[0:00] YouTube just released a brand new
[0:01] YouTube Shorts algorithm for March of
[0:03] 2026. And if you make the five changes
[0:04] that I share with you in this video,
[0:06] it's going to make it easier than ever
[0:07] before for you to go viral on YouTube
[0:09] Shorts, for you to get more subscribers
[0:10] than you could have ever imagined, and
[0:12] for you to get monetized on YouTube
[0:13] right now. But I will warn you, if you
[0:15] skip these five things, it's going to
[0:16] feel like it's harder than ever before
[0:18] to grow. But it doesn't have to be
[0:19] because once you make these changes,
[0:21] it's like turning on easy mode for
[0:22] growing on YouTube. Change number one is
[0:25] that the first 3 seconds of your video
[0:26] is no longer the most important part
[0:28] when it comes to YouTube shorts. Because
[0:30] now there's something that's even more
[0:32] important. Because if we look at where
[0:33] shorts traffic is now coming from in
[0:35] March of 2026, 70% or more of it is
[0:38] coming from search results and from
[0:40] browse features. And guess what? The
[0:42] first 3 seconds of your video doesn't
[0:44] matter as much when we're talking about
[0:46] those placements. And what matters
[0:47] actually even more is going to be your
[0:48] title and your thumbnail. So, the first
[0:51] thing that we need to talk about is how
[0:52] to actually add a custom thumbnail. So,
[0:54] let's say that we're going to come over
[0:55] here and we're going to upload a video.
[0:57] For example, I'm going to grab this
[0:58] video right here. What you're going to
[0:59] want to do, and by the way, you can only
[1:01] do this from a mobile device, is you
[1:03] want to upload your video to YouTube
[1:04] Shorts from your mobile device. So, we
[1:06] can see right here, it's going through
[1:08] and processing. And then once this is
[1:09] actually done processing, this is going
[1:11] to allow us to choose that custom
[1:12] thumbnail. We're going to click on next
[1:14] right here. We're then going to see this
[1:15] pencil icon. You could scroll around and
[1:17] find the icon that you want. For
[1:19] example, maybe I want to add this. And
[1:21] then I could add in some text right
[1:22] here. And what that is going to do is
[1:24] increase the odds that people end up
[1:26] actually clicking on your content. And
[1:28] yes, this makes a massive difference.
[1:31] Let me prove it to you. Because look, if
[1:33] we come into a lot of my viral shorts,
[1:35] for example, this one right here got
[1:37] over 2.3 million views. We could see
[1:39] that there is a custom thumbnail on here
[1:40] with me pointing and saying, "Turn on
[1:42] these settings to grow faster on
[1:44] YouTube." But that's not the only one
[1:46] that has this. If we come back out here,
[1:48] we could see that this video also has
[1:50] the same thing. If we click on analytics
[1:52] here, we could see that this video has
[1:54] gotten 1.3 million views. And again, if
[1:56] we zoom in over here, I added in an
[1:58] arrow here, and I told you that you need
[2:00] to click on this little thing. And guess
[2:02] what? And all these things right here,
[2:03] helping these videos rank for search,
[2:04] helping them get views 24/7. And this is
[2:07] one of the biggest unlocks right now for
[2:08] YouTube shorts. So, please make sure
[2:10] you're adding in these custom thumbnails
[2:12] every single time that you upload them
[2:13] because it's going to make the
[2:14] difference between your video getting
[2:16] clicked on and going viral or people
[2:18] just scrolling right by your video. Now,
[2:20] change number two is you need to make
[2:22] sure that you're not posting too much
[2:23] and you're not posting too little right
[2:25] now on YouTube shorts. And how
[2:27] frequently you should be posting is
[2:28] really going to come down to what niche
[2:30] you're in and how frequently there are
[2:33] new content ideas for your niche.
