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Low YouTube Views? Watch This Video

0h 18m video Published May 15, 2025 Transcribed Aug 3, 2026 С Стас Маар
Beginner 10 min read For: Aspiring YouTube creators and small channel owners looking to grow their audience.
AI Trust Score 65/100
⚠️ Average / Some Fluff

"Delivers solid, actionable advice for YouTube growth, though it includes some self-promotion and could be more concise."

AI Summary

In this video, Stas Mar, a YouTube producer, shares strategies for growing a small or new YouTube channel. He emphasizes the importance of SEO optimization, competitor analysis, and the 'capture square' technique, which includes four key attention points: idea, thumbnail, title, and autoplay. He also discusses the pitfalls of buying promotion and the importance of audience engagement.

[00:01]
Introduction and Credibility

Stas Mar introduces himself as an expert who promotes experts on YouTube, having created over 1,500 videos in three years. He promises to share producer secrets for beginners.

[00:14]
How YouTube Works

YouTube makes money from advertising, so it wants to show content that keeps viewers watching. New channels have low click-through rates (0.2-3%) because YouTube doesn't yet know the audience.

[01:10]
SEO Optimization for New Channels

Use keywords in titles, descriptions, and tags to help YouTube understand your audience. Use Google Keyword Planner and YouTube search suggestions to find effective keywords with low competition.

[02:18]
Using YouTube Search Suggestions

Type a query related to your video topic into YouTube search to see popular suggestions. This helps formulate video ideas that match what people are actually searching for.

[03:10]
Avoid Hyped Titles for New Channels

New channels are less likely to be recommended, so focus on search-friendly titles rather than sensational ones. YouTube needs time to figure out who to show your content to.

[04:30]
Competitor Analysis

Analyze competitors by searching for your topic, filtering by views, and examining their titles, covers, and content. Create a table in Excel to track triggers that capture attention.

[05:42]
Finding Triggers

Identify triggers by removing objects from competitor covers and words from titles to see what makes them effective. General triggers like 'too much' or 'expensive' work across niches.

[07:29]
Analyze Introductions

Watch the beginnings of 30-50 competitor videos to understand hooks. Apply successful techniques to your own content.

[08:23]
Capture Square Technique

The capture square consists of four points: subject (idea), thumbnail, title, and autoplay. Each must be effective to get viewers to open your video.

[09:06]
First Point: Encompassing Idea

Choose ideas that are interesting and broad. A good idea can compensate for weaker titles or thumbnails. Example: a video about the downsides of Krasnodar attracted wide interest.

[10:12]
Second Point: Clickable Cover

Thumbnails should have only one point of attention, with a maximum of four objects. Avoid clutter. Test different covers using A/B testing in Creative Studio.

[11:33]
Avoid Branding on Small Channels

Don't use logos or consistent branding on covers while your channel is small. Instead, test diverse covers to see what works.

[12:14]
Third Point: Perfect Title

Titles should be short (52-56 characters), clear, and arouse curiosity. Use questions like 'Why I will never go back to Thailand again?' to engage viewers.

[12:42]
Fourth Point: Autoplay

Autoplay shows the first seconds of your video when hovering. Over 50% of viewers decide to open based on these frames. Use text overlays and hooks to make them compelling.

[14:13]
Editing and Feedback

Editing should match your audience and topic, avoiding flashy effects. Engage with comments, even haters, to build loyalty. Respond calmly to negative comments.

[15:49]
Search Ranking Challenges

New channels may not appear in search results initially. Release several videos on similar topics to improve chances. Avoid buying promotion, as it harms organic reach.

[17:46]
Checking Search Rankings

Use the VDCE extension to see where your video ranks for each tag. Aim for top 10 positions to get traffic from search.

To grow a small YouTube channel, focus on SEO, competitor analysis, and the capture square technique. Avoid shortcuts like buying promotion, and engage with your audience to build loyalty.

