Transcription
YouTube has a brand new algorithm, and sadly, people are still listening to advice that is really just outdated and bad advice. Stuff like ranking your videos in search or keyword research. And the channels that are blowing up on YouTube right now aren't using search at all. And I'll prove it to you.
So, this YouTube channel right here, I helped them go from zero subscribers to 40,000 subscribers in just 4 months. And we can see where all that traffic came from. And I want you to guess, put in the comments, how much of that traffic do you think came from search or ranking videos in search? 1.4%. That's pretty low. So, most of our traffic is not coming from search.
I helped this channel go from 60,000 subscribers to over 400,000 subscribers in just 5 months. And guess how much of that traffic was search? 3.2%. Pretty low. And so if you want to actually get views on YouTube today with what actually works right now, you want to focus on a different type of traffic. And I'm going to show you where this traffic is coming from. It's homepage. It's suggested. In other words, this is what YouTube calls recommendations. This is when you open up your phone, you put on your TV, and YouTube's going to recommend you content. That is what we want to optimize for. And when you do that correctly, you can grow so fast on YouTube right now. I think it's a great opportunity whether you are starting from scratch or you're just trying to revamp things right now. It's time to go all-in, but you have to go in this new direction and new strategy that actually works right now. I have a ton of students that I help grow their YouTube channels, and they are implementing this method of optimizing for recommendations, and it is blowing up their channels.
I got to pause the video real quick 'cause I have two super exciting announcements. Okay, number one, I have a brand new program coming out called the YouTube Accelerator. It's essentially teaching you everything that I'm talking about in this video about getting recommended on YouTube. And I've had clients pay me $10,000 a month and more to do this for them. And I'm now making it accessible to anyone who wants to join at a fraction of that cost. And so I'm really excited for that. And second thing is, you may notice I have another baby on my chest. We have three boys under three. And you know, during this time, I took some time off to spend with the family. And I really just realized, you know, the past year and a half, I've been serving entrepreneurs. I love entrepreneurs, but I'm like, this stuff on YouTube can be life-changing for so many people, hobbyists, people that are entrepreneurs still are going to find it so valuable. But for the person who literally just wants to grow a YouTube channel, maybe get brand deals, this is the program I am so excited to share with the world. And so, check out that link in the description for more information. We'll get back to the video. Peace out.
Now, I know some of you guys might be skeptical because YouTube search, uh, it's been a very big thing and a very popular thing for growing on YouTube, but I want to break this down because you probably heard before that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. And the truth is, you know, these reports, they aren't accounting for AI platforms like ChatGPT, which I was using today many times to search up answers instead of Google. And so in those reports, you're not seeing AI yet. And I think eventually they are going to put in AI. So we can see like, you know, ChatGPT is used for search, uh, more than YouTube or whatever, or different AI platforms. And I'm not saying that is the case. I don't know. But I'm just saying if you look at human behavior, I think search is moving towards AI because it's so much easier to get your answers. It's so much better. And YouTube's even implementing AI into it so that you can ask a video for the answer. Um, and so I just think it's kind of where it's going is that YouTube videos aren't the best option for answering your question when it comes to search all the time. I think there's a, there's a place for it for sure, but I think it's going to get replaced by AI.
And if you actually go on YouTube right now and you go into the search, a few interesting things are going to happen. As far as long-form videos go, what's going to happen is if you do this, we're all going to get different results in search. It's going to show you channels that you've watched before. Big or small, it's going to show you channels that you've watched before. If you search for something, and especially more recently. So, for example, if I type in like, uh, sales script on YouTube search, I'm going to get Cole Gordon's videos because I'm watching his videos. Um, now on, on the flip side, if you type in something, which I did here with a few different niches that you've never, uh, watched in this niche before, YouTube's going to recommend larger creators. All of these have a ton of subscribers. And it's very interesting because it's not recommending smaller channels. And if you think about it, it kind of makes sense because if YouTube is going to first prioritize who you like watching, right? They're going to show those. But if you type in something like how to cook a steak, but you've never watched food videos on YouTube, it's going to give you a video that they believe you'll love. And so they need more data. They need more views. And so typically, it's going to promote for those people these bigger, larger YouTube channels. So it's not really best for smaller creators.