[2:34] because I know some creators that post
[2:36] 20 times a day on shorts and I know
[2:38] other creators that only post three
[2:40] times a week on shorts. So, what you
[2:41] want to make sure that you're doing is
[2:43] you want to look at your competitors and
[2:44] see how frequently they're going through
[2:46] and posting on YouTube shorts because
[2:48] ideally you're going to want to post a
[2:50] little bit more than they are because
[2:51] this is going to allow you to do three
[2:52] things. One, it's going to allow you to
[2:54] get out more piece of content that are
[2:56] able to rank for search. And it's also
[2:58] going to allow you to just publish
[2:59] content way sooner and actually be able
[3:02] to get more views because right now
[3:03] there is a massive land grab going on
[3:05] with YouTube shorts. You want your
[3:07] shorts to show up in the browse features
[3:10] aka on the homepage when your ideal
[3:12] viewer logs on YouTube. And in addition
[3:14] to that, you want to show up in the
[3:16] search results. So, what you need to
[3:17] make sure that you're doing right now is
[3:18] you need to come up with a list of 25,
[3:21] 50, 75, even 100 different words that
[3:24] your ideal audience is going to be
[3:26] searching for. Because now these are
[3:28] going to be eligible to show in three
[3:30] different placements. The first place
[3:31] that these going to be eligible to show
[3:32] is when somebody does a search on
[3:34] ChateBT or on Gemini or on Grock or on
[3:37] Claude, guess what? Your YouTube short
[3:39] could be eligible to show up. In
[3:41] addition to that, you could be eligible
[3:42] to show up in the YouTube shorts
[3:44] results. And then the final placement is
[3:46] actually when people search for things
[3:47] on Google now, they get shown short form
[3:50] videos. And if you are able to show here
[3:52] in any of these places, it's going to
[3:54] increase the odds that your video is
[3:55] going to go viral and that people are
[3:56] going to begin to find your YouTube
[3:58] channel 24/7. But again, this is really
[4:01] going to come down to how much content
[4:03] you're putting out and whether or not
[4:04] you're putting content out at the
[4:05] frequency that allows you to get those
[4:08] land grabs before your competitors do.
[4:10] Which is why I'm urging you right now to
[4:12] please try to post two to three times a
[4:14] day on YouTube shorts, ideally at least
[4:17] 5 days a week. I know it might sound
[4:19] like a little bit of work, but trust me,
[4:20] I'm about to show you something that
[4:22] makes it way easier to do. And I'm also
[4:24] going to share with you how big of a
[4:26] difference this actually makes. Now,
[4:28] change number three is you need to make
[4:29] sure that you're driving traffic from
[4:31] outside of YouTube to your YouTube
[4:34] channel. And there's a right and there's
[4:35] a wrong way to do this. The wrong way
[4:37] for you to do this is to put a YouTube
[4:39] video in your bio or to send people a
[4:42] link of a YouTube video. That is not
[4:44] what you want to do. YouTube is going to
[4:45] look at this as invalid traffic and it
[4:47] actually could end up hurting your
[4:49] channel. Instead, what you want to make
[4:51] sure that you're doing is you want to
[4:52] make sure that you're getting people to
[4:53] go through and search for the terms that
[4:55] you want to rank for or even searching
[4:57] for your name on YouTube. For example,
[5:00] this creator right here does an
[5:01] absolutely amazing job at this and it's
[5:03] helped her gain over a million
[5:04] subscribers on YouTube. If we come over
[5:06] to her content right here, for example,
[5:08] this video right here, we could see my
[5:10] YouTube channel is your number one
[5:11] source. She's not putting a link in
[5:13] there or anything like that. She's just
[5:14] telling people she has a YouTube
[5:16] channel. Or if we come over to this
[5:17] video right here, we could see that she
[5:19] says here, if you want to find free
[5:22] courses on all these topics, search for
[5:24] Betty and business on YouTube. Now,
[5:26] guess what? If we come over to YouTube
[5:28] and we do a search for this, I want to
[5:30] show you what actually happens. We could
[5:32] see that the first thing that shows up
[5:34] are all of her shorts right here. Her
[5:36] channel shows up and then if we scroll
[5:37] down, we could see a bunch of different
[5:39] viral videos. Now, you want that same
[5:40] exact thing to happen when people are
[5:42] searching for you. And the easiest way
[5:44] for you to do this is to make sure that
[5:46] you're posting your YouTube shorts
[5:47] across Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and
[5:50] and any other platform that has short
[5:53] form content. And the easiest way that I
[5:55] found for you to be able to do this
[5:56] without creating extra work is using
[5:59] metricool.com. Because Metricle lets you
[6:01] post to all these different platforms
[6:03] from just one dashboard. And you can
[6:06] even schedule out those posts for the
[6:07] future so that you could batch create
[6:09] like a week worth of content. And it's
[6:11] not something that you have to go in and
[6:12] you have to do every single day because
[6:14] this is going to help you drive more
[6:16] traffic to your YouTube channel and get
[6:18] discovered the right way. And the best
[6:19] part about Metricool is that if you go
[6:21] to the pin comment below, you can get 30
[6:23] days free access to any of their premium
[6:24] plans with Code Robert. And on top of
[6:27] letting you post to multiple platforms,
[6:29] they also allow you to add your
[6:30] competitors and spy on them to see
[6:32] exactly what topics and what formats are
[6:34] getting them the most views. And they
[6:36] make it incredibly easy for you to be
[6:37] able to respond to all of your private
[6:39] messages, all of your DMs, all of your
[6:41] comments on all these different
[6:43] platforms from one location. So, what
[6:45] are you waiting for? Go to the pink
[6:46] comment below and get started with 30
[6:48] days free access to any of Metro's
[6:50] premium plans today with Code Robert.
