11 Best Strategies To Increase Watch Time On YouTube

Learn about the 11 best strategies that you can adopt to increase the watch time on your videos and learn how these hacks can help your channel grow.

As a new YouTube creator, we know how many questions and queries must come into your mind and that is why we are here for you, to guide you and let you know about every little and major thing about your success as a YouTube creator.

The 11 best strategies that you can adopt to increase your watch time include grouping your content into a playlist, creating a YouTube premiere, creating evergreen content, adding a clickable table of contents, pinning comments, adding YouTube cards, linking related videos, monitoring audience retention, providing helpful content, and capitalizing on your content.

No matter what niche you have chosen for your YouTube channel, we know that you crave millions of views on your videos.

So without wasting any further time, let’s jump onto the best 11 strategies you can use to increase the watch time of your videos.

Let’s get started!

Table of Contents:

11 Best Strategies to Increase Watch Time on YouTube:

1. Group Your Content Into Playlists

Though people these days are in the habit of binge-watching due to watching Netflix as a trend, still when people want videos on the go, they want it time-limited.

In short, they prefer less lengthy videos, even less than ten minutes.

There are many surveys and researches for online viewers and all of them tell creators to stay under ten minutes.

So, in the process of making a playlist, first, you need to create your videos short.

While talking about making playlists, you should also know that your users are most likely to prefer scrolling down a playlist, rather than searching for every video separately.

And that is why there are so many YouTube channels that make their playlists, especially for their users.

This is also one of the main concerns while making playlists: keep your viewers and users in your mind, know what they want, do they have enough time to scroll around and search videos separately?

Or are they the busy ones leading to preferring playlists?

Because it will make your work easy.

A great way to tie together your videos is by themes into a playlist.

So, every video on your channel should be a part of two to three lists, divided by their related themes.

2. Create Expectation With YouTube Premiere

I think you would agree with us on this point: trailers and clips before launching anything like videos, movies, or programs attract viewers a great deal.

And that is why, it is a great selling strategy for any kind of business because while it does not show much apparently, it plays with the psychology of people.

Trailers and clips are like advertisements, which sit down in the viewer’s mind and they subconsciously wait for it in curiosity.

Thus, we advise you to excite the expectations of your viewers while showing them a YouTube premiere.

So, if you are creating a series, then premiering it would be a great strategy to create a shareable watch page.

Also, it creates a build-up before the release of your videos.

You would agree that even talking about a premier makes us even excited, doesn’t it!

So how do you create a premiere on YouTube for your videos?

Firstly, you would start with uploading videos on your channel in a regular way, and then in the visibility tab select schedule, then choose the date and time to premiere your video, then check as the premiere and check the schedule.

As soon as you do this, a shareable watch is being created for you.

This page is where your premiere will be shown and appreciated.

But until then, you can always use this page to engage with viewers and promote the hype for your premiere.

Keep this thing in mind the watch page gets public as soon as it is created.

The main tip for your share page is to have a good chat with your viewers and keep them excited for your premiere and do not forget to share and promote the watch page.

3. Create Evergreen Content

There is a type of video that stays evergreen for months or even years, creators stay in the favour of making such videos and upload them on their channels.

Because despite being uploaded a long time ago, they still get watched many times and again and again.

Only you can decide and research for yourself what kind of ever-green videos would work for your niche, though you can check what it is that other creators are uploading relating to your field.

Dig deep about your niche and related interesting areas.

Also, do not miss to find out what is in trend and what is trendy, because people keep in search of those videos which are hot in trend online.

Sometimes simple question-answers or How-to videos are the best ones, which people tend to watch again and again.

And if the information and content provided in it are outstanding, people refer these videos to others, they keep sharing these videos and the number of views keeps on increasing.

It is kind of a cliché now to say it but it is truest of all true facts: do what others do not do or cannot do, put such outstanding content in your videos that other videos lack.

Search for such information which others have not put in their videos because putting that particular information in your videos is going to keep them evergreen.

And yes! Keep tabs on the queries of your followers, read what they are asking consistently, what is their demand.

Because while you are working hard for your niche, you must know what they ask for and how much a kind of video gets more likes.

So thumbs up to keep on searching for evergreen content, don’t feel tired!

4. Add Clickable Table Of Content

You must have noticed that not every article or blog has a clickable table of contents that lets you jump straight onto the topic you are interested in.

And we are sure that you might have come across such variations in articles.

Now, if you compare both of these variations in articles or blogs, which is most easy to use and saves your precious time?

Obviously, we all know a clickable table of contents is easier to use and time-saving, you do not have to go up and down again n again on the page to look for specific headings or topics.

So use these clickable tables for your written content too.

Even when you are making videos, you should show the links on the screen you talk about.

The main purpose of these clickable links and tables is to make the process easier for your followers, they will be happy about it.

And they would know how much their creator cares for them and put in extra time for them.

Not to forget, it is also considered a cool tactic to let your viewers dive deep into your videos.

You can say that it is to start using timestamps in your video descriptions and comments.

Consider it as an outline for long non-fiction videos that provide convenience to the viewers.

5. Consider Live Streams

It is no wonder that there are so many YouTube influencers and creators, in fact, everyone, who use live streaming for their audience.

Because their followers love it, it makes them feel more connected with their adored YouTube celebrities.

