One of the most important things we talk about within our YouTube academy is the three figures that will determine how good your video will perform in the first week on YouTube.
In this blog post:
After that your SEO will take over, but the better your video performed in the first week, the better your SEO will keep performing in the months afterwards.
And yes there are only three things you should have your eye on and we arranged them on importance.
CTR - click-through rate
WTR - watch time retention
Engagement - shares, comments, likes vs. dislikes
Of course, there are also a few things you need to do right before publishing your video, like title, description, playlists, tags, metadata, etc. which we talk about in our SEO and the basics of the algorithm course.
But with these three figures, you will know how good your video will perform in the first month.
Click Through Rate - CTR of your YouTube video
Far and most important figure for YouTube algorithm to push your video or not is how many people click on your thumbnail and title after impression. So impressions lead to a click-through rate, which leads to views.
And why?
This is the base of all our courses and services, thinking about the goal of YouTube: keeping viewers on YouTube as long as possible.
Keeping viewers on YouTube as long as possible
This means the more people watch your video aka click on your thumbnail/title, the more YouTube will push your video to others with a similar profile via their home page and recommended videos. Therefore you will rank higher on your SEO keywords - YouTube search.
Within the first hour of posting your video, your frequent viewers are the first and most important parameter. If they are eager to click on your thumbnail, YouTube will push your video tremendously.
This is also why 'drama' titles and thumbnails work well.
Watch Time Retention - WTR of your YouTube video
The second parameter that determine if YouTube will keep pushing your video in the first 24 hours is your watch time retention period (WTR). WTR indicates how long people stay to watch your video.
And remember the goal of YouTube: to keep viewers as long as possible on their platform. If people are easily bored or distracted with watching your video, it means the risk is higher for YouTube to lose their viewers and therefore your video will be pushed less even if your CTR is very high. Because your frequent viewers watch a shorter period of time, YouTube will decide to push the video less.
This is also why we never advise putting any links to other videos or websites in cards during the first half of your video. You stimulated people to leave your video early.
So your WTR needs to be high, especially in the beginning with your regular viewers. As your video gets pushed more, it is normal that your WTR drops.
But to be clear if your WTR is high, but CTR is low, YouTube will hardly push your video. Chances are very low that people will click to watch your video. So CTR is always more important than WTR.
Engagement of your YouTube video
Then the third parameter, the engagement on your YouTube video. If your video gets shared a lot, YouTube will push it more. If you have a lot of comments YouTube will push it more. If you have a lot of dislikes, YouTube will push the video less.
But to be honest, the impact of these factors are very low compared to your CTR and WTR.
The most important thing publishing your YouTube video
So if you upload a video, we advise you to have 2 or 3 thumbnails ready, so you can change your thumbnail immediately if you notice that your regular viewers are clicking less than normal.
And if you have been doing this for a while, you will get this seventh sense of which thumbnail and title will work for your audience. But keep in mind, not every video has to be a hit, it is very healthy to have a great balance between videos that get pushed and videos that are full of value to your current viewers.
And also very clickable thumbnails can lead to subscribers that are not interested in your channel in general. Which also make it harder to get your video pushed by YouTube.
That was it! The three most important parameters you need to keep an eye on after publishing your video.
PS: every week you should check a lot of different and more in-depth data on your channel. This shows what the quality of your content is and where you can improve.
PPS: if you liked to know more or have some questions, feel free to contact us.
PPPS: and if you liked this post we would really appreciate it if you would share it with others (you can do this easily via the links below).
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