[6:52] Change number four is you need to make
[6:54] sure that you're updating what metrics
[6:56] YouTube is actually looking at because
[6:57] it's not the metrics that you thought it
[6:59] was. In fact, they completely changed
[7:01] what they care about right now. And I
[7:02] want to go through some of my viral
[7:04] videos to actually prove to you what
[7:06] metrics you should be looking at, what
[7:08] you should be tracking, and what you
[7:09] should be ignoring because not every
[7:11] metric on YouTube is created equal. And
[7:13] if you've ever looked at the YouTube
[7:14] analytics, you probably got overwhelmed
[7:16] because there's thousands of different
[7:17] metrics, but 99.99%
[7:19] of them don't matter. So, if we actually
[7:22] come over here, I'm going to do a search
[7:24] for all my videos that have gotten over
[7:25] 100,000 views recently. And I want to go
[7:27] through each of them to prove to you
[7:29] exactly how this works. So, if we look
[7:31] at this first video right here, we can
[7:32] see it got over 600,000 views. The
[7:34] reason for this is twofold. And
[7:36] literally, look at this one video. Got
[7:38] me over 10,000 subscribers. If we scroll
[7:40] down here, date to watch is over 75%.
[7:43] You need to make sure that this is over
[7:45] 75%. That is non-negotiable. If yours is
[7:48] not over 75%, one of two things is wrong
[7:50] with your video. One, the topic isn't
[7:52] really something that your ideal
[7:54] audience was interested in, so they just
[7:56] left immediately. Or the hook that you
[7:58] had in your video wasn't good enough.
[8:00] And you want to make sure that you're
[8:01] adding a text hook in your content. In
[8:02] fact, if we play this one, we could see
[8:05] that the text hook pops up right here.
[8:07] Change a setting to increase your views.
[8:09] And we can see if I zoom in here that
[8:11] it's bright yellow. It's got the logo.
[8:13] Captures people's attention. And that's
[8:15] why people stayed to watch this video.
[8:17] Now, if we come over to my other
[8:18] content, we're going to see the same
[8:20] exact thing is true for this video right
[8:22] here. If we scroll down, 160,000 views,
[8:25] 91% stayed to watch. Now, if we come to
[8:27] the next video here, 150,000 views,
[8:30] we're going to see the same thing here.
[8:32] This is 77%. So, it doesn't really
[8:34] matter how high that number is. It just
[8:37] needs to be over 75%. And then the next
[8:39] thing you want to pay attention to is
[8:41] your average view duration versus the
[8:43] length of your video. If your video is
[8:45] less than 30 seconds, so 30 seconds to 0
[8:48] seconds, this average view duration
[8:50] number needs to be greater than the
[8:52] length of your video for your video to
[8:54] go viral. Now, if we look at a lot of my
[8:57] viral videos, we could see that it
[8:59] wasn't the case that my video was less
[9:00] than 30 seconds. So, if we look at a
[9:02] video like this that's 49 seconds, we
[9:04] actually need to pull out a calculator
[9:06] for this one. So, I'm going to come over
[9:07] here. I'm going to grab my calculator.
