Have you ever noticed that whenever you upload a new video, most of the traffic comes from YouTube browse features?
In the video below, you’ll learn…
– what browse features are
– the different types of browse features on YouTube
– how to get more views from browse features
– how to view browse features in YouTube analytics
– difference between browse features and suggested videos.
What Are Browse Features?
Browse features traffic comes from your YouTube homepage, your subscription feed, and other browsing features.
Let’s see what YouTube says…
Home is also called browse, and browse is a verb that really means somebody looking through either a set of information or in this case a set of videos without a specific intent about what they want. So that’s actually very similar to how viewers behave on home when they arrive at that destination. Maybe they come there and they’re a casual viewer. They’re not quite sure with what they want to watch, and I think that matches our recommendations on that surface too, where we have a really diverse set of options. It’s videos from your past watch history, it’s videos from channels you subscribe to, it’s videos from new viewers and videos that were popular with similar audiences.
For example, recently I twisted my knee and have been searching YouTube for how to fix inner knee pain. As a result, YouTube has been feeding me videos on how to fix inner knee pain on my YouTube homepage. It also displays videos from channels I’ve subscribed to. It’ll also display videos based upon my personal browsing behavior, even if I’m not subscribed to that channel.
Here are the other traffic sources that are included in browse features…
Home
Watch history
Subscriptions
Watch later
Personalized playlists.
Over 365 days most of my browse traffic came from home, watch history and subscriptions followed by watch later, personalized playlists and trending.
Keep in mind the videos you see displayed on the YouTube homepage are going to be very different to anybody else’s YouTube homepage because they have different browsing behavior and watch history.
Make videos on topics your audience wants to watch
Use community posts to poll your subscribers.
For example here’s a poll where I asked a question. What video creation tips would you like to learn or improve? Knowing your audience, script or outline your content, Increase retention, storytelling techniques, pace and flow. Increase retention was the most popular.
You can also enter your main keyword in the YouTube search bar to get a bunch of suggestions from YouTube. For example, if I enter YouTube algorithm in the YouTube search bar, it gives me a bunch of related suggestions that I can make videos for. If I enter “how to” before YouTube algorithm, it gives me a bunch of related questions that people are asking in the YouTube search engine and I can answer them in a video.
Another idea is to go into YouTube analytics and look at the top videos that are currently bringing in the most traffic for your channel.
Here’s how to find the top videos on your channel…
– Log into your YouTube channel
– click on analytics.
– Under the content tab, click on videos,
– scroll down to top videos.
– Click “see more” to view even more of your top videos.
– Double down on those videos by making a similar video with a different title and slightly different content.
Create a video series
Instead of just making one video, create a series of videos on related topics. For example, recently I created a series of videos on the YouTube algorithm. This also saves a lot of time trying to come up with different video topics.
Add your videos to a playlist
YouTube says, the longer you keep viewers engaged on the YouTube platform, the higher the probability your videos will be recommended by YouTube. So if a viewer watches one video in your playlist, they’re more likely to watch the related videos in that playlist.
Here are 3 ways to save a video to a playlist.
1. Select a video from your YouTube homepage.
I’m going to select this one. Click the three dots, click save to playlist. You can save the video to a current playlist, or you can click Create new playlist. Then just enter your playlist title and click create.
2. Alternatively, you can go to your video details page.
Scroll down to where it says playlists. Click the dropdown, select your playlist or create new playlist. Add your title description, then click create.
3. If you want to increase the visibility of your YouTube playlist, add it to the top of your YouTube channel homepage, add it to your video description, pin it to the top of your comments, and you can also add it in the end screen.
Use end screens and end cards
Use end screens to increase the viewing session. You can add a end screen in the last 20 seconds of your video. That may include a video, playlist, subscribe button, channel link, or even a link to an outside source.
Cards are links you can place anywhere in your video. This can be a related video, a playlist, a channel link, or link to your landing page.
Increase watch time
This is one of the top factors that will decide if your video will be recommended on YouTube. YouTube says “You can increase the chance of YouTube suggesting your content by increasing your click-through rate and your video watch time“.
Click-through rate measures how often viewers watch the video after seeing an impression.
Impressions click through rate measures how often viewers watch the video after seeing a registered impression on YouTube. So if somebody sees one of your thumbnails and clicks on it, that’s counted as part of your impression clickthrough rate.
Keep in mind that half of all channels on YouTube have an impression clickthrough rate between 2 and 10%, so if you can get higher than 10%, you’re doing really well.
What are some of the ways you increase the watch time on your videos?
Use a strong hook in the first 30 seconds of your video, which could be asking a question, making a bold statement or teasing about what’s coming up later in the video.
Keep viewers engaged throughout your content by including graphics, text, transitions, and most of all quality content.
Pinned comments.
Encourage viewers to watch a related video by pinning a comment to the top of your comments. When viewers read the comments or post their own comment, they’ll see a link to the next video posted at the top of their comments.
I also recommend posting a link to a related video in the first three lines of your video description. When a viewer is watching the video, they’ll see the related link below the video. Include keywords in your video description.
Upload a transcript of your video content.
YouTube and Google will index your videos based upon the words you used in your video’s transcript.
How to quickly create a transcript of your own video or to transcribe any video on YouTube.
Install the Chrome extension called “YouTube summary with chatGPT and Claude”
Now, when you go to your video, you’ll see transcript and summary next to your video. Click the dropdown and wait for the summary.
Now you’ve got all your video content summarized.
Go through the transcript to correct any mistakes because it’s generated by AI. To copy the transcript, click this icon that says “Copy transcript”.
How to upload your video transcript on YouTube
Go to your video details page.
Click on subtitles, click autosync,
paste your transcript.
Click edit timings,
click done.
Now, when you play the video, you’ll see the captions on the video.
Keep in mind you can use this extension to transcribe any video on YouTube. Make sure you also include a summary of your video content in your video description.
Keep in mind the first three lines of your video description is what viewers can see while they’re watching the video, so make it count.
How to view the traffic coming from browse features and channel analytics.
– Click on analytics in YouTube studio,
– Under the content tab, click on videos.
– Under key moments for audience retention, you’ll see the videos that got the highest retention in the first 30 seconds of the video.
– If you scroll down, you’ll find how viewers find your videos.
– If you click on “See More”, you will see the main traffic sources for your channel.
– If you click on browse features…in the last 28 days, most of my browse feature traffic came from home and subscriptions.
– If I change it to the last 365 days, it also shows that most of my traffic came from home and subscriptions.
How to check the browse features traffic for an individual video on YouTube
If I click on analytics for this individual video, I can see that 72% of my traffic came from browse features. If you look under how viewers found this video, YouTube recommendations 60.7%, mostly from home and some from up next.
YouTube says “it recommends videos to viewers on home and alongside the video they’re currently watching under “Up Next. This is suggested videos.
So what’s the difference between browse features and suggested videos…which one gets the most traffic?
Watch this video titled “YouTube Browse Features versus Suggested Videos: which one gets the most traffic?
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