As if making great content wouldn’t be hard enough, it’s getting increasingly difficult to stand out and be discovered on video platforms like YouTube or Bilibili. Companies like Google collect data on the user’s preferences in order to show them what they are most likely going to enjoy watching, but even without that data, they run a pretty sophisticated algorithm in order to find the right videos from content creators that they want to feature in some way.
But how to become part of this group of chosen ones? How can you get discovered on YouTube? This is what we were wondering when we wanted to improve the findability of the TechAcute channel videos, and we found interesting first-hand resources from YouTube. It’s good to ask experts what they think works, but getting the factual tips directly from Google lets you skip the middleman and get right to the core of knowledge.
Learn how to get discovered on YouTube
Contents
- The introduction
- Search and discovery on YouTube
- Make effective thumbnails and titles
- Write smart descriptions
- Let cards and end screens do the work
- Keep your channel fresh with uploads and playlists
- Collaboration
On the YouTube Creator Academy, Google has recently published an interesting course to teach content creators interesting lessons about how to get discovered and how to make people find their content easier. And YouTube wouldn’t be YouTube if they didn’t publish these courses directly as video content on their website.
True, there is also some reading to be done if you actually join the YouTube Creator Academy courses, but you can do that on your own if you seek more info. Over here, I just want to showcase the video sessions to you in a nutshell. You can decide for yourself what you find most interesting and what other subjects you might want to skip, in case you already know all about that particular aspect.
Never give up
Step 1: The introduction
Check out how Mystery Guitar Man manages his channel.
Step 2: Search and discovery on YouTube
In our modern world, we have to understand the algorithm if we want to get help from the algorithm.
Step 3: Make effective thumbnails and titles
Don’t use shocking or clickbaity thumbnails, but definitely, you have to be creative in order to stand out.
Step 4: Write smart descriptions
You have to master the descriptions and tags for your videos. This is often discarded because it’s not fun to do, but it helps.
Step 5: Let cards and end screens do the work
There are some smart functions about cards and end screens on YouTube that you should leverage, but you still have to do some of the manual work.
Step 6: Keep your channel fresh with uploads and playlists
This is one of the oldest tricks in the social media management book, but it never grows irrelevant. Produce great content and spread it out as a planned strategy on your content calendar.
Step 7: Collaboration
One of the best tools in the bag is to team up with others. Make friends and help each other out. Do cool projects together, and maybe you’ll see new subscribers coming into your channel soon.
Some final thoughts
Like I said earlier, there is definitely some more digging and reading and even a course exam on the actual course on the YouTube Creator Academy, but I found this so insightful that I just wanted to share these clips with you as a first glimpse into what you could learn and how you could improve your channel in order to get more people to discover the content that you already pour your soul and heart into.
It’s also worth noting that fancy equipment helps to make your content appear more professional, but that’s just that. It’s only a part of your content and expensive tech doesn’t automatically mean great content and certainly doesn’t automatically lead to the discovery of your productions. I wish you the best of luck for your journey.
Photo credit: The feature image was done by Jenny Ueberberg. The photo in the body of the article was taken by Malte Helmhold.
Source: The clips embedded in this article are owned by the YouTube Creator Academy.
