Just wanna know what made you get more views and subs back at the time when you were starting.
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YouTube Question No views on your first videos - what did you do to fix it?
- Thread starter Xarty
- Start date
Well, I've started a month ago, and now I have 700 views in total.
The first views and subs you get are usually from friends. I wouldn't urge them to subscribe, though. If they just sub because you are friends and don't watch any videos, they are an inactive subscriber. But however, they can help you out with feedback and such.
I didn't have that much success with let's play content, but I saw you are not doing that. You cut quite a lot and put some entertaining music under it, so I would not necessarily market it as a let's play series. I don't know how many videos you want to make of the same game(you put numbers in the title), so maybe go with lets plays. It's up to you what you want to do. With your titles and thumbnails, I could see that working. Your videos have quality, that's a great start!
First of all, it takes some time for YouTube to understand what your channel is all about.
One good source for traffic is of course SEO. Ranking for games isn't easy, except they are really niche, so you probably want to find something inside that game niche.
For example, one of my videos is called " When Dual-Wielding Melts Bosses in Gunfire Reborn, Ao Bai(Second Hero)".
That video got 60% of its traffic from the YouTube search. I targeted tags like "gunfire reborn dual wield" or "gunfire reborn dog build".
It's not easy to find the balance between too niche and too competitive at the beginning. A new channel simply gets not enough views on their videos to compete a lot.
Your first video seems to not rank at all, so I would redo the SEO for less competitive keywords. Try the keyword explorer and YouTube search auto-suggest to find new keywords.
When I started my SEO wasn't great and basically all views were from friends.
Once I started posting my videos elsewhere, I saw view counts in the few dozens. So what I would recommend is posting your videos on steam or discord or other sites. This helps a lot in the beginning. For example, I've posted my last video under the game page on Itch.io and so far the video got a third of its traffic just from the one post that took me 5 minutes to make. So if you find a way to promote your content on places where it's appropriate go for it.
That's how I've been slowly growing my channel.
My next plan is to focus on one game and make half of my videos about that game, so I get a lot of people interested in my channel who also play that game. If they find one video of mine, they can watch a lot of my other videos, thus increasing watch time on older videos. It also helps you with ranking, since YouTube learns that your channel makes a lot of content about that game.
But keep in mind that, even if you are doing everything right, it's all about exponential growth. So you might only get 100 views in the first month, but then 200, and 400, and one day you get more views than you could have ever imagined. So the most important thing, in the beginning, is to just produce awesome content, and slowly you'll get somewhere. It takes time.
The first views and subs you get are usually from friends. I wouldn't urge them to subscribe, though. If they just sub because you are friends and don't watch any videos, they are an inactive subscriber. But however, they can help you out with feedback and such.
I didn't have that much success with let's play content, but I saw you are not doing that. You cut quite a lot and put some entertaining music under it, so I would not necessarily market it as a let's play series. I don't know how many videos you want to make of the same game(you put numbers in the title), so maybe go with lets plays. It's up to you what you want to do. With your titles and thumbnails, I could see that working. Your videos have quality, that's a great start!
First of all, it takes some time for YouTube to understand what your channel is all about.
One good source for traffic is of course SEO. Ranking for games isn't easy, except they are really niche, so you probably want to find something inside that game niche.
For example, one of my videos is called " When Dual-Wielding Melts Bosses in Gunfire Reborn, Ao Bai(Second Hero)".
That video got 60% of its traffic from the YouTube search. I targeted tags like "gunfire reborn dual wield" or "gunfire reborn dog build".
It's not easy to find the balance between too niche and too competitive at the beginning. A new channel simply gets not enough views on their videos to compete a lot.
Your first video seems to not rank at all, so I would redo the SEO for less competitive keywords. Try the keyword explorer and YouTube search auto-suggest to find new keywords.
When I started my SEO wasn't great and basically all views were from friends.
Once I started posting my videos elsewhere, I saw view counts in the few dozens. So what I would recommend is posting your videos on steam or discord or other sites. This helps a lot in the beginning. For example, I've posted my last video under the game page on Itch.io and so far the video got a third of its traffic just from the one post that took me 5 minutes to make. So if you find a way to promote your content on places where it's appropriate go for it.
That's how I've been slowly growing my channel.
My next plan is to focus on one game and make half of my videos about that game, so I get a lot of people interested in my channel who also play that game. If they find one video of mine, they can watch a lot of my other videos, thus increasing watch time on older videos. It also helps you with ranking, since YouTube learns that your channel makes a lot of content about that game.
But keep in mind that, even if you are doing everything right, it's all about exponential growth. So you might only get 100 views in the first month, but then 200, and 400, and one day you get more views than you could have ever imagined. So the most important thing, in the beginning, is to just produce awesome content, and slowly you'll get somewhere. It takes time.
OP
OP
Thanks for the reply!
For now I basically only post the videos on FB groups and sometimes my friends. When I start a series from a game that actually can be finished, then I'll probably make as many episodes as it requires for me to finish the game within them, aiming for the length between 8-20 minutes, never longer.