But the other thing is, if you just go on YouTube and you search something, you're going to get Shorts for sure on your phone. But even on desktop, I'm starting to see so many Shorts when I type in something on search because if you think about it, people want to, you know, I want to learn how to fix my sink that's leaking in less than 60 seconds. I don't want to watch a 15-minute long video on how to fix my sink. And so search really is, I think, just number one, it doesn't work. And number two, there's such a better way to grow on YouTube that works for small channels that have zero subscribers like I showed you, and also larger channels. This opportunity here with this new algorithm that totally, you know, isn't super new. It's, um, it's been around for a while, but as search is going out, I see a lot more people focusing on this, and it still works today.
So, this is interesting, too. So, I found this, um, and this is actually a few years old, but on YouTube, on their, on their website, it talks about how recommendations drive a significant amount of the overall viewership on YouTube, even more than, uh, channel subscriptions or search, which is showing you that larger than search is recommendations. And I remember Neil Mohan, uh, the CEO of YouTube, I think this was back in 2018, he said that YouTube viewership, 70% of it is from the recommendations algorithm on YouTube. That is crazy. And I'm, that was way back then. I think it's way bigger now. And so I think this is a huge opportunity for us to look at. It's been working. It continues to work. Even right now, it's working. And you got to learn how to do it this way. And I know for a lot of people, this is just, they're not used to this. They're not used to it at all. But I'm going to show you exactly how to do this.
So let's start by breaking down how to even get views on YouTube in the first place, right? Um, and if I were to just sum this up, make it as easy as possible. You want to get people to click and then watch. That's it. You're going to get more views if you increase the clicks and you increase the amount of time people are watching your stuff. That's how you get views on YouTube. Now, it's simple, but it's a lot of people don't tell you how do you, how do you get more people to click? How do you get people to watch longer? Uh, that can be complicated or not even complicated. Sometimes it can just be different than what we're used to. And so, let's just start with that. You got to get someone to click on your video because YouTube is not, uh, you don't open up the app and start scrolling instantly watching videos like TikTok. YouTube's a bit more like Netflix. You're going to open it up. You're going to scan what videos you want to watch, maybe watch the trailer or the hook, the first 30 seconds, bounce out like, ah, maybe I want to watch this, watch that. That's how YouTube works, right? It's a click-first platform. People have to actually click on your videos to watch them. And so, but the thing is though, before someone actually clicks your video, you have to get recommended by this new, new recommended algorithm. You have to get recommended. And so what does YouTube call this? They call this an impression. You have to get impressions. This means your video shows up on that homepage, suggested, wherever it is. And you have to get shown up on these pages. And even if no one clicks on them, you're getting impressions. YouTube's showing your stuff. Some of you guys are not even getting impressions. You're not even getting the chance to get clicked on because you're not getting any impressions. And I think I heard Mr. Beast say this before, which was, if they don't click, they don't watch. If they don't click on your videos, they don't watch your videos. I, I want to add to that and say, if you don't get impressions, you don't get clicks. So, you, you have to get impressions to get clicks, and then people can watch your video. Okay.
So let's focus on this because I don't think it's talked about enough is how to get recommended by YouTube. And so the question we have to ask is, how can I get recommended on homepage? How can I get recommended on suggested? And in YouTube's fancy terms, the question we should all be asking is, how do I get impressions? How do I get YouTube to shout me out? Because if YouTube starts shouting you out, your YouTube channel is going to grow, as long as you know how to get them to click and to watch. But it starts before that with getting impressions. In order to explain how to get impressions, I want to show you how this new YouTube algorithm works. Okay. And it kind of works in like two different phases. If you think about YouTube impressions, it, it's, it's two different phases. And so we'll start with number one. And this is really important because when you understand how it works, you can use it for your advantage to get more, I call them at-bats, right? An impression is you get an at-bat. You might not get a base hit or a home run, but you're getting an at-bat if you are getting impressions. And once I break this down, you understand it, I'll share with you the simple, like three-step system to start implementing to get more views on YouTube.
So let's look at this as phase one of the YouTube algorithm. How phase one works is that you are going to post a YouTube video and you are going to get some impressions. Even if you have zero subscribers, I just started a brand new YouTube channel a month ago. I still am getting impressions because YouTube is giving, uh, small channels a shot. So, it's a great opportunity to start from scratch. But the other thing is, even if you have an older channel, meaning like, you know, it's been around for a few years or you have a lot of subscribers, people aren't engaged, whatever, you're still going to get impressions because even if you have subscribers when you post that video, even in the subscription feed, you're getting impressions, right? What I mean is, if people click on that subscription feed, I'm not going to get notified. But on YouTube, if they click on subscriptions and they scroll down, they're going to see your video was posted, and that is an impression. They might not click on it. They might not be interested anymore, but you're getting impressions. So phase one is YouTube just going to give you some level of impressions. Why does YouTube do this? Because they have to figure out, is this a good video? Do we want to recommend it to more people? And so YouTube is really just looking for viewers that would be interested in this video. And then they're looking for viewers who actually enjoy this video, right? They want to find that person who clicks on this video and loves it. They maybe subscribe to your channel. They want to watch other videos. They're looking for those people. And so YouTube's AI knows what your video is about.
