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Writer's pictureCumali Fulkar

Ways to Increase Watch Time on YouTube

YouTube is one of the social platforms that has been in our lives since 2005 and that we love to use. We can follow, watch and upload different content on YouTube .



According to statistics, an average of 122 million people visit YouTube per day . In addition, when evaluated worldwide, users spend more than 1 billion hours a day . This social platform, which is extremely popular, is also known as a brand new income source today. Thousands of people make money by uploading various and interesting content to YouTube . For this, watch times are of great importance. In this article, we have researched Methods to Increase Watch Time on YouTube for you.


What is the Importance of Increasing Watch Times on YouTube?


With the popularity of digital video content recently, one of the first social platforms that came to mind was YouTube . Millions of people around the world have uploaded content to this platform, both earning money and increasing its popularity.


YouTube watch times have also become a metric that needs to be measured , especially for brands . It is of great importance for brands to plan their investments and see the returns of their content. For this , it is necessary to increase the watch times and to be followed and examined correctly.


Increasing watch time on YouTube increases brand awareness. In addition, video content that has been watched for a long time allows brand-related videos to rank higher, which increases watch times. If you want your brand to be known and you have a goal to earn a financial income, you need to keep watch times at the highest level.


According to What Increases YouTube Views?


YouTube does not consider every click as a watch. For a video to be considered watched, it must be watched for at least 30 seconds . For this reason, it is not possible to get the number of views by clicking on a video. In addition, YouTube freezes the number of views every 300 views and checks whether the viewers are real accounts.


Ways to Increase Watch Time on YouTube

  • Your videos should be of high quality

  • You Should Do SEO Work

    • Video Title

    • Video Description

    • Video Length

    • Featured Image

    • Tag and Category Settings

  • Get Users to Interact

  • Pay attention to the first 15 seconds of the video

  • Use YouTube Analytics

  • Avoid Click Fishing

There are several ways to increase watch times on YouTube. We have researched these methods one by one for you.


Your videos should be of high quality


One of the first things you should do is to make sure that your videos are of good quality . Your videos should have good audio and video quality. No matter how good your content is, poor quality audio and video will cause users not to watch the video. If the sound and image quality is good, the user will continue to watch this video.



It is not enough for your videos to have high sound and image quality alone. For this reason , you should choose your content of high quality. If your content is not full, even if your video has a good quality, the user does not prefer to stay in the video for a long time. Your content should be full, engaging, flowing. You should do research on your content and follow the agenda closely.


You Should Do SEO Work


Doing SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ) i.e. Search Engine Optimization studies will ensure that your videos rank higher organically . SEO work is of great importance not only for websites, but also for YouTube. There are very important elements in YouTube 's ranking algorithm. When you do these elements carefully, your videos will appear not only in YouTube searches, but also in Google searches.

Now let's examine the elements necessary for the YouTube ranking algorithm.


Video Title


The video title is one of the most important elements. You should choose the title of the video related to the video content. A video title made up of keywords related to your video's content will help your video rank high in both YouTube and Google searches . Your video title should give clues about your video. This title should not be longer than 60 characters . Because very long titles will not appear in the search results and will cause your video to not appear in the search results.

Do not include information that is not included in the video's content in the video title. This will be noticed by Google and your video will fall behind in the ranking.


Video Description


YouTube has a description section for your video content. Here you should provide information about your video. It is not mandatory to use this field, but if you write the description correctly, your video will also be shown in the suggested videos. The video description field sets a 1000-character limit. Instead of writing a 1000-character description in this field, you should write a 100-character descriptive and keywords description.


Video Length


There is no limit on the length of the video on the YouTube platform. You can choose how long or short the video will be. These lengths may vary depending on your industry or content.


If your video is going to be published for advertising purposes, its length should be between 30 seconds and 1 minute . Long ads are not met with interest and are not followed by users. If your content is short information and tips, your video should not be longer than 1 minute. This brief information can be viewed by users. If your content is full and long, your video may be over 5 minutes . We recommend that you do not fill your content with unnecessary information or repetitions so that the video is long.


Featured Image


You need to choose an engaging featured image for your video . This image can also be part of your video. The image should encourage users to watch the video.


Tag and Category Settings


In order for your video to be indexed correctly, you must set the tag and category settings correctly. This will help YouTube parse your video in the right category.


You can create the right tags with keywords . This will increase the number of clicks on your video.


Get Users to Interact


Having users interact with your video will make it popular and rank high. For this reason, it is important for users to like, comment and subscribe to your channel. If your video becomes popular, the watch time will increase. It is also very important that you interact with your visitors . Be sure to respond to your visitors' comments.



Pay attention to the first 15 seconds of the video


There are millions of different content on YouTube. In the age of consumption we live in, it becomes difficult to find the best quality among these contents. It's not enough for users to simply click on that content to choose your content. The important thing is that it stays in this content for a long time. The most important factor that determines staying in the content for a long time is determined as the first 15 seconds of the video . You should organize the first 15 seconds in a way that is interesting and user-friendly. The user must have information about the content within the first 15 seconds.


If you do not make good use of these first 15 seconds , the user will not continue watching and your viewing time will decrease. You should determine the information and content that will keep the user in the video within the first 15 seconds.


Use YouTube Analytics


YouTube Analytics is an important service where you can track your views on YouTube. Thanks to this service, you can access various reports about your YouTube channel. In these reports, you can find information about the number of impressions, the click-through rate of the impressions, the number of views and how many minutes the audience watched your content. Thanks to these reports, it becomes easy for you to make improvements to the content. Watch times are one of the most important metrics for Analytics. With these reports, it becomes possible to track watch times.


Avoid Click Fishing


Click fishing is known as a method that has been used frequently lately. In this method, the content and the titles are completely unrelated to each other, and thus the policy of increasing clicks is followed. But this is completely wrong and a method that undermines the trust of users. With click hunting, you shake the trust of your users in you and your content. Users either skip watching your videos or log out immediately after clicking. YouTube also notices this and evaluates your videos as poor quality. This will greatly reduce your watch times .

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