The YouTube Algorithm Explained in 8 Minutes!

this is how the YouTube algorithm works and this is not just a theory or my best guest this is straight from YouTube the information inside of this is just something that I wish I knew a whole lot sooner now this button says learn how YouTube recommends content basically they're revealing inside of here the recommendations algorithm on YouTube there are multiple algorithms that are going to help show you the right videos on the app whether that's in search or that's in browse so it's important for you to know that these insights in here are specifically for

the browse algorithm to know if you have access to this you would see it inside of your YouTube studio app on your mobile device so it's not available on the desktop versions as of right now but if you open up the app you might see it right here now on this opening page it said that recommendations are based on a few different things and then in that smaller text it says and your audience is the main force behind them and this is super important because a lot of the people working at YouTube and working on

these algorithms often say to replace the word algorithm with audience on the very next slide it says do your videos stand out to people and then what it did is it took my image placed it in the center and then put all of these related types of videos around it to see if my video actually stands out on the YouTube homepage at the bottom it says pretend you're a viewer that doesn't know your channel what would you click on YouTube's giving us an Insight here that when people open up YouTube and they see a bunch

of different videos they really value when they see your thumbnail and then they go to click on that video so do your thumbnails not even the titles just the actual image does it stand out enough to either make someone stop the scroll on mobile or to catch someone's eye when they're watching it on desktop or TV on the next slide it says do people choose your videos and right here it says every 100 times that your thumbnails are shown viewers choose them 10 times basically what this means is that my videos typically have a 10

click-through rate and it's letting me know that many popular videos have a 10 click-through rate in the first day this is important to know as well because typically in that first day a lot of your subscribers are going to see your video and it might not reach a whole new audience yet in that first day it might take a little bit of time and so do your subscribers when they see your videos is it related enough to your previous topics to what you talk about on your channel and interesting enough that 10 out of 100

of them are going to click on that video now on the next slide it asks do your videos keep people watching and here it lets me know that my seven minute videos people watch on average for three minutes and 20 seconds but many popular seven minute videos have a three minute and 40 second average view duration this is a great insight for me that I need to increase the actual retention of my videos to keep people watching a little bit longer so we know that click-through rate is important and so is average view duration and

on the next slide it talks about do people enjoy your videos here it says that people are shown more of what they like share and respond positively to in YouTube surveys now a lot of people are just going to look at this and they're going to see that like button and they're going to think that if people actually like their videos by clicking that button then that means that their video is going to get pushed into the algorithm and that is the secret is that people do need to smash the like button now having people

actually hit the like button on your YouTube video can be a good signal to let YouTube know that people are enjoying this the truth is YouTube really matters about the satisfaction of the viewer when they watch your video recently I was on a trip where the YouTube Creator liaison was there Renee Ritchie and he was talking about satisfaction and how the YouTube algorithm's ultimate goal is to make the viewer happy and so here it's giving some examples of liking or sharing your video with others these can be good signals that people are satisfied with this

video and they want more of it and another thing they started doing is these YouTube surveys so every once in a while when you're scrolling on YouTube you might see a little survey and it's going to ask you about a video you watched in the past and it's going to ask you to rank it out of five stars YouTube looks at these surveys and decides if people are enjoying this content so that they can send it to more people or if people are not enjoying that video they are not going to send off to more

people so here you're starting to see that click-through rate is not the only thing that matters you actually want people to watch your video and then be satisfied after watching it today's video is sponsored by epidemic sound if you're a content creator and you're looking to add music and sound effects to your videos in epidemic sound.com is the perfect place to go on the website they have tons of different playlists moods themes that you can click into and find the right music for your video and one of my favorite features is the similar song button

which makes it really easy to find music once you've already found an amazing song to find more music that you know you're gonna love and if you want to try epidemic sound for free check the link down in the description or go to thinksounds.com thank you epidemic sound for sponsoring this video now on this next slide it reveals three different things and this might be my favorite slide out of all of them here says don't forget how people are influenced by topic interest are you choosing a popular or unique topic this is one of the

things that I wish I knew a whole lot sooner and it's also one of those things that are really hard to comprehend and sometimes you don't always get it right in my experience I've had videos that I've edited super well and I thought we're going to get millions of views and they only get a couple thousand views where I have other videos that aren't edited as good but they get millions of views and when it comes down to it the video with not a lot of views did not have as interesting enough of a topic

as the video that had millions of views now in your specific Niche there's gonna be certain topics that are going to be highly searched highly watched and sometimes there's even trends that you can jump on it's extremely important to remember that topic very much correlates with your click-through rate even if you have an amazing thumbnail and it catches people's eye they still might not click on it if it's the wrong topic so topic can't affect your click-through rate now the second thing here is competition are there other videos on the topic that people could watch

for example if you're making a video on how to make money online there is going to be a ton of competition for that specific keyword this is why oftentimes we recommend to beginners to go after very Niche subjects and topics because there's going to be way less competition even though you might get less views there's less competition so you can still reach some people versus trying to make a video on some huge topic that ends up getting zero views because there's way too much competition and the third thing is seasonality can you change content to

match different interests during the year and this goes back to that conversation of trend surfing and making sure that you're actually talking about things that people are interested in during that specific time of the year for example I have a basketball Channel and so there's a lot more interest when the NBA season actually starts and then it might die off a little bit and then there's a lot more interest during the playoffs and of course the finals and because people are interested in that specific topic during that season I want to make sure that I

am covering those subjects and those topics on my YouTube channel so here's the three key takeaways that you need to write down and remember these when you are thinking about the algorithm and what's going to get views on YouTube first of all click-through rate matters you want 10 of people to click on your video but there's a lot of different factors that are going to affect that number some of those things are your title your thumbnail your topic the competition with other videos surrounding that and also the seasonality the second takeaway is that viewer satisfaction

matters ultimately you want to make the best videos possible but the YouTube algorithm is not watching your videos and seeing if they're good or not because sometimes that's just subjective and it's hard to know if it is good or if it isn't good so some of the signals that YouTube actually looks at is your likes your shares the surveys and also your average view duration or your average view percentage basically how long are people actually watching your video though this also overlaps it's super important I wanted to make it a third takeaway which is average

view duration because it really matters the question becomes how do I get people to stay on my videos a lot of it comes down to the editing and the pacing of your video and delivering on the promise of what they clicked on but the number one mistake that I see people make that crushes their average view duration is they don't start their videos off the right way and in my opinion the first 30 seconds of your video is the most important part of your video and it's the thing that is going to make people actually

stick around to the end of your video and I broke down exactly how you can do this so you can click on the screen to watch that video and I'll see you guys in the next one