So under phase one, I want to share like how it works, kind of a little bit deeper, right? YouTube has an AI algorithm. It knows what your video is about. It knows every word that you say in your video. It knows who's in your video. It knows who's in your thumbnail, what text is on your thumbnail. It knows all sorts of stuff like that because it even has to filter, right? Is this, um, appropriate for just adults or kids? It's screening, you know, certain swear words. It's doing all sorts of different stuff with the AI. They're not having humans go through all of this. So, YouTube's using AI to collect all this data about your video. Now, here's the truth. It really has nothing to do with your tags, your keywords, your hashtags, all this old stuff on YouTube that people think matters a ton. I've posted videos with zero tags, no description, no hashtags, cute, none of that, and it gotten million views plus on my basketball channel, Basketball Club. It, it's gotten tons of views without doing any of that because that doesn't matter anymore.
And here's what I'd say because I, I literally, I just did a, I call it a YouTube sprint, but it's basically like a YouTube strategy session that, um, I'll do with with people who, it's basically a three-hour workshop and we figure out what's your YouTube strategy. Let's build out some, um, I build out their YouTube strategy. Then we come up with video ideas and we kind of implement like, okay, over these next few months, do this stuff. So I was doing this YouTube sprint, and he was asking me, you know, because he's starting a new channel from scratch. He has his other channel. He's starting a new one. And he was like, "Should I use tags, keywords, hashtags, uh, descriptions, you know, keyword optimize your descriptions?" And because it was a brand new channel, I answered it this way. I said, "For the first month or two, sure, do it, but don't spend a lot of time doing it." And even now, like, I'll add in tags to my videos sometimes, you know, if I feel like it. Uh, because why do I do that? It's not that it matters, and I guarantee you there's, there's getting your click-through rate matters. Getting people to click your thumbnails, your titles, your video ideas, your editing, your scripts, like all that stuff matters 1,000 times more. But what I told him is in the beginning, you want to give YouTube a little bit more data. Like I said, it knows everything in your video, but give it a little bit of extra help to say that, yeah, this video is about blank. And that's just going to maybe help it a little bit more get it to the right people because YouTube is just trying to find who this video is for. And so you just want to be like super accurate with those, uh, keywords, those tags of what the video is about so YouTube can go find the people interested in that stuff. Um, but I wouldn't overthink it. And even now, I tell people, I'm like, don't spend more than 3 minutes. Like, just use AI to create some sort of tags, description, whatever. Like, it, it does not matter. But in the beginning for a brand new channel, I'd be like, "Yeah, go for it." And then like, you do not, you really don't need it. You don't need it at all. Um, use your description for like important stuff where people can go deeper with you or maybe buy your digital product, coaching program, whatever. But besides that, doesn't matter.
So really, just to simplify phase one, what it does is it suggests or it recommends, is the word I'll use, topics, and it, and it starts to recommend to people who watch videos on those topics. And we know this because on your YouTube algorithm, you might see these things. They're called chips. And YouTube will kind of categorize what types of content you watch, right? I might watch some sports. I might watch some food stuff. I might watch some business stuff. And YouTube knows this about me. It knows I like filmmaking and all these different things. And so my algorithm as a whole is going to have different videos with different types of topics that I'm interested in. But if I'm like, just in the mood for filmmaking, I can go and click on that chip on YouTube and just get videos in that topic. And so you need to think about your YouTube videos being around a topic that people actually care for. And we'll dive deeper, um, in that into in a second.
But what's going to happen from there is we're going to move to phase two of this YouTube algorithm. And your video, when it gets some level of impressions, it's either going to perform well or it's not. Meaning people are going to click on it and watch it or they're not. Now, this is a small sample, right? But based on that small sample, and typically that small sample is not just your subscribers, it's returning viewers. People who've just watched a video or three videos of yours recently. When you post that new video, it's going to show it to them first because they think they're most kind of like hot leads for this new video of yours. Uh, and so you want to perform well, and if people are clicking on it and they're watching that video, then it's going to show it to more people. So phase two is this expansion phase where it starts to show that video and give you more impressions by recommending that video to more people who also have similar watch history to the people who liked it. Basically just taking like, if this person loved it, let's go find like five other people who have, like they watch the same videos on YouTube. Let's go recommend it to all these people. If they love it, and let's, we have a hundred of those people who also watch kind of similar stuff. Let's go recommend it to those people. That's phase two as it starts to expand and give you more and more impressions. And you can see why it's also important not to just get impressions by making the right videos, but to make sure it performs well by getting the click, getting people to watch.