Mentioned in this Video

Tutorial Checklist

1 01:10 Use Google Keyword Planner to find keywords with low competition for your video topic.
2 02:18 Type a query into YouTube search to see popular suggestions and formulate your video idea.
3 04:30 Analyze competitors by searching your topic, filtering by views, and noting their titles, covers, and content.
4 05:42 Identify triggers by removing objects from covers and words from titles to see what captures attention.
5 07:29 Watch the beginnings of 30-50 competitor videos to learn effective hooks.
6 08:23 Apply the capture square technique: ensure your idea, thumbnail, title, and autoplay are all compelling.
7 10:12 Create thumbnails with only one point of attention and test different versions using A/B testing.
8 12:14 Write short, curiosity-provoking titles (52-56 characters) that appeal to a wide audience.
9 12:42 Optimize the first seconds of your video for autoplay with text overlays and hooks.
10 15:49 Release several videos on similar topics to improve search ranking, and avoid buying promotion.

Study Flashcards (9)

What is the typical click-through rate for new channels?

easy Click to reveal answer

0.2 to 3%

00:55

What are the two ways to find keywords for YouTube SEO?

medium Click to reveal answer

Google Keyword Planner and YouTube search suggestions

01:22

What is the capture square technique?

medium Click to reveal answer

It consists of four points: subject (idea), thumbnail, title, and autoplay.

08:23

What is the recommended maximum number of objects on a thumbnail?

easy Click to reveal answer

Four objects

10:40

What is the ideal title length in characters?

easy Click to reveal answer

52-56 characters

12:29

What percentage of viewers decide to open a video based on autoplay frames?

medium Click to reveal answer

More than 50%

13:08

Why should new channels avoid branding on covers?

medium Click to reveal answer

Because they need to test diverse covers to see what works, and branding limits experimentation.

11:33

What is the consequence of buying promotion for a new channel?

hard Click to reveal answer

It can bury the channel and stop organic recommendations once payment ends.

17:20

How can you check your video's search ranking for a tag?

medium Click to reveal answer

Use the VDCE extension to see the hash and number next to each tag.

17:46

💡 Key Takeaways

🔧

SEO is crucial for new channels

Provides a concrete method to help YouTube understand your audience, which is essential for growth.

01:10
⚖️

Capture square framework

Offers a structured approach to video creation that covers all key attention points.

08:23
🔧

Title curiosity gap

Shows how to craft titles that provoke curiosity and increase click-through rates.

12:14
💡

Avoid buying promotion

Warns against a common mistake that can permanently harm a channel's organic reach.

17:20

[00:01] small channel. Today I'll show you how you can take off on YouTube, even if mom, who also doesn't watch your videos. I'm Stas Mar, I promote experts on YouTube. Together with his team, he created and released more than one and a half thousand videos

[00:14] in three years. Today I'll share my experience and reveal some producer secrets for beginner will need to understand is how YouTube and its algorithms work, and how YouTube decides who to show videos to. It is clear

[00:26] to make money. He makes money from advertising, which means the more content he showed, watched that content, which means he made more money from advertising. This means YouTube more likely to be interested in the content. And many newbies make the mistake of

[00:41] figures out who to show content to. But in the early stages, especially at the beginning of a channel's life, when there's no content, YouTube has a hard time figuring out the shows on new channels are mostly a failure. And the click-through rate of covers on such

[00:55] videos is always very low, from 0.2 to 3%. Because of this, many aspiring some kind of crap, but this is not true. YouTube always needs help from the start, first videos. And here you need to understand that the system takes into account the entire context

[01:10] that you write in the description under the video. Both the title and the description of the video, indicate in the description. If you have a small or new channel, be sure to use words

[01:22] YouTube search in your video's title, description, and tags. And to find such words, there are only two ways. The first is to not advertising it, but it really helps. You install it through the Google see an icon. And when you write tags for the video, you will

[01:37] IQ icon under the tag, and you'll see all similar queries, their parameters that will help you understand how effective such a query will be title. I recommend doing this work before you shoot

[01:51] understand what to use in the first seconds of the video and what to call effective. I especially recommend using words in which the videoq considers the competition to be low. Then you will have a very high probability of

[02:04] name. That is, we prioritize such words and will they convey the meaning of your video. Otherwise, words cannot be . The second way to stand out from the competition and

[02:18] found on YouTube is to enter a specific query into YouTube search that's similar to the topic of your future video. YouTube will even suggest specific titles for you to help you formulate the idea for your video.