For SEO I just help myself with a browser plugin similar to TubeBuddy (I won't provide a name so I won't advertise something else, I might later change the plugin to TubeBuddy though).
In the beginning I just made gaming videos for a group of friends, videos of our gaming sessions, with no intent of anyone outside our group to watch them. So my first few hundreds of views came from that group of gaming friends.
When I started making videos with the intent of actually getting views and having new people find my videos I quickly learned that I had to change to a smaller niche for my videos to be able to be found. First I went from making videos for a huge very popular game to a smaller but still popular game with a much smaller YouTube presence. But that wasn't enough even with the smaller niche I couldn't compete with the larger more established channels. So I had to find a even smaller niche, after som research I found out that all the channels creating content for the smaller game was doing game play videos, very few where doing guides and tutorials. This is where my channel started finding some succes and getting larger amounts of views. I had very little competition so my guides usually ended up in the top 3 spots compared to my gameplay videos that very few found.
Another mistake I did in the beginning where making videos for different games early on, so if one person found my channel because of my video for game X and then checked out my channel for more game X content and instead he found game Y and Z content he left. Or if someone really liked my video and subscribed but then my next few videos where for other games that he had no interest in he unsubscribed. I found my self doing a bunch of videos for one game and they started to do decently getting a fair bit of views, then I jumped to another game getting 0-5 views since non of my subscribers had subscribed for that game. It wasn't until more recently, during the last maybe 1.5 year as my channel have grown a bit, I started to feel that branching out to other games worked a bit better but still I need to do it really slow adding just one game at the time to the games my channel create videos for and I still need to make sure to create videos for the core game every now and then.
When I started making videos with the intent of actually getting views and having new people find my videos I quickly learned that I had to change to a smaller niche for my videos to be able to be found. First I went from making videos for a huge very popular game to a smaller but still popular game with a much smaller YouTube presence. But that wasn't enough even with the smaller niche I couldn't compete with the larger more established channels. So I had to find a even smaller niche, after som research I found out that all the channels creating content for the smaller game was doing game play videos, very few where doing guides and tutorials. This is where my channel started finding some succes and getting larger amounts of views. I had very little competition so my guides usually ended up in the top 3 spots compared to my gameplay videos that very few found.
Another mistake I did in the beginning where making videos for different games early on, so if one person found my channel because of my video for game X and then checked out my channel for more game X content and instead he found game Y and Z content he left. Or if someone really liked my video and subscribed but then my next few videos where for other games that he had no interest in he unsubscribed. I found my self doing a bunch of videos for one game and they started to do decently getting a fair bit of views, then I jumped to another game getting 0-5 views since non of my subscribers had subscribed for that game. It wasn't until more recently, during the last maybe 1.5 year as my channel have grown a bit, I started to feel that branching out to other games worked a bit better but still I need to do it really slow adding just one game at the time to the games my channel create videos for and I still need to make sure to create videos for the core game every now and then.
I still remember my first videos 
They got maybe one view, maybe they got no views, because realistically I only wanted more content on my channel. I didn't expect anyone to care about a channel that only had 2 or 3 videos, so I didn't start seriously caring about views until I had 10 videos under my belt.
Because I'm an artist, I've grown up with the mindset of gallery exhibitions. You can exhibit one artwork without anyone knowing who you are, but few will care. But have an exhibition of 10-30 great artworks and people will take a look at a few of them.
I didn't start getting views until my 30th video I think, and I was focusing on a niche I was passionate about, Jurassic Park. And other people seemed to care about it too, and they were interested in what I had to share and it went from there
They got maybe one view, maybe they got no views, because realistically I only wanted more content on my channel. I didn't expect anyone to care about a channel that only had 2 or 3 videos, so I didn't start seriously caring about views until I had 10 videos under my belt.
Because I'm an artist, I've grown up with the mindset of gallery exhibitions. You can exhibit one artwork without anyone knowing who you are, but few will care. But have an exhibition of 10-30 great artworks and people will take a look at a few of them.
I didn't start getting views until my 30th video I think, and I was focusing on a niche I was passionate about, Jurassic Park. And other people seemed to care about it too, and they were interested in what I had to share and it went from there
obviously we're biased since this is the TubeBuddy forum, but that's what our tool is designed to do! What @Dr Pixel Plays @Ater and @Beanie Draws said is true.
The best way is to target search even when larger. Search helps people who need help find it, and if you do it right they stay for you. That's the key.
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- Subscriber Goal
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@Beanie Draws recollection is totally appropo... I remember telling my wife about having hit 25 views on an early video. Like 25 people were actually interested in watching out stuff! Lol
Early on I really buried my head in the sand, and like Beanie I really focused on building that library. I didn't want an empty channel page if I hit it big, that wouldve been a waste of 'hitting it big.' Now that I have 150+ videos I am just now at the point where if I got a hit it would take those viewers some time to watch the backend of my catalogue, and I feel that is important for keeping viewers around.