[9:09] We could scroll down and we could see
[9:10] that the video view duration is 43
[9:12] seconds and the length of this video was
[9:14] 49 seconds. So if we take 43, divide
[9:17] that by 49, we can see that's 87%. You
[9:20] want to make sure that it's at least
[9:22] 80%. So on a video that was 49 seconds
[9:25] long. If we come over here, type in 49
[9:27] *8. We need at least 39.2. So aim for 39
[9:32] seconds of average view duration in
[9:34] order for this video to go viral. so
[9:36] long as you would have kept people for
[9:37] that long, your video would have ended
[9:39] up going viral, as long as you have both
[9:41] that stay to watch number and the
[9:43] average view duration. Then the final
[9:45] thing that you need to make sure is true
[9:47] is you need to make sure that your
[9:48] YouTube channel is actually optimized
[9:50] with all of the right settings, all of
[9:52] the right descriptions, your homepage
[9:54] setup, and so much more. And we're about
[9:55] to dive through all of those things and
[9:57] how you can make sure that they're set
[9:59] up. Now, in order to show you all this,
[10:01] I actually wanted to walk through one of
[10:02] my other YouTube channels cuz this is a
[10:04] new channel, so it's probably more
[10:06] relatable for you guys. So, the first
[10:08] thing that we need to make sure that we
[10:09] do is if we come over here to the top
[10:11] right hand corner and we click on your
[10:13] channel right here, we need to make sure
[10:15] that your homepage is going to be set up
[10:17] correctly. Now, ideally, what you want
[10:18] to have is your popular videos, then all
[10:21] of your videos, then all of your shorts,
[10:23] and then all of your posts right here.
[10:25] Now, the way that you're going to do
[10:26] this is when you come to your homepage,
[10:28] you're going to be able to click on
[10:29] customize channel right here. From here,
[10:31] what you're going to be able to do is
[10:32] you're going to be able to click on home
[10:34] tab right here. And this is where you'll
[10:36] actually be able to figure out all those
[10:37] different layouts. And if we click into
[10:39] this, we could see that you could remove
[10:40] sections. You could change where they
[10:42] show up and you could add more sections
[10:44] if you wanted to or if you had other
[10:46] sections and then you could view it on
[10:48] your channel, you could publish it. It's
[10:49] very easy to make those changes. In
[10:51] addition, from over here, you need to
[10:53] make sure that you have a banner image
[10:54] set up that ideally is going to be
[10:56] incentivizing people to subscribe. You
[10:58] want to make sure that you have a
[10:59] profile picture set up that ideally is
[11:01] going to be bright, is going to stand
[11:02] out, and it's going to help people
[11:04] remember who you are. In addition to
[11:06] that, your name and your handle.
[11:08] Ideally, they should be the same. And
[11:10] you want to try to have your niche in
[11:12] your handle. For example, I talk about
[11:14] AI tools on this channel, which is why I
[11:16] have AI inside of my name. Now, from
[11:18] here, the other thing that you want to
[11:20] do is come over into your settings and
[11:22] make sure that you have the correct
[11:24] settings enabled. And there are going to
[11:25] be several of them. The first one that
[11:27] you want to look for is coming into
[11:28] channel right here. You want to make
[11:30] sure you have the correct country of
[11:31] residence. And you want to make sure
[11:32] that you have keywords here. These
[11:34] keywords should contain three things.
[11:36] The first thing is going to be your
[11:37] channel name, which we could see right
[11:39] here. The second thing are going to be a
[11:40] few of your competitors, which we could
[11:42] see right here, Matt Wolf, AI Advantage.
[11:44] The third thing is whatever you are
[11:46] posting about, you want to have all
[11:48] those different keywords in here so
[11:49] YouTube understands what your videos are
[11:51] actually about. The next setting you
[11:53] need to care about is going to be under
[11:54] advanced settings. You want to make sure
[11:56] that this says no, this channel is not
[11:59] for kids. And you should only be doing
[12:01] this so long as your content isn't
[12:03] exclusively for kids. In addition to
[12:05] that, if you scroll down here, you want
[12:06] to make sure that automatic dubbing is
[12:09] turned on with these same settings that
[12:11] I have right here. And if we keep
[12:12] scrolling down even more, you want to
[12:14] make sure that clips, this is checked
[12:15] on. You want to make sure that video
[12:17] quality enhancements is turned on, both
[12:19] for visual and for audio. And you want
[12:22] to make sure that hype is here. And this
[12:23] one is really important. Third-party
[12:25] training, turn this off. You do not want
[12:28] this happening on your channel. And that
[12:29] final thing you want to make sure that
[12:30] is true is if you come over to feature
[12:32] eligibility that all three of these
[12:34] showed enabled. If none of those are
[12:36] true or if you have any of these
[12:38] settings messed up, could be the reason
[12:39] you're not getting the reach that you
[12:41] want. Now, if you enjoyed this video and
[12:43] you want to learn in the best time to
[12:44] post on YouTube shorts right now to go
[12:46] viral in 2026, I would strongly suggest
[12:48] you check out this video right here that
[12:49] walks you through exactly that. I'll see
[12:52] you over there.