[02:31] For example, we type in the YouTube search how to create. And YouTube itself offers us the options that people search for most often. How to create a Gamelabs account on Roblox, how to second account on Like, and so on. If we're interested in a specific topic,

[02:44] or a YouTube channel, we type YouTube directly, and it shows channel, then they search for how to create a YouTube channel in 2024, which is already an outdated query, and a channel for making money on YouTube, and so on. And there you go,

[02:57] formulate the topic of your future video. For beginners, this approach to effective, giving you a chance to be featured in recommendations and searches by your audience. But it would be less effective to hope that your hyped-up video with a

[03:10] hyped-up title, for example, made a channel in one day and gained 10,000 low chance of being recommended because new channels are less likely to be recommended, YouTube will have to spend a long time figuring out who to show it to, and no

[03:22] , meaning no one writes exactly that kind of wording. Therefore, we focus on YouTube search and IQ types. Many YouTube experts will tell you that writing a description for a video so that the words match the

[03:34] the meaning is not necessary. You can leave this field empty and place n’t need to write tags. But this is the wrong approach. Initially, YouTube needs to be prompted and helped to understand who your audience is. If we leave these fields empty and

[03:48] will have to poke around longer before it figures out who it should show it to. This likely be empty, and the channel will earn a bad rating. Why do can be left blank? Because on already-promoted channels, you really don't

[04:03] need to write anything in the description or tags, because a promoted YouTube viewers, and these statistics help YouTube understand who else should watch, who is the right viewer. He has the viewer's data. That's why

[04:16] statistics and no idea who your viewer is. Therefore, any hints, This entire section on optimization is called SEO optimization. I think you now understand how important this is, and optimize your new videos on new

[04:30] small channel will need to do to grow faster is to conduct a thorough competitor analysis. You see, YouTube is a platform, a website, a other. Here everyone can download content for free and compete for free

[04:45] in content quality and information density. In terms of interestingness, other. And whoever wins takes a big piece of the pie, and whoever doesn't win shares small pieces of the pie with others. Do you understand? And

[04:58] analysis and don’t understand at all what needs to be done. And this superficial approach is precisely what . But there is nothing complicated in the analysis . Simply enter you're planning to make into a search, and YouTube will show you similar videos. But collect

[05:13] filter by the number of views, click here and here, and YouTube will tell you which videos were the most effective. Look at them, they look like, their covers, what their titles look like. But the best thing to do is

[05:28] table somewhere in Excel and add the competitor’s video to this table. the title and write what, in your opinion, catches the viewer's attention so strongly . And these strong words or objects are called triggers.

[05:42] You will need to capture these triggers in the form of a short phrase or word. What effective? Why did this video do so newbies simply don't see these triggers. They don't understand what a trigger is, how

[05:55] will find it correctly. But the method for finding such triggers is very simple, and any schoolchild can find it look at the competitor's cover and describe all the objects you object, yes, for interaction there, with which the person interacts or

[06:10] the object itself. And the first thing you will need to do is to start removing one object at a time that is less effective, in your opinion, and look at the cover. the very object you just removed from it was missing? If yes,

[06:23] Let's remove the next one. And so we do this in turn with each object. If you realize that the cover's appeal has immediately disappeared, and you would trigger. The same will apply to the name. To find what it is about

[06:36] the title that really grabs your attention and write it down in this table, decide what can be either a single word or a whole phrase. And remove one word or phrase from the title and determine whether you would open such a video if

[06:49] that part of the title was missing. And we write down this phrase or describe what kind of understand that there are general triggers, there are specific triggers, yes, used as techniques, yes, too much, too little, expensive, cheap,

[07:03] attract attention regardless of the topic. in your videos, then please, there is almost every chance that you will already be of these triggers may not be relevant to the topic of your video. And

[07:17] specifically for your topic, for your niche. help you identify both general triggers and those specific ones that will attract viewers' attention specifically in your niche . I hope I didn't

[07:29] comments. Before I forget. When it comes to analysis, remember to check not only the covers and titles of successful videos, but also always watch at least the beginning. The introduction is that very hook that is used

[07:42] everywhere as a technique for capturing attention. It can help you achieve the same result in your video apply the techniques your competitors have used. Take a close similar topic to the video you are about to create. And I recommend

[07:56] adding 30 to 50 competitive videos similar to your complete picture of what you need to do maybe even better, than all of these competitors. Write to me on WhatsApp or

[08:09] Telegram, and I'll send you more analysis examples in other niches. Maybe this will expertise, or maybe even hit the jackpot right in your niche, hundreds of different niches during our time working on YouTube. Especially for YouTube beginners, I