Start building that library, focus on making great content, excel at thumbs and perfect your SEO. The numbers will come.
Early on I really buried my head in the sand, and like Beanie I really focused on building that library. I didn't want an empty channel page if I hit it big, that wouldve been a waste of 'hitting it big.' Now that I have 150+ videos I am just now at the point where if I got a hit it would take those viewers some time to watch the backend of my catalogue, and I feel that is important for keeping viewers around.
Start building that library, focus on making great content, excel at thumbs and perfect your SEO. The numbers will come.
For me i have not yet succeded as such but what i can tell you is to remain consistent, with valueable content in your niche. create great thumnails, and funny one comment and like videos from your competators.
I made a series of related videos in the hope if they clicked on one they might like a similar one. And I always link similar videos in the description under ''Other videos you may like''.
If I'm filming something seasonal like Halloween or Christmas related videos I try and get them up as soon as possible because they tend to be quieter for 10 months of the year and I like to get maximum momentum when people might be searching/interested in that event.
If I'm filming something seasonal like Halloween or Christmas related videos I try and get them up as soon as possible because they tend to be quieter for 10 months of the year and I like to get maximum momentum when people might be searching/interested in that event.
I'm trying to master the seo thing and write a newer and longer description. Hopefully it grows!
The best way is to bypass is issue is making sure immediately after uploading your YouTube video watch your own video from youtube it self; like your own video and also leave a pinned comment on your own video. Youtube would not penalize you knowing you are checking your own video whether you did everything correctly or not and this will automatically also "List" your video into the YouTube search algorithm as well.
For me, I just kept going, while mastering the art of thumbnail making, titling my videos, and learning all about SEO, and while I feel IΓÇÖve progressed quite well, IΓÇÖm still learning, like many others.
It is kinda rare to make 1 video and blow up. That is not how YouTube works. You need to make videos 2 per week or 1 a week and keep learning the YouTube algorithm. Once you get knowledge put all of it into your videos. Learn what you did wrong and try to fix it aging or next time. It is possible to get 1k views in 1 day on any channel you just need to make the correct video. Hope you grow your channel make sure to use good tags that go with your video and the same as your title!
This is an interesting topic and trying to learn too. I have started using the TubeBuddy tools to help with my thumpnail, SEO, my titles and tags. I wasn't paying attention to these before, so I hope it makes a difference to my channel, as I heard others say it helped them. All the best!
I visited your channel I kinda liked it itΓÇÖs beautiful commentary hope u grow it
Thanks IΓÇÖm learning as well ,, I have a question How do I List my video onto YouTube search Algorithm or it happens automatically
My Initial views came in from various sources actually , i use to share them on Social media when i uploaded.
Again research on tags and titles before you make your video public, my channel is 4 months old now, i managed to do good.I hope to continue it.
Good luck to you as well, i will check out your channel and will let you know if i have any suggestions for you.
Regards.
Again research on tags and titles before you make your video public, my channel is 4 months old now, i managed to do good.I hope to continue it.
Good luck to you as well, i will check out your channel and will let you know if i have any suggestions for you.
Regards.
It usually happens automatically but the thing is if you get that initial views from your subscribers or fans then it will be listed very quickly and has a huge chance to be picked by search algorithm and later recommended if it has a high cta + high retention time ofcourse. The method of watching your own video minimum once fully will help you get listed in a way as well as I said earlier that's why its a recommended practice plus youtube allows it cause they want you to test quality of the video if you made any mistakes also if you want to add changes to clickable cards and end screens.
I'm just going to be honest and say that when you first start uploading videos on a new channel, it's probably going to take some time to get noticed because there are (most likely) already plenty of bigger channels posting similar content to yours, so YouTube would probably push their content first.
But what you can do is keep uploading consistently so that you get practice, meaning that your videos would get better over time. Also follow the SEO to help increase views( titles, descriptions, relevant tags, keywords, etc). Sticking with more specific keywords could help too when getting views because it could cause your video to be more likely to show up in search.
Also, try to stick to similar content so that the people that do view your channel will know what your channel is about,and will know what type of content to expect from you. This will help generate more views over time because these viewers could eventually become subscribers and come back each time you post another video.
Making a video series could help too because then your viewers would have to come back to see. The next part of your video series since your new videos in the series would build off of previous videos.
These are just some tips that I have come up with, and hope that they are helpful. Others probably have good tips too.
But what you can do is keep uploading consistently so that you get practice, meaning that your videos would get better over time. Also follow the SEO to help increase views( titles, descriptions, relevant tags, keywords, etc). Sticking with more specific keywords could help too when getting views because it could cause your video to be more likely to show up in search.
Also, try to stick to similar content so that the people that do view your channel will know what your channel is about,and will know what type of content to expect from you. This will help generate more views over time because these viewers could eventually become subscribers and come back each time you post another video.
Making a video series could help too because then your viewers would have to come back to see. The next part of your video series since your new videos in the series would build off of previous videos.
These are just some tips that I have come up with, and hope that they are helpful. Others probably have good tips too.