YouTube is still the biggest online video platform out right now. Even though social media apps like Instagram and TikTok have tried to dethrone it for years, they have close to no chance to achieve this.
The reason behind its total domination of the video market is simple, the algorithm! YouTube’s algo is famous for promoting consistent quality content to users. Due to this, organic traffic is still the king on the platform. If you want a piece of that audience, you should know that it's very hard to get a following organically, but if you do, you are pretty much set to have success with anything you try to promote.
The reason why it's so difficult to gain organic traffic is because YT values quality over anything else. This means that your videos need to be exceptional and approach topics in ways that are both interesting and useful since a few clicks away from your video might spell disaster for your chances at ranking highly organically.
Luckily for you, here are a few things you can do to increase your organic traffic on the platform!
1. Create High-Quality, Relevant Content
As mentioned before, YouTube’s algo focuses almost exclusively on the quality of the content. This is done by carefully analyzing watch time, click-through rates, bounce rates, and like/dislike rates. This means that you need to put some effort into your videos if you want them to be successful and achieve something.
Here are some ideas on what you could do videos on for your channel:
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Educational content
Tutorials, how-to guides, and informative videos related to your niche. For example, if you run affiliate marketing campaigns, you might make videos explaining how to create the best creatives, target people, find the ideal audience, or optimize your campaigns step by step.
If you decide to go towards this sort of video, make sure you know what you are talking about. People will notice if you are trying to fake being an expert at something and they likely won't take it as a good thing.
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Entertaining content
Engaging, enjoyable videos that keep viewers coming back. If you decide to go this way you could make videos that promote your product or service, but in a fun and casual way. Let's say you do vlogs about your days, and you show off how you make some script with an AI writing program you are promoting.
If you decide to go through the entertaining route, make sure you are interesting and that the product or service you are promoting is not the focus of every video, as those get negative feedback after a while.
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Problem-solving content
Videos that address common issues or questions in your niche.
If you have any experience in your niche, you probably know a lot of what can go wrong in it and how to stop it from getting bad. Videos covering common pitfalls and helping people get over them or even avoiding them completely is a great way to ensure you have a recurring viewership of people who slowly trust you more and more as you help them.
Other things you could do is
- Regularly uploading high-quality content ensures that viewers have a reason to subscribe and return to your channel
- Improving your script, video, and audio quality
- Include guest appearances
- Covering news and developments in the space
2. Use Eye-Catching Thumbnails
Thumbnails are the first visual impression of your video. Effective thumbnails increase click-through rates and drive traffic. This has been proven time and time again since it is the only way (in combination with the title) you can attract new users.
Getting the perfect thumbnail down to a science is very hard, and some of the platform's biggest creators like MrBeast test hundreds of thumbnails per video. You of course don't need to do this at such a scale, but some tools like the recently introduced thumbnail testing option for select YouTube partners, might make it fast and easy to do for every video!
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Design
Use bold, contrasting colors and clear images. Include readable text that complements the video title. The general rule is to use 3 colors, one being the bright one, and the other two being accent colors. Arrows, human faces, circles, and other ways of catching attention usually work best for most videos.
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Consistency
Maintain a consistent style across all thumbnails to establish brand identity and make your channel recognizable. There is a familiarity you can bring to your content by being consistent with your design. Take a look at the biggest YouTubers, you can recognize all of their videos by the style, even if they aren't on the video itself!
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Variations
Sometimes small changes can have a huge impact. Try testing small changes and variations to find the ideal combination that will work for your videos. It might take some time, but it's the only way to ensure you get the style down, that your audience enjoys seeing!
3. Engage with Your Audience
Building a community around your channel encourages viewers to return and recommend your content to others. If you want to get to a point where you have something like a community rallying behind you, you need to do a lot of interaction with your fans to get there.
The basics are simple, comments, mentions, livestreams, and social media.
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Comments
Comments are something every video gets, but how you respond to them is what makes them truly fascinating. As a creator it is recommended to only respond to positive stuff, try hiding the negative ones, shadowbanning trolls, and liking and pinning comments of people that you enjoy seeing.
Usually, the comment section should be moderated at least a bit since a lot of people go overboard when commenting anonymously on online videos. Just make sure to keep everything civil and you should be fine!
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Mentions
Mentions are mostly for your already-established fans. You can mention them in your videos or posts. Show them in your video, reply to them, talk to the people, promote them into a moderator, and many other things.
People will associate this positively and you are likely to get a bigger following by simply respecting your audience for what it is. Your mentions on social media can only help you grow further!
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Livestreams
Live content is everywhere nowadays. With everyone having a phone in their pocket, it's no wonder that people want to livestream their every move. You as a marketer, should approach things a bit differently.
If you want to livestream, make sure you have an audience to begin with. No matter what the big players in the industry say, streaming is made for popular people, not for people to get popular.
Even though it's a great way to interact with fans, you won't have anyone to interact with if you start live streaming with 0 subscribers.
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Social Media
As always, social media is the best place to interact with your audience regularly. Make groups, and chatrooms, and interact with them. Help with any questions or problems they might have and try to solve things together. It might take some time out of your day, but the audience will notice your effort and you can gain much more in return!
4. Promote Your Videos on Social Media
Leverage social media platforms to drive traffic to your YouTube channel:
This is something everyone knows about, yet somehow, a lot of people forget about this! Cross-promotion is one of the best tools that you have at your disposal as a digital marketer. Your following from multiple platforms can be converged into one, as you promote your different channels, social media accounts, and projects.
Smaller creators might struggle to get an audience in the first place to promote to, but once you get it figured out it becomes almost a must for some reason!
5. Analyze and Adapt
Regularly review your channel's analytics to understand what works and what doesn't:
YouTube Analytics: Monitor metrics such as watch time, audience retention, and traffic sources.
Adaptation: Adjust your content strategy based on performance data. Focus on creating more of the content that resonates with your audience.
Conclusion
Organic traffic is very hard to predict and shape according to your preferences. Just like the grass grows out of the wet patches at the end of the rain, it is important to note that organic traffic is not something you can just buy whenever you want to.
Nobody can claim they have the secret formula to solving this as the only solution is to start working on yourself and your channel and making the best videos you can and hope to get more and more organic traffic with it.
Have you had any luck with organic traffic on your profiles? What was your key takeaway from that? Share your experience with us in the comments below!
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