TubeBuddy Considering throwing in the towel!

[JW's Garage]

So here is where I am at, I been a dedicated content creator for a couple of years longer if you count the time just getting familiar, to make a long story short I can upload a youtube video that scored 90-100% SEO, copied tags, searched key words, rankings, tags, cards, etc etc etc. that will get 20-30 views in a month I upload on another platform with the same thumbnail and video and it gets 100 views an hour!

I cant figure out what I am doing wrong on youtube or with tubebuddy.

Any ideas would greatly be appreciated.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

This is not an uncommon issue... though I am afraid the issue is a misunderstanding of some key elements here.

For starters, I don't know what other platforms you are referring to so it is hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison of performance results. But I do see that you have three times the audience on Instagram that you have on YouTube so it does stand to reason you are going to get more views there than on YouTube.

Looking into your SEO you have put a lot of emphasis on making sure that you have a high SEO score... but from what I am seeing you are not optimizing on very valuable keywords. You don't often rank for the targeted keywords and there are some questionable selections for the keyword phrases you are targeting. It doesn't matter if you are 1000% optimized for the term 'garage,' that term is just far too competitive to ever rank for and any such optimization is a waste of valuable real estate. To truly get the most out of your SEO you need to research the terms that people are searching for and focus your metadata (as well as the content of the video) towards these terms.

Another thing to note; when you optimize the metadata of your video you are doing so for prospective audiences, not your current subscriber base. This is a long-term endeavor. It allows your videos to continue to gain views for years on end. As such the real value in this process is what happens after a year or two and 100-200 videos all optimized. It creates a foundation of evergreen views across your channel. Subscribers and the big spikes of views that you get when you first publish a view will not be impacted as much until you begin to have a large library of videos which actually rank in search. You of course also need to be mindful of your CTR and watch time as well; being 100% optimized for the best keyword phrase ever means nothing if your CTR is .05% and the average view duration of your video is 5%.

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

Copying others is in no way a good way to judge your performance. You have no way of telling how or why a channel is successful, whether their approach will work equally for you or whether they are even good at researching their own keyword phrases.

Also, I must reiterate that just because you are successful on one platform that does not inherently deem you successful on another. You do good on Bitchute... but that is a difference audience with a different set of viewing habits. You should not compare your performance on one platform to another. They have a different system, a different value and again... a different audience.

You have a good grasp of optimizing your metadata. There was nothing wrong with how you optimized. But the keywords that you optimized for had not been thoroughly researched. The majority of the terms that you optimized for were far too competitive for your current channel size. Therefore you did no rank and your optimization did little to enhance your impressions. You need to spend more time researching keywords that you can rank for. Look for things that people are searching for which are being underserved as far as the content that is available out there. You should do this research before you make your video so that the entire video can be catered to these viewers.

We have a number of videos pertaining to this on our YouTube channel, and I would highly suggest you consider going through that library and spending some time brushing up on this as it can make a dramatic impact on the impact of your entire library.

 

[MattCommand1]

Hi JW Garage,

I just wanted to thank you for posting and sharing your channel and current challenge. I read your About page and you "announced" that you will not be posting there anymore presumably based on the disappointing experiences you shared.

I saw that your earliest video in the channel is nearly 2 years old. You have 61 videos and earned 54K views.

I wasn't sure what to make of your situation because I think the subject matter you are covering is popular. Stanley is much more knowledgeable in optimizing keywords so I don't have anything to add there.

A couple of thoughts hit me, it is possible your channel may continue to grow even if you don't post. I've heard of these surprises happening even when the creator has stopped. I've had challenges getting more videos out since November and am always surprised when my channel continues to grow despite my own poor performance of releasing new videos.

Another thing I noticed browsing 3-4 of your videos, you do a good job narrating your videos and tell a story but we don't get to see or "meet" you (in the videos I randomly chose). I cannot say that is responsible for your challenges but a few car channels I have seen over the years often involve the creator being on camera once in a while. They "host" the video and the channel. I didn't see that so far.

And although the images for your thumbnails are nice, the overall style seems inconsistent from one thumbnail to another. I cannot say if that is an actual issue holding you back but it feels disconnected.

It has often been said that YT is a marathon. With your having 61 videos so far, I am concerned you might be leaving a bit too soon. A lot of people have said to get 100 videos before making hasty decisions such as "stopping". It's possible your channel is one that will grow steadily despite your having some great performers.

Last thing, I never heard of BitChute before. So thanks for mentioning that.

I think you should continue to 100 videos before stopping. Or at least take it to 80 videos and see what happens. You are well on your way.

 

[The Jungle Explorer]

I don't have much time, but just scanning over this thread, the one thing I can tell you you are doing wrong is copying the tags of other popular channels. This is a common mistake for new YouTubers. What you need to understand is that using the most popular tags is going to hurt you, not help you. You cannot compete for the top most popular tags. I wrote a long piece on this a long time ago on here but it seems that the post no longer exists for some reason, but here it is in short.

If you can't be #1, shooting for #2 or #3 might be a better option. What I mean is, targeting the top keywords puts you in head-to-head competition with channels that outrank. It's like you trying to outswim Michael Phelps. It's not gonna happen. So instead of trying to compete where you know you have no chance, target lesser keywords that maybe don't have as much traffic, but are way less competitive. There are a lot of words out there in the dictionary. For every popular word or phrase, there are other, less common ways that people say the same thing. Targeting those less popular terms, may not get you millions of views, but they may get you hundred or thousands, and that is a good thing when starting out.