[0:00] When you start a new long form channel,
[0:01] the first thing that happens is YouTube
[0:02] reviews your account to figure out if
[0:04] you're a real person and you're worth
[0:05] pushing out. If your channel looks empty
[0:07] or suspicious, YouTube has no reason to
[0:08] trust you yet and won't push your videos
[0:10] out anywhere beyond search. To avoid
[0:12] this, you need to make your channel look
[0:13] legit from the start. Warm it up, brand
[0:15] it personally, use an older, trusted
[0:16] email, and enable third-le feature
[0:18] eligibility. The less your channel looks
[0:20] like spam, the more willing YouTube is
[0:21] to push your content out beyond just
[0:23] search. YouTube is way more forgiving
[0:24] with long form than shorts. If you're
[0:26] not getting into the browse feed, your
[0:27] video is either bad or your channel just
[0:29] looks like spam. After you upload your
[0:31] first video, YouTube immediately
[0:32] transcribes everything you say, scans
[0:34] your thumbnail, and classifies your
[0:35] content. The algorithm is trying to
[0:36] figure out what your video is, who's it
[0:38] for, and whether it's safe to push.
[0:40] Then, over the next 24 to 48 hours, it
[0:42] continues to build a profile on your
[0:44] content with the main thing being your
[0:45] target audience. During this time,
[0:46] YouTube isn't really pushing your video
[0:48] out anywhere. It's just reviewing your
[0:49] data. That's why it takes a couple days
[0:51] before views start coming in on the
[0:52] first video of a brand new channel. This
[0:54] is where the metadata becomes the most
[0:55] important thing. YouTube's entire goal
[0:56] is to keep viewers on the platform for
[0:58] as long as possible. More time on
[0:59] YouTube means more ads watched, and more
[1:01] ads watched means more money to YouTube.
[1:03] So naturally, the algorithm's job is to
[1:05] find the videos that specific viewers
[1:06] would enjoy the most. To do that, it
[1:08] needs to know exactly who your video is
[1:10] for. If the algorithm can't figure out
[1:11] your target audience, it would rather
[1:12] push out someone else's content and
[1:14] actually understands rather than risking
[1:16] showing yours to the wrong person. Like
[1:17] I said before, you really need to focus
[1:19] on your metadata here. Your title needs
[1:21] to clearly tell YouTube what the video
[1:22] is about. And then tags, chapters, and
[1:24] timestamps all give the algorithm more
[1:26] context. Your thumbnail matters, too,
[1:27] because YouTube's AI is actually reading
[1:29] it. It scans for faces, objects, and
[1:31] text. The clearer everything is, the
[1:32] faster it matches your video to the
[1:34] right people. Typically, channels that
[1:35] write vague titles and leave
[1:36] descriptions empty or forcing YouTube to
[1:38] guess. And once again, YouTube doesn't
[1:40] want to take the risk showing it to the
[1:41] wrong person. Once the data is collected
[1:43] and the target audience is determined,
[1:45] YouTube starts testing your video
[1:46] through browse. They collect initial
[1:47] data and decide whether to keep pushing
[1:49] it or not. Similar to shorts, the
[1:50] algorithm pushes out your videos in kind
[1:52] of waves. YouTube is testing your video
[1:54] against small groups and watching how
[1:55] they respond. If they respond well,
[1:57] YouTube slowly ramps up impressions.
[1:59] Then, depending on how the next group
[2:00] responds, it either keeps ramping up,
[2:02] slowing down, or plateaus. And before
[2:03] you guys ask me about why my studio
[2:05] looks so much better than yours, I use
[2:06] New Studio, which is by far the best
[2:08] Chrome extension if you want to take
[2:09] YouTube seriously. So, how do we get
[2:10] YouTube to push your video as much as
[2:12] possible? Well, this comes down to the
[2:13] stats. There's three stats you need to
[2:15] be focusing on with the first being
[2:16] click-through rate. This is the percent
[2:18] of people who saw your video in their
[2:19] feed and actually clicked on it. Every
[2:21] person who sees your video in their feed
[2:22] is considered an impression. Picture it
[2:24] like this. Every single impression on
[2:26] YouTube is like a slot. There's a
[2:27] limited amount of slots in a given feed.
[2:29] So, YouTube is pretty selective with it.
