Youtube Suggested Videos | 10 Step to promote your video in the suggested video sidebar
Youtube has a awesone feature called suggested videos, which we can find below video player on mobile devices and on the right side on desktop devices.
No two users will have the same experience on YouTube. Youtube want to serve the most relevant, personalized recommendations to each of their viewers. To do this, Youtube first analyze users’ activity history and find hundreds of videos that could be relevant to them.
Then, Youtube rank these videos by how well each video has engaged and satisfied similar users, how often each viewer watches videos from each channel or other videos surrounding the same topic, and how many times YouTube has already shown each video to users.
YouTube has also noticed users tend to watch more content when they receive recommendations from a variety of channels, so they like the diversify their suggested videos feed and users’ homepages.
Most of the time we get frustrated to find our competitors video being displayed on the suggested video list while our video is being played on youtube. And There is no way how we can control what videos being suggested to user as youtube uses an algorithm to pick what videos to be suggested.
But we can use this feature so that our video being suggested for your competitors videos. When you get your video to appear next to a popular video, lots of people will click over and watch your video.
Step 1: Find popular video in your Niche
Here are two simple strategies that work great. First, use YouTube search. All you need to do is search for a keyword that describes the video you wanna make. Then, keep an eye out for a video in the search results that already has lots of views. For example, when I searched for improve Google rankings, I noticed that this video had over 200,000 views, bingo. You could also look at your competitor’s most popular videos. Just head over to their channel, and hit videos. Then, sort by most popular. And just like that, you get a list of their top performing videos.
Step 2: It’s time to create something bigger and better
Why is this important? Well, awhile back, YouTube published a little known research paper called, Deep Neural Networks for YouTube Recommendations. And this paper outlined how suggested video probably works. As it turns out, YouTube focuses on something called expected watch time. Expected watch time is simple. It’s YouTube’s best guess of how much time someone will spend watching your video after they click on it. And needless to say, YouTube promotes videos that keep people on YouTube. So, the higher your expected watch time, the better.
For example, let’s say you just published a video about Fitness at Home, let’s call it video A. And YouTube starts to show your video in the suggested video sidebar. Well, when people click over to your video, they only watch it for 30 seconds, on average. YouTube knows that when someone clicks over to your video as a suggested video, it’s only gonna result in 30 seconds of watch time. So, that video has an expected watch time of 30 seconds. Now, let’s see you create another video about Fitness with Yoga at Home, video B. This time, people watch two minutes of your video, on average. That video has an expected watch time of two minutes, four times more than video A. And because video B has a higher expected watch time, YouTube’s going to promote it in the suggested video sidebar like crazy. So, as you can see, to show up as a suggested video, your video needs to keep people watching. And to keep people watching, you video needs to be awesome.
- Create awesome video intro (bit better that video, we have found in step 1). YouTube says that if you lose someone’s interest in the first 15 seconds, they’re gonna click away and watch something else. Boring, next. But if you grab their attention in this 15 second window, they’ll stick around.
- Create longer videos. Longer videos tend to have a higher expected watch time. For example, let’s say that your video is three minutes long. Well, even if people watch 100% of your video, which will never happen, your expected watch time will be, at most, three minutes. But let’s say that your video is 10 minutes. Even if people only watch half of your video, your expected watch time is gonna be five minutes. In my case, my competitor’s video was 10 minutes 48 seconds long.
Step 3: Add pattern interrupts to your video
Pattern interrupts can dramatically increase your videos, audience retention, and watch time. So, what are pattern interrupts? Pattern interrupts are something that you add to your video to change things up. A pattern interrupt can be a visual, a camera angle change, a joke, music, basically anything that’s different than the rest of your video.
Step 4: Copy your competitor’s keywords for video description.
In fact, YouTube’s Creator Academy says that when your video’s metadata (video description, video title and video tags) matches the video someone’s watching, you’re more likely to show up as a suggested video.
With that, here’s exactly how to optimize your video for suggested video. First, say your keyword in your video, this is a big one. You’ve probably noticed that YouTube can understand what you say in your video. It’s not perfect, but in my experience, they understand about 90 to 95% of the words you say in a given video. And when YouTube hears your target keyword in your video, it helps them understand that your video is about that topic. For example, You noticed that my competitors video used the keyword improve your Google rankings in the title and description. So, You should be sure to say that exact phrase in your video. Next, you want to use that same keyword, or a variation of it, in your title. For example, title such as higher Google rankings, which is a variation of improve Google rankings.
Now that you’ve optimized your title, it’s time to optimize your description. Specifically, you wanna check out your competitor’s description, and use the same keywords they use. For example, I noticed that my competitor’s description used the terms SEO, improve Google rankings, and search engine. So, I sprinkled those same keywords into my video description.
Step 5: Copy your competitor’s tags
You can add tags to video so that youtube will come to know about the contents in your video. You can find the tags used for a particular video by using application such as TubeBuddy to find the tags used by your competitors. Once you have got the tags add those to your video.
Step 6 : Create playlists and add videos to playlists
Youtube playlits is very power full feature. Create a playlist for a particulate topic such as Facebook Ads, Fitness at Home and add related in those playlists. Find following guide on how to create playlist.
You can see in above screenshot once you add your video to playlist, The playlist will be displayed on right side. If you have designed the playlist for a particular topic such as Facebook Paid Ads and added all related video in playlist it will be easy for user to search for next step
Step 7 : Add End-Screen to your video
End Screens is a block displayed after the user finished watching video. You can use this to help user find next video to watch. You can add followind in your end screen
- A Video: Next video user should watch
- Playlist: Your Playlist related to the current video
- Subscribe button: If user finished watching video, It is more likely that user will subcribe to your channel
Step 8: Add Thumbnail to your video
Create an awesome thumbnail image for your video, Try to use non youtube colors for your thumbnails (eg blue,green etc)
Step 9 : Add Cards to your videos for engagement
Cards can help you to suggest the user about other video realated to topic you mentioned in between, or want to suggest user watching your previous video first, or suggest a playlist to user. This will help increasing the user engagement.
Step 10: Optimize Title
Use Front-Load Your keywords Begining of title. For example if your video is realated to Laparoscopic Surgery, Your title should begin with Laparoscopic Surgery and then additional text if you wish. Always try to add year in your video title which help user to identify if the video is latest. Adding paranthesis and brackates also help to gain more matches. So idea title shoule be
Laparoscopic Surgery in 2020 (recent reserch)
Bonus Steps
- Ask user a specific question to answer in comments such as Please mention in comments which techique from the video you will be using first?. You can also user pinned comment to encourage user to comment.
- Give details about the video in description without giving actual fact you are going to tell in vide. User description of 100 to 200 words. Use keyword used in title for 2 to 5 times in desciption
- Adds links and reference to your other videos in description.
Subscribe to our youtube channel to get latest updates on youtube video management and digital marketing.
