are more likely to subscribe to a consistent and clear channel in what kind of content it offers, instead of a channel that has no clear direction and wanders from one topic to another.

2. Personalize Your Channel

 If you want to make a lasting impact on viewers, you must make your channel interesting. 

 To do so, follow these simple instructions: To have access to YouTube analytics, you’ll need to create a YouTube brand account. Maintain other social media pages and include contact information and links to those accounts too. This will give your viewers the freedom to communicate with you in the way that they want. 

• Fill up the about section of your profile to let visitors learn more about your company (including keywords). 
• Add a channel trailer—This is a great way to set the tone for your viewers and introduce them to your channel. 
• Add a logo or symbol- If you don’t already have one, create one using one of the many free logo generators available online. 
•  Include a visually stunning YouTube banner that will help you to share your brand story quickly with your viewers (and your channel). 

3. Create content with your target audience in mind

If you are making videos just for yourself, then happily do it! But if you want to create a successful YouTube channel, you need to create content that your target audience will be interested in and appreciate. You will need to analyse, and after some trial and error, you will figure out what they need. Once you discover the winning formula for your audience and yourself, then just follow it.

5. Search Engines Optimizing (SEO) your video is a must

It is vital to optimise your videos to ensure that you get the highest ranking and views. Here are a few steps which you need to follow to optimize your videos while creating them with YouTube Video Editor, Add your target keyword in your video title.

Create a title for your videos that will create curiosity or interest in your viewers. This will ensure the maximum clicks on your video. You will need to check the trends and competitions to find common themes in titles. 

Add video descriptions with appropriate keywords. Ensure that you have included all the video’s main tags. Here’s how you can optimise your content.

6. Maintain Consistency

Uploading videos consistently is a great strategy to attract people to visit your channel for more. Always fulfill your audience’s commitment by uploading videos monthly, weekly, or whatever frequency works for you. The main idea is to avoid dry spells and have a consistent workflow. This may lead to a loss of subscribers.

7. Make “Clickable” Thumbnails

As per YouTube, videos with personalized thumbnails fall in the category of 90% top-performing videos. So if you want your videos and channels to be popular, you just need to create thumbnails on which YouTube visitors will click.

Also Read, YouTube Marketing: The Ultimate Guide 2022

One of the main reasons for this is the video suggestions. It’s one of YouTube marketing guide with main sources of organic traffic, and thumbnails of your video will break or make your success.

Here’s how you can create effective thumbnails:–

• Ensure that you create color contrast. It’s critical!
• Keep it neat and basic- Crowded thumbnails look untidy and overwhelming.
• Use an easy-to-read text size and font if you add text in the thumbnail. 
• If you add your face on thumbnails, make sure your feelings are visible clearly.
• Create a uniform appearance and feel. 
• You should ensure that the video has the best design for the small screen. 70% of YouTube traffic is streamed on mobile devices.
• Make your audience curious about the content.
• You should make sure that you fulfil the commitment made in the thumbnails.

8. Utilize YouTube’s end screens.

You can add the end screen to the last 20 seconds of your YouTube video. You can use them in these ways:-

• If you speak with the viewers on the end screen, viewers will have a reason to stay. 
• Add links to your other videos on the end screen so that people are interested in the video. This will ensure a good session length and watch time.
• Add a subscription button on your end screen so that new viewers can subscribe easily. As of now, they have watched the whole video, and maybe they’re convinced to subscribe. 
• If you are looking for an easy and quick way to create a high-quality end card, then try those end card makers. 

9. Increase Your Watch Time

One of the main goals of YouTube is to keep users engaged on the platform. So, if you can help YouTube to do this successfully, then you will get rewards! This can be done by increasing the watch time. Watch time is the total time people spend watching your videos since they are life. 

So, how to enhance the watch time? Here are a few strategies which you should follow:-

• Match the thumbnail and title of the video with the content.
• Make your opening credits and title as short as possible.
• Ensure that the videos are engaging enough to keep people hooked up since they started viewing them. The first 15 seconds are very crucial in this.
• Make long videos as they get more views. 
• Check the video retention statistics in YouTube Analytics to find out what works for you. 
• Create playlists of the video on YouTube and increase their session time. 

10. Use YouTube Analytics Insights

It’s crucial to check video analytics every day to analyse your channel’s performance, what works and what doesn’t, growth potential, and much more. Pay attention to the following areas:-

• Real-time views:- It’s crucial to check the video’s performance.
• Viewer’s retention:- Check out the average view time of the videos and the point where viewers stopped watching the video.
• Demographics:- It reveals the audience demographics in terms of geography and age.
• Traffic source:- In this graphic, you can check out the origin of the views of your videos.
• CTR: (Click-through rate) CTR is used to check the performance of the video and do any adjustments.

One of the most crucial things to have a successful YouTube channel is to understand your viewers, what they like and seek, and what can be valuable to them. If you are a brand or business, uploading great video content on YouTube will help you show off your business expertise and build your branding. It’s a great way to engage with the audience and connect with the market. Hopefully, the strategies given above will help you to grow on YouTube.