[2:31] Why would they give a video that has a
[2:32] low click-through rate an impression
[2:33] when they could give an impression to a
[2:35] video that actually has a high
[2:36] click-through rate and it's proven that
[2:37] people are willing to click it? It's
[2:39] much more valuable for YouTube. Your
[2:40] click-through rate is determined by your
[2:42] thumbnail, your title, and your idea.
[2:44] This is the first thing a viewer even
[2:45] sees. So, you really need to focus on
[2:47] this. Your goal is to make your video
[2:48] the most appealing to click on out of
[2:50] every other impression on their feed.
[2:51] But the best way to stand out is being
[2:53] in a niche that has a ton of viewers
[2:54] willing to watch. To help with that, I
[2:56] have a playlist of a bunch of viral
[2:57] niches I find, and I'll be constantly
[2:58] updating it. These are niches I would
[2:59] use myself. A lot of you guys were
[3:01] asking me how I find my niches. So, if
[3:02] you're wondering, majority of these
[3:03] niches are found with algrow. But what
[3:05] percent should you be shooting for?
[3:06] Well, the average CTR on YouTube sits
[3:08] around 4 to 5%, and anything below
[3:10] three, YouTube definitely won't push it.
[3:11] The next stat the algorithm focuses on
[3:13] is the retention graph. This is by far
[3:15] more important than CTR. You want this
[3:16] graph to be as flat as possible, as high
[3:18] as possible, and the initial dip to be
[3:20] as small as you can manage. The graph
[3:21] will always go down over time because
[3:22] viewers just naturally leave no matter
[3:24] what you do. If you're losing too many
[3:25] viewers at the start, your hook is bad.
[3:27] If your graph is too steep, your
[3:28] storytelling and video ID is bad. But
[3:30] after the algorithm pushes your video in
[3:31] the browse feed for a bit, it starts
[3:33] being shown in the suggested feed. This
[3:34] is the sidebar when someone's watching
[3:36] another video. YouTube really only
[3:37] pushes your video in the suggested feed
[3:38] after it tests it in browse first
[3:40] because the suggested feed is much more
[3:42] dependent on your target audience. So,
[3:44] YouTube naturally waits until they have
[3:45] more data before showing your videos
[3:46] there. These impressions in the
[3:48] suggested feed are much more valuable to
[3:49] YouTube because their goal is to keep
[3:51] people on the platform for as long as
[3:52] possible. Now, these two stats are the
[3:54] most visible things you can improve. But
[3:55] beyond that, the algorithm tracks a ton
[3:57] of different things. Engagement, what
[3:58] the comments are about, likes, shares,
[4:00] subscriptions gained or lost, returning
[4:02] viewers, viewer satisfaction surveys,
[4:04] not interested clicks, search terms,
[4:06] whether your video started a session,
[4:08] whether it ended it, and what the viewer
[4:09] did after watching. And those three
[4:10] things I said at the end all fall into
[4:12] session time. If your video makes
[4:13] someone spend more time on YouTube, this
[4:15] is the strongest signal you can send to
[4:16] the algorithm. This is why linking your
[4:17] viewers to a playlist or another video
[4:19] at the end helps so much, even if it's
[4:21] not related to you. You can see this in
[4:22] action on my videos. The first long form
[4:24] video on my channel went viral. One of
[4:25] the reasons for that is because at the
[4:26] very end, I linked viewers to a playlist
[4:28] with a bunch of viral niches. This
[4:30] playlist got tens of thousands of views,
[4:31] and because my video, even though it was
[4:33] relatively short, I got viewers to spend
[4:34] more time on YouTube, and the algorithm
[4:36] rewards that. As you continue to post
[4:37] more videos and start gaining traction,
[4:39] you start to build an audience. YouTube
[4:40] shows your next videos to people who
[4:42] watch your previous ones first, so you
[4:44] always have a solid seed audience going
[4:45] into every upload. But if you're
[4:46] struggling finding ideas, once again,
[4:48] you can use Algro for this. You can
[4:49] actually integrate with Claude, and
[4:50] you'll be able to instantly analyze all
[4:52] your competitors through using it. So
[4:53] check it out, and if you want a free
[4:54] personalized channel review or need help
[4:56] with anything, join the Discord.