[08:23] promote your small channels. And it's called a capture square. a certain expectation of the video in viewers. It is important that this expectation is met will watch the video longer. This is where the capture-square technique came from,

[08:38] which consists of four key points of attention capture. Subject: thumbnail, preview, title, and first seconds of autoplay of the video. For those who don't it's when you hover your mouse over a video and the first few seconds of the video are shown without

[08:51] very closely related to the points of attention, so too are the points of attention attention is unsuccessful or ineffective, you will most likely not be his video opens. I am certainly not Pythagoras, but I propose to examine

[09:06] understand perfectly well that not all creators have time to delve into the intricacies of working on YouTube. If you're looking for a turnkey content production solution, my channel with guaranteed results, leaving you with up to 8 hours a month to devote to YouTube

[09:19] filming. Contact information for contacting us is in the description. So, the first point of the square is the encompassing idea. It is important to choose ideas that are of interest to a good idea may not get a lot of views right away, but it will

[09:32] definitely bring them in the long run. And understand the trick that a video with a good idea preview or title. This way you can increase your reach. And if the idea is not interesting, well, nothing will help. For example, on our client Mikhail Khryapin's channel, a

[09:45] video about the 10 main downsides of Krasnodar turned out to be incredibly engaging and interesting. And idea itself. Not only does he talk about his experiences in the video , he also makes a list of the city's ten main problems, which would be

[09:59] and, in principle, even for those who aren't planning to visit Krasnodar. This means it is comprehensive and broad. And this point of the square is at the bottom, and it helps to create a strong foundation. And even if something goes wrong at a later stage, a

[10:12] good idea, even with a less-than-clickable title and a discovered. The second point of the square is located nearby and also creates the foundation of the roller. And this is a clickable cover for the video. Some people call it a preview,

[10:25] important parts of promoting any channel. And for the preview to be effective, you always need to create only one point of attention within the cover, object. And this is only necessary for one thing: so that the viewer has time to grasp

[10:40] the idea of ​​your video in these few 0.1 seconds . Therefore, it is not possible to allow a jumble of different objects in the cover sketch . The limit will be the use of four objects. Moreover, each word is a separate object

[10:52] someone will write in the comments: “Yes, my preview is almost 20 words long” and my exception I was talking about earlier. If you have a perfect idea and all the other points of the square are done well, then you have a higher chance that the

[11:07] thumbnail puzzle will not be as important. In general, text on the covers is not required, recommend using both videos with and without text to determine the optimal A-testing feature, which is now available in Creative Studio when you

[11:20] enable advanced features, and upload two or three covers at once: one another with a different composition. If it's not difficult for you to ask yourself questions before publishing.

[11:33] What distracts the viewer's attention from the main topic? Which words and objects in the preview are important, and which can simply be removed. What you definitely shouldn't have on your small channel, is branding, that is, some kind of distinctive sign

[11:47] that would supposedly distinguish you from other channels. Some company logo, some icon, the same element that you have on all your covers. It's not that it's optional, it's that it's prohibited. While your channel is small

[11:59] and unrecognizable, you need to test what might work even more effectively and make covers as diverse as possible. However, it is still we move up the square. And this is the third point of attention. Perfect

[12:14] title. The title should arouse curiosity and a desire to watch the video. titles work synergistically, that is, together, and create the impression of an should be short and clear, and preferably up to 60 characters, but

[12:29] 52-56 is better. And it's important that the title is applicable to a wide audience. Let's use an talking about. Imagine the title of the video: my trip to Thailand. Interesting? Or an example of a good title: "Why I will never go back to Thailand again?" And

[12:42] ? What happened? Why did I make this decision? This is precisely why the viewer point of attention that forms our square is the autoplay of videos. While it may not seem like a very effective way to

[12:55] viewers to open your videos, it's important to remember that autoplay is what YouTube displays when you hover over your video or scroll through your recommendations. And these first seconds, about whether there is something interesting there, will

[13:08] video will be opened. And many people underestimate how effective this attention-grabbing point is fingers and arrows like this and immediately viewers, according to statistics, more than 50% of viewers, decide to open

[13:22] first frames. If these first few seconds of the frame are structured in such a way as to strong hooks are used, which means some kind of text that will duplicate everything that happens in the video at the beginning, and it will be silently

