Get YouTube to Recommend your Video

In the world of advertising media, content is king. Using a chessboard analogy, we could argue “Exposure is Queen”. She is the most powerful piece on the board. You could win without her, but it makes it monumentally difficult. No matter how well thought out, planned and recorded your video campaign is, if it is not being seen by the right people then it could be a wasted campaign. Here are some tips on how to get YouTube to recommend your video.

The Power of YouTube Recommendations

According to web statistics, 40% of viewed YouTube content is a result of recommendations from the platform. This powerful medium comes in three basic forms.

    • Suggested videos from the creator
    • Videos by other users related to the one you are presently viewing
    • Recommended videos based on viewer history

If you want YouTube to recommend your content, there are several methods you may use. However, you have to be astute in how you apply them to acquire a greater viewer base.

Engage Your Audience

There are enough reasons for you to do this in itself, not least of all to keep your audience interested. The more people watch of your videos proportionally, the more likely you are to feature in the YouTube recommendation lists. Are viewers drawn to your videos? How much are they watching of each video?

Encourage Active Engagement

It also seems that videos with many comments, likes and dislikes find favor on the recommended lists. YouTube users are encouraged to click to videos with dislikes just as often as those with many likes. Comments are a great boon for your video; encouraging your viewers to engage is a great way to improve your stats and make it onto the coveted recommended list.

SEO Optimization

We’ve discussed before how you can SEO optimize your video – the title, the intro section and tag words. This has the immediate bonus of bringing in relevant web traffic. The knock-on effect is that YouTube will recommend high-ranking videos getting a large number of hits from search engines.

Interlinks Or Annotations

Many videos on YouTube now have a short animated section at the bottom with interlinked videos. These will have captions such as “To see more about our products, go here”. Or, “If you wish to see more employment opportunities, see our recruitment video”. This entices the viewer to stay, discouraging them from looking at other users’ content. Unobtrusive annotations in the video work on a similar premise.

Enticing Thumbnails

Visual imagery is such an important part of selling a product, even if that product is only to get people to view your video(s). Yet you have scanned through a ten minute long video and not found a suitable still to include as the thumbnail. There is nothing wrong with finding a still that doesn’t appear in the video so long as it is not misleading. Most YouTube users prefer to create their own.

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