The MOST IMPORTANT Ranking Factor on Youtube to Get MORE VIEWS

Hey, YouTubers, Lauren Bateman here. In this video, we're going to talk about what is the most important factor that YouTube looks for when ranking your videos.

So in this video, I'm going to go over the three kind of important factors that YouTube likes to know about your videos to help you get ranking. And I'm going to tell you which One of these three is actually the most important for YouTube. But before we do that, there's something very important we have to talk about. Now, if You're a small YouTuber and you're just getting started, the biggest thing I can tell you to do is to just keep uploading content, because YouTube actually needs data in its pool to judge what your content is about. So if you only got a dozen videos uploaded to YouTube right now, just keep uploading because there's just really not enough data in the pool for YouTube to really accurately assess your audience and know what your channel is about to really start sharing things out. So my biggest tip for the small youtubers is really get as much information into the pool for YouTube to so that you can start taking advantage of the algorithm and you can start taking advantage of YouTube, actually starting to share out your content with other viewers on YouTube. On average, you'll hear most YouTubers say it takes about 50 videos for YouTube to really have enough data in the pool. So just keep getting that in there, and once you get to that 50 video mark, you'll probably be in a good position for YouTube to start sharing out and knowing what your channel is about. Now, even if you don't have 50 videos uploaded to YouTube, I'm going to talk about the three factors that are very important for ranking your videos. So factor number one is start time or session start time. Who brings people over to the YouTube platform? Remember, YouTube's ultimate goal is that it wants to make ad revenue. So the more people you bring over to YouTube to start new sessions, the more YouTube's actually going to like you. This is why I often recommend that you have a mailing list or some sort of external website so that you can link your videos from your website or to YouTube and send viewers over to YouTube. You will get credit with starting the session, even if they only watch one of your videos, but they continue to stay on YouTube for 60 minutes. YouTube gives you that credit for the 60 minutes. So the bottom line, promote your videos and try to get as many start sessions as many people over to YouTube. And you can do that by promoting through Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, basically any social media platform. Your website or a mailing list. Now, number two is session time. And I basically just talked about it very briefly in point one, which is how long is someone staying on the platform? Again, the goal of YouTube is to keep people on their platform because they want to keep serving those people ads. That's how YouTube makes all of its money. This is why playlists are a really great idea for content creators. Because you could put five or six videos in a playlist and someone might say, hey, look, there's a playlist on what I'm looking for. For example, on my guitar channel I have a rhythm guitar playlist that's maybe five or six videos. They're anywhere in length from five to 10 minutes. So someone could look at that playlist and say, you know what, I can sit down and watch all of these videos in one sitting. The more you can get people to watch one of your videos and then watch another one of your videos and watch another one of your videos, the more likely YouTube is going to give you recognition for, for that session time. So my recommendations for increasing session time is to build up your playlist so that they're nice, small, concise and relevant. Maybe five or six videos that someone would be able to watch in a session. Think of things that you can do in a, you know, part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Something they're going to have to watch beginning, all the way to end. That might take them 30 minutes to get through. Another thing is to make sure you're using YouTube's card and end screen features to recommend other content that's already on your channel that's related to the video video you're watching. For example, up here you're going to see a link that pops up with a card for my four hacks for the YouTube algorithm. So you can go check that out when you're done with this video real quick. I really hope you're enjoying this video. Don't forget to subscribe and turn on the notifications. This way, YouTube will let you know when I release more content just like this. So we've finally come to number three, which is going to be the most important ranking factor on YouTube. And, and that is watch time, how long viewers are actually watching your videos. On my guitar teaching channel, I find the videos that tend to be the most referenced out by YouTube tend to be my videos that are a little bit on the longer side. Now why might this be important? Well, because YouTube actually gives preference to watch time. So if you have a 15 minute video and someone watches 50% of it so they only watch on average half of the video. They're still watching seven and a half minutes versus if I upload a five minute video and they watch 100% of that video, which is still really good, they watch 100%, they're still only watching five minutes of watch time. So even though less viewers got to the end of the longer video, YouTube's going to give me more credit for the view time versus how many people watch through. The higher you can get people to watch through. If you can get your videos watched through to 40, 50, 60%, that's awesome. If you're noticing your watch time tanking, what you might want to do is maybe change up your editing. You know, you can do some pan ins, some pan outs, maybe you have some text pop up on the screen. Seriously, analyze your videos and see where you're losing audience retention. Maybe you need to make your intros quicker. Intro shouldn't be rambling on and on and on. Tell the viewer what they're going to be going over in the video and get right into it. Now real quick. Side note, on watch time, if you don't know how to go and analyze your videos and the watch time, what you're going to do is you're going to go over to the left side of your navigation. You're going to click on content and then you're going to click on the analytics for that particular video. Then you're going to click on the audience tab and you're going to scroll down, scroll down and see audience retention. You'll see if your audience is sticking around for certain things if they're dropping out. If you see a big drop in the beginning, it's probably telling you that your intros are taking too long. So I'd focus on your next video trying to make that intro as succinct as possible and work on getting those curves to flatten out as best as possible. Other things that can help with retention and watch time is using stuff like B roll or even some background music to make things interesting for the viewer. And finally, don't make your videos any longer than they have to. If you have a topic and it only is going to be a five minute video, don't make it an extra long video just to get to that 10 to 15 minute magic mark that I mentioned. Because people are going to start dropping off anyway because you're going off target, off tangent and you're really not answering their questions. Answer the question. If it takes 5 minutes, awesome. If it takes 10 minutes, even better if it takes 15. Perfect. But never go any longer than you have to. And just so you guys are aware, I do have a free YouTube training. I'll put a link in the description below. You guys can go check that out. If you're looking for more tips on how to grow your YouTube channel, YouTube's going to pop up a couple more videos, including that hacks video that I mentioned earlier. Go check those out and I hope to see you guys in another video.