50 Ways to Grow Your YouTube Subscribers

1. Upload new videos on a regular basis. More content on your channel increases how often people are likely to interact with your channel. This, in turn, presents them with more reasons and opportunities to follow you. In simple terms, the more of your videos a person watches, the higher the chances that he/she will subscribe to your channel.
2. If possible, have a fixed schedule for uploading. If your viewers notice that you upload new videos every Monday, for example, they’ll look forward to Mondays! This also increases the chances that people will watch your videos more regularly, which increases the likelihood that they will subscribe to your YouTube Channel.
3. Your video titles should have a maximum of 50 characters. If the characters are more than 50, the excess characters on the title will get cut off on search engines and that decreases the chances it will be clicked.
4. Limit the duration of your videos to around 3 minutes. A survey of the 50 most popular videos on YouTube found their average duration to be 2 minutes and 54 seconds. Short videos are more effective because nowadays, people generally have a very short attention span. It’s advisable to use this trick to get substantial numbers of viewers and subscribers before experimenting with longer videos.
5. Advertise your YouTube videos on Facebook. Since you already have an audience on Facebook (Friends, followers etc.), you can leverage on that by posting your videos on Facebook. Include a call-to-action to the Facebook post (with a link to your YouTube channel) for people to “Watch more of my videos on YouTube”.
6. As you promote your videos, promote your YouTube channel too. The authority of your channel will have a positive rebound effect on the ranking of your videos.
7. Your videos should be of good quality and should be highly engaging. Three keys for your videos to be highly engaging – they should be informative, entertaining, and relevant. People should be able to learn from your videos while they enjoy every second of it. Upload videos that address trending issues, as well as those that are evergreen (all-time relevant; always trending).
8. Create a custom thumbnail that is very captivating. It gives your videos an outstanding appearance in the search results and increases their likelihood of being clicked.
9. In choosing thumbnails, note that close-up photos are more captivating than detailed photos in search results. Using close-up photos increases the likelihood of your videos being clicked amongst the many search results.
10. Create blog contents with your YouTube videos Embedded and promote the posts on your social media accounts. This has a two-way effect; it will increase both your video views and your site’s page views.
11. When embedding your YouTube videos on your blog, make sure to include the URL. Adding the YouTube URL manually may spur readers to click and visit your YouTube Channel, check out your other videos, and probably subscribe.
12. Add the “subscribe button” very close to the videos embedded on your blog and at other strategic places on the blog. This may help direct visitors to your blog to engage in your YouTube channel and become your followers.
13. Once in a while, make reference to your videos in your blog posts. This can spur up your readers to check out the referenced video, explore your channel, and subscribe.
14. If you already have an audience through email subscription, consider promoting your videos to your subscribers. To create a two-way effect and direct your subscribers to the embedded videos on your site so as to increase both your video views and your website page views.
15. A YouTube widget added to your website or blog will be a great plus. The trick is to use your website or blog to promote your YouTube videos and channel.
16. Certain tools can help create a pop-up box on your website for your YouTube videos. You can also make use of them to promote your YouTube videos and channel.
17. Limit the duration of your videos to around 3 minutes. A survey of the 50 most popular videos on YouTube found their average duration to be 2 minutes and 54 seconds. It’s advisable to use this trick to get substantial numbers of viewers and subscribers before experimenting with longer videos.
18. Search Engine Optimization is very important. Ensure to choose keywords that will give your videos a higher chance at high in search engines. Search for your prospective keywords on Google; if there are video results for those keywords, then they are fit for use.
19. Important keywords should be contained in your video title and description. This gives your videos a higher chance of topping the search results when users search on either YouTube or Google. The title and description of a video on YouTube video play a very significant role in the ranking of the video on YouTube.
20. Don’t shy away from using long-tail keywords and writing long, detailed descriptions of your videos. Just ensure to use relevant and unambiguous long-tail phrases so that Google can find your video for long-tail phrase searches.
21. Target between 300-500 words for your video descriptions. This length is adequate enough to give a thorough description of your video, and the brevity is apt enough not to stress anyone who reads it.
22. YouTube has an autocomplete feature to give suggestions for popular keywords when you’re typing the title of your videos. Take advantage of this feature by incorporating the words or phrases suggested by YouTube in your keywords.
23. Asides the YouTube autocomplete feature, you can search for and use other keyword suggestion tools to give suggestions of related long-tail keywords for inclusion in your video titles and descriptions.
24. YouTube video transcripts can also be of great help, so make use of them. They help search engines to find and index additional keywords that are of relevance to your videos.
25. If your target audience is scattered around many countries or speak different languages, then consider transcribing your videos in multiple languages. This gives reinforcement to the ranking of your videos in multi-language search queries.
26. Have you thought of what closed captioning and subtitles can do to your videos? It helps make it easier for an international audience to follow your videos. Furthermore, it provides additional keywords that Google and other search engines can find and index.
