We've talked about this topic in quite a few previous posts but there's still a lot more to be said about it. We've talked about doing tag research, optimizing your title and tags, writing a great description, taking the time to write accurate captions, the importance of audience retention, engagement, and some other topics. Ranking on YouTube doesn't stop there, though. There are other important factors to consider.
Subscriber/view ratio
The number of your subscribers who watch your video in the first hour, day, and week, is a very important factor in how your video is going to rank on YouTube. This is one reason why it's so important to remain niche as a channel. If you get a bunch of subscribers by putting up a funny cat video, then proceed to do a video about how Steemit works, your Steemit video isn't going to perform well. Those subscribers want to see funny cat video, not a video about "Some random website with magic internet money." This leads me to my next point.
You need to be consistent with your content!
Let's assume you just put out 5 great videos in a row and you're starting to see your subscribers and views increase. Then, the next day, you don't have much time and decide to put out a low-quality video. As a result, not many of your subscribers watch the video. Guess what? YouTube is about to punish you. The next video you put out isn't going to be shown to nearly as many people as your last one. If you don't have anything good to publish, don't publish anything at all.
This same rule also applies to putting out the same type of content. In the cat video/steemit video example above, YouTube is going to punish you for putting out that Steemit video because your subscribers were looking for cat videos and none of them watched it. You need to stay in your niche!
Watch time
One of the biggest factors in ranking on YouTube is your watch time - the number of hours people have spent watching your video.
This is a very difficult category to perform well in unless you have a large, loyal following. So how do you get a lot of watch time? You put a lot of effort into building a large, loyal following. The more popular your channel, the more watch time you're going to accrue on your videos. Remember to stay within your niche, otherwise, your subscribers won't have any interest in watching your videos!
Another way to get more watch time
Long videos rule YouTube. We made the mistake of putting out short videos for a long time. We thought that short videos are what everyone wanted, so we tried to make our videos, short, entertaining, yet informative. As it turns out, that was a very bad idea!
Making your videos longer is an easy way to get more watch time. We have found it very difficult to get a lot of watch hours on our short videos, and we've found it much easier to get a lot of watch hours on our longer videos. Try to make your videos at least 10 minutes long because you're much more likely to rank high on those longer videos.
Don't forget about audience retention.
Keeping your audience watching your video as long as possible is still a very important metric in determining your ranking. So when you're putting out those long videos, don't just throw a bunch of junk in there to make it longer. Keep the content relevant to your topic, continue giving your audience useful information, keep them engaged, and keep them entertained.
If you can make long videos with high audience retention, you are going to be doing very well before you know it.