No matter how big or new they are.

Live streaming is cool and followers admire it, people tend to do more question-answer sessions online, which shows that the creators have more and more time for their followers.

The attraction of live streaming lies in the fact that the audience can see their favorite creator in front of them and not only this, it is also a great strategy for getting more and more followers.

Creators who try and talk on the level of their followers more and more, get to have more potential audience in the future.

Plus, there are several reasons why a business should want to start live streaming videos.

Many businesses use both live and on-demand video content for reaching out to their followers and audience.

Live streams are ideal for live events especially and then for breaking news, personal breakthrough videos, and so on.

Here’s a quick look at streaming statistics surrounding the use of online video:

It is 50x easier to achieve a first page viral YouTube search ranking with an embedded video on your page.
Visual content is 40x more likely to be shared on social media, which is amazing.
Through reliable online research, we know that mobile video viewing has increased by more than 1,000% since 2012.
Also, emails that share the link to the videos have a 200-300% higher click-through rate.
Streaming entertainment has overtaken live TV and continues to grow.

6. Pin Comments That Link To Other Relevant Videos

So, there is a thing called ‘watch time trap’, and you must know it already.

But, if you don’t, do not worry at all because we are here to guide you about it.

Watch time trap is a thing that you need to do on your channel as a creator.

Doing it means that you would create such traps on your channel at different spots and places, so your watch time of videos could be increased; such as leaving links to your videos, leaving great comments, and attractive ads for your videos.

Obviously, the watch time thing is the most important thing on YouTube.

And as we have already talked about making playlists, you know by now they are also very much important in the process of increasing your watch time of videos.

One of the sleekest tricks is to connect your videos with each other, when you link them with each other they automatically give attraction to your viewers to watch the next video.

Linking various videos with each other is a trick which all famous YouTube creators apply on their channels as a strategic plan.

Plus, YouTube says when there is a playlist on your channel and your videos relate to each other, so the next video appears on the screen automatically when your viewer sees one video.

Which is also the coolest trick to increase your watch time.

7. Add YouTube Cards

There is another thing which you can do to increase your watch time and that is YouTube cards.

If you do not know what these cards are and where do you find these; you’ll know from this; cards are the little things that pop up on-screen on the upper side and you can use these while uploading the videos.

After uploading the videos, go into your video manager, and into the actual video settings itself and further click the little thing you see as ‘cards’, that is where you add cards.

You can use cards for linking to something relevant to the video your audience is watching, in matters of what interests them the most, they can pick and choose from the cards.

Just make sure you are linking the things together which are similar, which makes sense for the linking video.

YouTube also recommends that you use cards in the very last part of your video.

8. Send People To Related Videos

Now another thing which you can do to increase your watch time is quite clever.

So to have people watch more of your content is to tell them verbally and inform them about your related playlists.

You can let them know verbally in advance about the cards of linking videos that are going to appear at the end of the video, they would be alert and interested in your linking videos automatically.

And boom!

You will have more watch time on the content you have been working on hard.

This way you can have more views and more watch time from your audience, and do not think low of any of these strategies because these are the real tricks that all the successful YouTube channels have been using to get millions of views on their several videos.

9. Monitor Audience Retention

Well we know, not everyone likes the analytic part of maintaining the channel but even if you do not like the analytical part of your channel, you have to track one important metric: the audience retention of your videos.

These analytical parts of your videos not only tell you about the less appreciated parts of your videos in fact, but it also gives you all the details about every minute of your videos.

This tells you which video is more likely to be appreciated, which is not!

And the best part is when it tells you that at what point of the video it bored your audience.

At what point your most of the audience is dropping the video, which is leading to less watch time.

While it is inevitable for your audience to drop consistently throughout the video, there will be certain places with sharp drops.

And to understand this you have to look at the metric system and improve your videos.

This is a point where you work more like a professional and less like an amateur.

10. Keep People Watching With Helpful Content

As a new creator, the one question which everyone asks is; the quality or the quantity?

Well, we would advise you the quantity over the quality matter as a new creator on YouTube.

Why?

Because as a new creator and as a person who wants to be watched and known on YouTube, you need more and more videos.

The more videos you have, they are more likely to appear on the screen and you will have more chances to be watched by a good number of people.

YouTube says that to reach a number of subscribers and viewers on your channel you need to have to reach a specific number of videos on your channel.

(To know exactly about the number of videos to reach the maximum number of subscribers you can visit our other article on it.)

Though, the quality cannot be ignored completely because it is also highly appreciated by the viewers.

They always know what is good and what is bad, what is copied, and what is genuine content.

11. Capitalize On Storytelling

Last but not least, another amazing trick to keep your viewers indulged in your videos is to keep telling them interesting stories.

Once they are interested in your videos and your content, they would want to listen to you.

This strong storytelling essence can also be used for your starting videos, an interesting fact, an interesting twist or drama in your life, anything which you think will attract an audience can be used for story-telling.

Use it wisely and you will have plenty of listeners in front of you.

Conclusion

We are always happy to guide you about the queries you have either about YouTube, Online classes, or (Online) Coaching.

We hope that we were very helpful for you to understand the facts on how you can increase the watch time of your YouTube videos.

Come back and read more articles on YouTube.

Good Luck!

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