Have you edited and uploaded your first video? What now?

The next step is to promote it.

There’re tons of options out there to help you with your YouTube promotion efforts.

Today we’ll discuss 6 ways to promote your YouTube channel like a professional.

YouTube SEO

When you search for a keyword YouTube filters through millions of videos around that keyword to show the results.

The higher you rank, the more is the probability of getting clicked.

Let’s discuss some areas where you can improve to get higher rankings.

• Titles: Optimise your titles to help YouTube understand your content. To achieve this, keep it within 50 characters and include your target keyword in the beginning.
• Tags: Tag your main keyword(s) in the beginning, then some related keywords, and finally the broad terms. For example, if your main keyword is “E-mail marketing”, one related keyword could be “E-mail marketing for beginners” and one broad term could be “Digital marketing”.
• Descriptions: YouTube doesn’t crawl through the entire description. It considers only the first few lines. Hence, include your main keyword(s) in the first few lines of the description.
• Thumbnails: Visuals aka thumbnails are attention grabbers. Therefore, create thumbnails that contrast with YouTubes theme. You can also use text in the thumbnails for better results.
• Categories: By creating categories you can help YouTube suggest your content to a relevant audience.
• Length of the video: YouTube wants people to continue watching on the platform. Hence, try to create lengthy videos, but don’t overdo it. 6 -10 mins is a sweet spot.

Show up in Google results

Google is the largest search engine in the world. Billions of people ask Google for answers to their problems.

Apart from the text results, Google also displays video results for certain queries. Hence, if you can rank your video here, you can attract more views. Let’s discuss some good practices to help you rank in the video results.

• Crawl through the video results in Google and create videos around the same topics.
• Speak out your keyword in the video.
• Include a video sitemap to help Google find your video.
• Use high-quality thumbnails.
• Purchase YouTube views

Cross-platform promotion

People interact with content through various platforms, and each platform has a distinct set of audience.

You can use this to your advantage by doing cross-platform promotion.

• Social media: Leverage your audience on social platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, LinkedIn and Facebook to share your video.
• Blogs: If you have a blog, repurpose your video content into text and embed your YouTube videos in it.
• Online forums: People turn to online forums for answers to their queries around a niche. You can take part in community conversations and share your link.
• E-mail newsletters: E-mail newsletters are one of the best ways to reach out. Next time you upload a video, include the link or simply embed it in the newsletter to keep your audience updated.

Promote through YouTube ads

YouTube offers various advertisement options to help you promote your content.

• Skippable ads: These ads may appear before, after or during a video. You can skip these ads after five seconds.
• Non-skippable ads: These ads appear same as the skippable ads but you can’t skip them. You must watch it completely before watching the video.
• Bumper ads: These are non-skippable ads that last for six seconds.

Collaborate with other channels

Consider YouTube as a community where you can partner with other channels to promote your content. This is also a great way to bring unique videos.

Here are some practices to help you get started:

• Start by building relations with popular channels around your niche. Comment on their videos, share them, like, and give them a shout-out.
• Then collaborate with them. You can have yourself invited for an interview or have them on your channel to discuss the latest trends and questions asked by your audience.
• Finally, try to create playlists with them and connect on other social platforms.

Ask your audience

Your audience is your best friend. They trust you with their queries and support you by watching your content.

Hence, it makes sense to ask them to share and engage with your videos. If your content provides them value, they wouldn’t hesitate promoting you.

Conclusion

These six ways are best to promote your channel like a professional and get more YouTube views. The idea is to stick to the basics and create valuable content so that your promotion efforts receive maximum response.