7 Advanced YouTube Growth Strategies for Existing Channels

in this video i'm going to show you how to grow your youtube channel fast in fact i use the strategies from this video to grow my channel to 200 000 views per month and those views generate over 7 000 new subscribers every single month i'm brian dean the founder of backlinko the place where marketers turn for higher rankings and more traffic and if you want to grow your channel in record time you'll love the actionable tips

from today's video stay tuned when i first started my youtube channel i had no idea what i was doing so i did what anyone would do in my situation i googled things like how to grow a youtube channel and how to get more views and there was no shortage of articles blog posts youtube videos and courses that showed me how to get started but as my channel grew this type of beginner's content was less and less

helpful and it seemed like the vast majority of the content on youtube was designed for people that just started their channel to be clear there's nothing wrong with being a newbie i was one myself but what if you're already doing well on youtube and you want to take your game to the next level in other words what if you wanna go from a thousand subscribers to ten thousand subscribers or ten thousand subscribers to a hundred thousand

subscribers and beyond well that's why i decided to make this video this video is made up of a hundred percent advanced strategies that you can use to take your existing channel to the next level and it's full of lessons and strategies that i learned from growing my channel over the last six years so without further ado let's kick things off with strategy number one focus a hundred percent on suggested video casey neistat jenna marbles mr beast

most of the channels that you see that come out of nowhere to dominate use suggested video to do it as you probably already know suggested video is a section on youtube that shows up on the right side of a video or underneath that video on mobile as it turns out you can get way more views from suggested video than you could from youtube search for example i currently rank at the top of youtube for popular keywords

like seo link building how to get more views on youtube and more and despite ranking for all those terms my channel gets more views from suggested video than from seo in fact my channel gets 28.4 percent of its views from search and 34 from suggested video and the best way to get more suggested video views the sequel technique the sequel technique is where you find a video in your niche that's already getting a ton of views

and then you create a better version of that video as long as you use some of the same keywords in your title tags and video description you have a good chance of ranking next to that video in the suggested video section for example let's say you run a health and fitness channel and you notice a video about the keto diet that's getting a ton of views well you'd want to figure out what made that video popular

and improve on it you can make your video more in depth more up to date or pretty much anything that will make your video better than the original finally optimize your video around the same keywords as the popular video and you're good to go for example this video on my channel has half a million views and i got most of those views thanks to this exact technique which leads us to our second strategy to help grow

your youtube channel strategy number two cross pollination this is one of the most underrated strategies on the planet what you're doing with cross-pollination is sending followers from places that already follow you to new platforms and when you do this consistently instead of having all of your followers on a single platform your audience will grow across multiple different platforms for example when i published this video i let my email subscribers know about it which led to thousands

of views on the first day and i even promote my youtube channel when i do guest interviews on podcasts or on other youtube channels but i also cross-pollinate from my youtube channel to other platforms that i'm active on as you can see here i link to my twitter account in every video description so here's why this is important for youtube growth there's obviously a ton of potential to grow your channel from within youtube's platform but if

you rely a hundred percent on youtube to get views you're probably going to grow slower than you want which is why you want to send followers from other platforms to your channel and depending on your audience on those different platforms you can get hundreds or even thousands of fresh eyeballs on your new videos and like i mentioned earlier you also want to cross-pollinate your youtube subscribers to other platforms that you're on why it gives people another

way to find out about your new videos as you already know just because someone subscribes to your channel doesn't mean they're automatically going to find out about every video that you publish but when that person follows you on twitter likes your facebook page and subscribes your email list and you share your videos on all those platforms that person is almost guaranteed to learn about every new video that you upload and now it's time for strategy number

three step up your production value the first few videos that i uploaded to youtube look like this yeah not great to shoot those videos i asked a buddy of mine to come over my house with this dslr camera and i just sort of said my thoughts about seo not only did those videos look rough and i desperately needed to get a haircut but there was very little structure to each video i just kind of winged it

and because of that my content was all over the place and even though i'm a little bit embarrassed to show people that video today i'm glad i published it when you're just starting out on youtube one of the keys is just to figure out what does and doesn't work for you and your audience and the only way to do that is to record using the skills and equipment that you have on hand but as your channel

grows your production value needs to grow with it for example flash forward to today and i record all my videos at a high end recording studio and i work with professional video editors and animators to make my videos look and sound great i also write a detailed script to keep my delivery on point this script literally contains every word that i'm going to say including this line that you're reading right now to be clear you definitely

don't need to go all out on production value the goal here is to gradually step up your production value as your channel grows for example if you look at mkbhd his videos look great but when you compare his recent stuff to his earlier videos you can see a big difference and it's the same story for mr beast jenna marbles and dude perfect the bottom line if you're serious about growing your youtube channel you need to constantly

