Over the past few years, video has become such a prominent part of today’s internet with it accounting for one-third of all online activity. With a saturated market that is video, it’s harder than ever before to grab people’s attention and keep them engaged watching your content all the way through. A huge indicator of a video’s true success is watch time. Are your viewers only watching the first two seconds before scrolling to the next video or are they engaged throughout the whole thing? Creators need to focus on creating quality and compelling content that will instantly hook in their viewers and keep them present throughout to help improve their YouTube rank and grow their brand.
Why Watch Time Matters for your YouTube Rank
Many of the top video platforms place more emphasis on viewer watch time length than the amount of views themselves. In fact, YouTube realized that view count alone is no longer a good indication for true relevance or quality of video, so they changed up their ranking algorithm and started placing emphasis on viewer watch time instead. An increase in your watch time metric will help your content’s discoverability through search and “recommended” videos which in turn can result in a larger audience. Tracking viewers’ watch time gives you indication to how engaging your content truly is. Follow these tips to learn how to increase viewer watch time to improve your YouTube rank:
Tips to Increase Watch Time
- Analyze your audience– head over to your YouTube Audience retention (the percentage length of your video that viewers watched) report to get a better snapshot of user behavior. It’s recommended that publisher’s strive for an attention rate above 50% where viewers are engaged for up to half the length of your video. See if there are any commonalities about where viewership is dropping off and re-evaluate how you can keep these viewers hooked until the end of the video
- Don’t trick the viewer– avoid click-baiting titles or thumbnails. Make sure how you market your video accurately depicts what the video is about. An straightforward title is extremely important because it’s the first thing a viewer sees. It should give the viewer the correct idea on what they’re about to watch
- Grab their attention– 65% of viewers who watch the first three seconds of a video will continue on to at least the ten-second mark, and 45% will watch for thirty seconds so it’s extremely important to hook your viewers in right away. The first few seconds of your video are integral for grabbing your viewers’ attention and keeping them engaged throughout your video’s length.
- Focus on quality not quantity– a great one-minute video will get more engagement, comments, and shares opposed to a bad five-minute video, so make sure your content is of the best quality.
Once you’ve created an engaging video that’s bound to keep your viewers hooked throughout and improve your YouTube rank, you’ll want to make sure it’s as protected as possible. Vydia’s social and rights sync technology gives users the ability to automate and simplify the video management process and prevent pirates from capitalizing on content that belongs to you. For more tips and helpful hacks, stay up to date with our weekly blogs.