The Best Guide To Master YouTube Algorithm

YouTube is a platform where you can find anything and everything in video format. As a result, it is the most viewed social media platform, and the YouTube Algorithm drives the high-ranking videos. 

Understanding how the YouTube algorithm works is equally important as focusing on any other step to make your YouTube videos rank. YouTube SEO and YouTube algorithm both need equal understanding to work and get your videos a higher reach. 

Did you know that 70% of the time users spend on YouTube is on the suggested or recommended videos? It is a considerable number and thus requires the focus to get your YouTube videos there. 

To understand all the metrics of YouTube you need to understand its algorithm.  So, further, in the blog, we will discuss in detail how the algorithm of YouTube works and can you use it to grow your YouTube channel. Let us first understand what is YouTube Algorithm.

What is YouTube algorithm?

So as we know, the algorithm is the set of rules to follow, and in the case of YouTube, it helps get our videos higher organic reach and to get featured in the recommended videos by YouTube. 

A successful marketing strategy on YouTube will quickly increase your organic searches and make you part of the 70% watch time of the user. For this, a deep understanding of the YouTube algorithm is really important. 

Something Important To Know

Before 2012, YouTube ranked its higher videos based on the number of views, but later it realized that this could not be accurate because of various factors affecting the views. So it changed the algorithm to measure the watch time or view duration. 

The YouTube algorithm still uses an old method from the platform’s early days, which is to prioritize videos that keep people watching for a long time. This means that videos with a high view duration are more likely to be recommended and appear higher in search results.

YouTube Algorithm is based on three different qualifiers. These qualifiers are relevance, engagement, and quality. 

• The relevance of the video is decided by combining the video title, description, tags, and content with the individual search query.  
• The benchmark for engagement is derived from the number of user responses, including watch time, engagements, and frequency. 
• The quality of the videos is determined by a YouTube channel’s ability to demonstrate trustable authority. 

The YouTube algorithm also considers two more things when deciding which videos to recommend:

• The types of videos a user has watched in the past
• A score is assigned to each video that considers how often a channel uploads new videos and how unique and interesting the video is.

So, the algorithm looks at the user’s history and the specific video quality when making recommendations. Ultimately, this combination of relevance, engagement, quality, user history, and score points helps YouTube recommend videos according to the viewer’s interest. 

You must be thinking about where the recommended videos are seen, right? These recommended videos appear in the following points:

• YouTube Homepage
• Search results 
• Recommended Streams
• Notifications
• Trending streams  

Let us understand how you should work on YouTube algorithms to succeed.

How does the YouTube algorithm work?

Now as you know how the algorithm of YouTube works, it’s time to get an in-depth understanding of it. We will bifurcate it into its small parts and understand them. 

1. Keywords

Keywords play a very important role in the YouTube algorithm and the growth of your YouTube channel. It has been made clear that using keywords in the title, description, tags, and thumbnail is really important. Keywords determine the relevancy of the content.

Correct usage of keywords while optimizing the title, description, and tags to improve the organic traffic on your video and its search visibility, 

2. Optimizing Description As Per YouTube Algorithm

Descriptions are like the first impression of your video, even before your video starts. The YouTube algorithm does check the description and has not kept a short limit to it. 

You can play with words and create an impression on the audience as they will read the first few lines of the description until they press the see more button, making it the best you can. 

3. Video Transcription

Video transcriptions are really important as they allow people who are deaf or people who want to see the video in silence to understand it. 

It is always better to upload self-created transcriptions as they do not have errors and can be indexed by search engines more accurately. 

4. Video Views

YouTube ranks videos as per their engagement time, so you need to focus on the audience’s retention of your videos. For this, you must study through your metrics and understand your audience graphs to create the content they are looking for.

To engage your audience with your videos, you need to create an impact in the first few seconds of the video and give them a hook to stay engaged with the video and match the description and the first initial seconds of your video. Create engaging videos and grab your audience’s attention.

These few tricks can help you create more engagement with your audience and get a higher score in the YouTube algorithm. 

5. Interactive Conclusions

It becomes boring when you simply end a video. To fulfill the engagement criteria of the YouTube algorithm, you need to keep the viewer engaged with your content. 

For this, you can link your videos to the end and ask your viewers to go watch your video and add the link in the description or with the help of watermarks, end screens, and other options. 

This will keep your viewers engaged with your content from one video to the other and bring them back to your videos as well. This will be really helpful in improving the YouTube algorithm. 

6. Subscriptions

Viewers of your channel will automatically help you increase your organic reach. In order to get more subscriptions, you need to create the content viewers want to see. 

To create engagement on your YouTube channel, you can reach out to influencers and can personally engage with all the comments on your videos. 

You can opt for many marketing strategies to connect to new subscribers, such as promoting your YouTube channel on social media platforms, etc. 

7. Creating Series

To keep your viewers engaged in your content, you can create playlists that have conversational videos to continue the conversations and to lead to keeping your viewers engaged. 

8. Understanding Analytics of YouTube Algorithm

Analytics are just not the numbers to watch, and rather they are the numbers that can help you formulate the best strategies to grow your YouTube channel. 

The numbers in YouTube analytics help you understand what videos are popular and who is watching them. They also show you which videos aren’t doing well. This information is important because it can help you improve your videos and attract more viewers by trying different approaches. 

Conclusion

We talked about YouTube Algorithms and how you can grow your YouTube channel. Understanding the YouTube algorithm is crucial for any content creator looking to succeed on the platform. 

By creating high-quality and engaging content, optimizing titles, descriptions, tags, and thumbnails, and focusing on increasing watch time, engagement, and audience retention, creators can improve their chances of getting their videos promoted to a wider audience. 

However, it’s important to note that the algorithm is constantly evolving, and creators should stay up-to-date on the latest best practices and trends to stay ahead of the game. Overall, by understanding and working with the YouTube algorithm, creators can build a loyal audience and grow their channel over time.

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