[13:35] clear what it is about, and the viewer likes this hook, he will open the video with a high degree of probability. This is why this capture point is so attention to this. And speaking of whether it's necessary to have an intro in the first few seconds of a video,

[13:47] like, whoosh-whoosh, a caption appears, it's necessary, because that we have in reserve for autoplay will be decisive in determining whether the viewer the video, whether there's anything worthwhile in it,

[14:00] , to make this point of capture as effective as possible, we spend a lot of time thinking about our video in the first 10 seconds and thinking about what kind of hook to or shown is as attractive as possible to the viewer. YouTube

[14:13] takes is one detail to make a channel grow. And during the consultation, I and give a simple action plan. After this, your channel will get a second life. Well, or the first one, depending on the situation. I left my contact information in the

[14:27] description. Even if your square is made up of effective capture points, you don't edit it correctly. Yes, this is exactly the puzzle that may not or attract the viewer to you. The editing style should be adapted to your

[14:41] audience and the topic of the videos. Use simple and clear techniques. Well, don't forget a little creativity too. And the worst thing that can happen in editing is eye-catching editing. There are so many colors, bright inserts, transitions, zhukhs, yukhs, and music

[14:53] in the editing that the viewer already wants to calm down a little, to eat. And if you've done a great job editing , don't forget feedback from your viewers after the video is released. Why are comments a gold mine

[15:06] learn to analyze comments and use them as a way to improve your content, your videos will simply become more effective. And if you regularly loyalty and return of your viewers. The viewer likes to feel important and

[15:19] asked of you in the comments, love from the audience is guaranteed. And here is some all your viewers. Even if they are haters, if they write some nasty to answer normally and calmly. And I'm sure that 30 or even 40% of haters

[15:35] audience if you respond to their comments with restraint. Have you noticed ? If you write the title of a video that you just uploaded or even uploaded a week ago, you simply won’t find it. Your video will end up somewhere in the

[15:49] results, and, naturally, no one will ever scroll past it . And here a certain annoyance appears. Here I have tailored my video for search. I wanted to get some first . And the video itself isn't in the search, even though I did everything correctly. And

[16:02] to get into these search results. Remember helps determine what place you will occupy in the search. And this can be found out even before the video is published. But the problem is that any small or

[16:15] new channel will not show up in search results unless reality this is impossible. This means that when you publish a video, and if you've optimized everything for search, you most likely won't appear there, which will affect

[16:29] same keywords you will gradually rise higher and higher in search results. And this depends only on the retention and attractiveness of your video, that is, on the primary indicators. Initially,

[16:42] YouTube will still give test impressions to some unengaged audience, but there This will give you an opportunity to move up in video is slightly better than competing videos for this query. This means that as you

[16:54] will appear higher and higher. It's impossible for a new channel with no experience or publishing history to rank only those channels with a publishing history at the top of search results. And the advice would be this: release several

[17:08] videos on a similar topic in a row, and then the chance that you will get into the search results for the specific query you want will be much higher. And the biggest misconception and mistake that all authors stumble upon is that they think

[17:20] they will order search engine promotion through paid services. And this is called promotion to the top. This way you will bury the channel, as we once did through our own bitter channel from being recommended organically in the future . You will, of course, continue to

[17:33] if you pay for this promotion, but as soon as the payment ends, your views will drop, and recommendations will stop working altogether. In other words, never use any promotion, cheating, mutual views, or anything

[17:46] can you tell if your channel has finally started ranking in search results? You have achieved what you wanted. This is done by using the VDCE extension itself, looking at the video description below. Yes, here are your tags, and next to each tag there will be a

[17:59] hash mark and a number indicating where your video ranks in the search results for that query. Therefore, create tags that are clearly tailored to search results. This is very important. And if this search gives you

[18:11] if this search gives you #1 or #1 2 3 4 5 to 10, then this viewed through YouTube search. That is, you should always try to aim for the top results. Then you will collect all the traffic, you understand? Yes? Because people

[18:25] fifteenth or twentieth position, they'll just get tired. They will open the first scroll and choose. It is important for aspiring content creators to work on self-development. I recommend watching other videos on my channel to piece

[18:37] together the full picture of my YouTube work, bit by bit. Bye everyone.

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