27. While search engine optimization of your videos is essential, it’s equally essential to optimize your YouTube channel for search engines.
28. Create playlists on your channel to give your videos better organization. Make use of appropriate keywords to optimize your playlists for search engines.
29. Your videos should contain an introduction. Your introduction helps to brand your videos. You can include a short description of your video content and seize the opportunity to remind your viewers to “kindly subscribe” to your channel.
30. Your channel trailer is a powerful tool, thus create a captivating one. Your trailer will play automatically when a visitor arrives at your channel homepage, so make a very captivating first impression.
31. Also, make good use of your annotations near the end of your video. Include a strong call-to-action to encourage your viewers to “click the subscribe button”.
32. Encourage your viewers, either in the course of your video or with the use of annotations, to like your videos. When your videos are getting many likes, YouTube gets the impression that your videos/channel is popular, and this gives your videos a higher ranking in YouTube search results.
33. Another way you can make use of your annotations is to encourage your viewers to watch related videos.
34. You may want to consider including a subscribe watermark to your videos, using InVideo programming. It increases your chances of getting subscribers.
35. Don’t just dump videos and run away, interact with your viewers through their comments. Cultivate the habit of replying viewers’ comments under your videos (including the negative ones). It’s an indication that you care about the views of your viewers.
36. Check the ‘Creator Dashboard’ and ‘Analytics’ on your channel to see the users who engage with your contents the most. You can engage these loyal fans, by reaching out to them and asking them to promote your videos to their followers, friends, or communities.
37. Be professional but be REAL. Upload some behind-the-scenes videos and bloopers every once in a while. Viewers like it more when they know that there are real human beings behind your brand.
38. Take advantage of “Hangouts on Air” to leverage the link between Google+ and YouTube. When you use “Hangouts on Air”, your Hangouts are automatically recorded and uploaded to your YouTube channel. This also has a two-way effect, simultaneously promoting both your Google+ account and your YouTube account.
39. Be very generous with the use of tags, but try as much as possible to add your keywords first and arrange the tags in order of their relevance. It is generally believed that YouTube attaches more importance to the first tags. Google Keyword Planner can give you good ideas on keywords that are relevant to your YouTube videos. Include all of those keywords in your tags. This will greatly increase how discoverable your videos are on both Google and YouTube search engines.
40. Adding the word “video” to your title gives a higher chance for your video to rank tops on search engines like Google. Although this may have no effect on your ranking on YouTube search, it’s plausibility for search engine results is worth the use.
41. Don’t retain out-of-date and unsuccessful videos on your channel. “Clean up” your channel from time to time; more isn’t always better.
42. Take good advantage of other people’s popularity (and their popular videos). When they touch on subjects you’re good at, create a video response to theirs, and let them know about your response. Who knows? They might love it and share it with their audience!
43. Take privilege of the value of collaborating with another user to cross-promote each other’s channel. You would feature the other person’s channel on your page, and he or she would do the same for you. It’s much more productive if the other person’s channel belongs in your niche. This is a win-win situation for both parties as it will increase your audience base.
44. Upload unique contents. People want to hear something fresh, something new, something unique, not what they have always heard in the same way they have been hearing it. If you must address “common” topics, address it from a unique perspective.
45. Be aware of the seasons and be sensitive enough to post videos that are relevant to the season. Shortly before and during major holidays, upload holiday-themed videos. For instance, you may upload a video titled “checklist for planning Thanksgiving dinner” few weeks prior to Thanksgiving.
46. Catch on trending searches and create hit videos to gain quick followership. You may check Google Trends if you need help in figuring out which keywords to target.
47. Add links to popular channels in your YouTube videos. It optimizes your videos for search engines. Including links to popular sites to your written content increases your site’s ranking on search engines.
48. Build relationships and actively participate in the teeming YouTube community. Make a relevant comment on other people’s videos, strike up discussions, and ask intelligent questions. In a very significant way, this will give a boost to the number of your viewers and subscribers.
49. Facebook ads can be of great help too. Although you will have to pay for the advert. You can use Facebook ads to generate a significant measure of relevant traffic to your videos or to the homepage of your YouTube channel.
50. Just like Facebook ads, you can also pay for Twitter ads. Twitter ads will help promote your YouTube videos and channel to a target audience of Twitter users and help generate a great deal of traffic to your videos or your homepage, depending on the one you advertise.

50 tips discussed above

From all that has been discussed in this article, it is quite glaring that getting a substantial following on YouTube would require you to spend a lot of time, energy, unrelenting efforts, and maybe some money. While no one can promise you that your channel will suddenly become the next YouTube sensation in the next few hours, with these 50 tips discussed above, you sure can begin to make gradual progress. One video at a time until your channel also becomes an authority.

I wish you the very best!