try to improve your production value this could mean investing in a new camera new mic or a lighting set or it could be something as simple as writing a detailed outline before you shoot again the goal here isn't to become the next james cameron or steven spielberg as long as you're gradually improving the production value of every video that you publish you're on the right track which leads us to strategy number four bog p thumbnails in

the grand scheme of things will thumbnails make or break your youtube channel probably not but just like with production value you want to spend more time in your thumbnails as you grow why according to the youtube creator academy well-designed thumbnails attract more fans to your channel and encourage viewers to watch through your videos sounds pretty important to me specifically i recommend focusing on what i call bog p thumbnails bog p thumbnails are thumbnails that are primarily

made up of the colors blue orange green purple and yellow so why do you want to focus on these colors because they're colors that you don't find that often on youtube that's because the youtube platform itself is mostly red black and white and if you use those same colors in your thumbnails they'll just blend in on the other hand thumbnails made up of orange yellow green and blue really stand out for example my original thumbnails were

pretty boring there weren't any colors that stood out flash forward to today and my thumbnails are mostly green with some purple and blue mixed in now and again and because my thumbnails stand out according to my youtube analytics my videos tend to get a pretty decent click-through rate and now it's time for strategy number five assemble a team despite what your parents might think growing a youtube channel is a lot of work as a creator on

youtube you need to come up with new topics for videos plan out every video set up your recording area shoot every video edit every video add graphics animations and color correction write seo friendly titles descriptions and tags promote each video on social media and moderate and reply to comments that come in and i'm probably forgetting a bunch of stuff and when you're first starting out you probably did all this stuff yourself which is totally okay but

if you want to grow your channel you need to get help with at least some of these steps which steps you outsource and which steps you do yourself depends on what you're best at in my case i'm not good with anything technical which is why i work with an animator and editor to make sure my videos look great and like i said back in the day i used to shoot my videos at home i bought a

bunch of box lights and sound proofing to make the videos look and sound pretty decent and yeah those videos ended up looking okay but it was a huge pain to set everything up and then take it down which is why today i go to a recording studio where i just show up step in front of the camera and get awesome footage that looks great but this doesn't mean you need to outsource everything in my case i'm

really good at seo so i still pick all of my keywords and optimize every video myself maybe in your case you're a master at editing in that case i wouldn't outsource that part instead maybe you want to get someone to help make your thumbnails or to help write seo friendly titles and descriptions the takeaway here is this your channel can't grow if you continue to do everything yourself so outsource the stuff that you're not great at

so you can focus on the things you crush and now it's time for our last strategy strategy number six create a clear channel brand in other words you want to make sure that your channel has a unique look and feel a look and feel that people can instantly recognize for example i try to make all of my branding consistent from my channel art to my channel trailer to the animations and graphics in my videos marie forleo's

channel also does a great job at this everything about her channel is super unique and consistent again this isn't a huge deal if you're just starting out in the early days of my channel nothing matched it was all random which is okay if you're new to youtube but if you want to become a professional your channel needs to look professional so right now do a quick audit of your channel's visual assets specifically look at these elements

of your channel and see if they all match up if so great if not that's something that it'd start to work on okay so before we close out this video i've got a quick bonus strategy for you increase your average view duration improving your average view duration is a great way to get more views and subscribers why well when you upload videos that keep people watching youtube will promote your videos across youtube automatically in fact youtube

states that videos that get watched for long periods of time tend to get promoted on the platform and the best way to increase average view duration create longer videos seriously longer videos almost always have a longer average view duration compared to short videos why because math for example take two videos with the exact same audience retention fifty percent if one of the videos is significantly longer than the other it's gonna rack up a higher average view

duration for example check out this video from my channel it's almost 20 minutes long which is way longer than most other videos on this topic that tend to be about four to five minutes long and because my video is long my average view duration is actually over five minutes which is one of the reason that this video has over 500 000 views to be clear i'm not recommending that you pad your videos with fluff and filler

that's gonna do more harm than good instead the goal is to cover pretty much everything there is to know about a topic in a single video so there you have it seven ways to take your youtube channel to the next level if you like this video make sure to subscribe to my youtube channel right now just click on the subscribe button below this video and if you want exclusive seo and traffic techniques that i only share

with subscribers head over to backlinko.com and hop on the newsletter it's free now i want to turn it over to you with strategy from today's video are you going to use to grow your youtube channel are you going to boost your production value or try putting out longer videos let me know by leaving a comment below right now [Music] you