Okay, so in short, here's how we can think about this new YouTube algorithm of recommendations, and, and there's really three steps that we're going to go over here that you can start to implement to get more views right now on YouTube. Step one is, you got to create videos on topics that actually get views. So you can't just make a video that, that people don't want to watch. I know that sounds like so basic, but let me break this down for a second because if I were to make a video about, um, maybe this, this coffee mug, it says, "Love you, Mom. This is my wife's cup." Okay, I just grabbed it. And if I were to make a video that was like, um, I reviewed my wife's coffee mug, I might really want to make that video. But if that's going to show up on, on someone's homepage, I don't think it's getting many clicks. So, we have to focus on like, well, what are topics people are actually interested in? And this is where search can come in handy because now I might go to YouTube search and type in like, coffee mugs. Now, I might start getting some ideas because I can look at the view counts and be like, "Oh, interesting. These videos." And actually, I'll just do it right now. Okay. So, I type in coffee mugs. Now, right off the bat, I can see the view counts. So, I can see we got 31,000 views on this video. If I scroll down, I can start to, uh, see more. I tested 30 travel mugs. This has 14,000 views. Um, what, what, what's really cool is I can go up here to filters and I can go to view count. And now I can see like, what are some of the most popular, uh, interesting woodturning a coffee mug. Now, I can't make that video because I don't have that. But I just want to look at these long-form videos. So I'm going to scroll down a little bit more. So here's some interesting video ideas that I know or topics that I know would get recommended to people because there's demand for it. And I know there's demand because these have 10 million views. So maybe I want to make a video instead of me just wanting to review this mug. Maybe instead I'm gonna do a watercolor coffee mug, easy DIY, and I'm gonna try it out and teach people how to do it. Right? If I was into coffee, that could be an idea. Um, it's a pretty old video, so I'd want to maybe see if there's a, a better way or different way I could do it that would perform now. But here's how to make best Nescafé coffee in five minutes without a coffee maker. Could I somehow make a video similar to that, um, and, and post that on YouTube? It might have a lot more interest. That topic might have a lot more interest than than my initial idea. The main idea here is we want to draw two circles. One of them is what you want to make on YouTube, the videos you want to make. And the other circle is what do viewers want to watch in your niche. And this is where you do a little bit of research and you make videos on topics that would actually get impressions. We made a video for Cole Gordon's channel that, uh, the title and the thumbnail was all about Alex Hormozi's new book, and it performed, it was the best video he ever posted on his YouTube channel, and a big reason for that was it was just a topic that was getting a ton of impressions. There were all sorts of videos. You know, Alex Hormozi does this big event, and people are getting a ton of views talking about the event, talking about what they learned. And so we're like, let's capitalize on this, make a video. We posted it. That was a topic that just got a ton of impressions because people were interested in that. So, if you're really into baseball and you start making baseball videos, you absolutely will get impressions simply by making videos about baseball, but also about the, the things that people are interested in right now, right? The World Series, for an example. You will get impressions. I guarantee it. And so, think about what's happening right now. What are, and there's things that are evergreen that people are interested in all the time, and really just ask yourself, like, can I make a video on a topic that I know gets a ton of views on YouTube? Because that's going to give you a way better chance to start getting more impressions and then the opportunity to get clicked.
Now, step two is you got to master the click. You have to get people to actually click on it. And you do that, uh, in a few ways, okay? And I, and I'll, I'll share with you exactly how. But the third step that I want to get to real quick before I go back is, you got to get them to watch. So remember, it goes, get people to click, get them to watch. But before that, you have to get impressions. So make videos around topics that people actually want to watch. It sounds so simple, but this is where you can do a little bit of research on YouTube. You can start to look at what's getting impressions. And here's an idea for you. Go to your homepage, and you're going to see different chips. And if, if one of these chips are, 'cause maybe you're, you watch some of the videos in your niche, you can click on that. So, I'll click on cameras. These are a ton of video ideas. And actually, there I am right there. Budget slider. And if you just start scrolling, you're going to get a lot of good ideas because these are probably videos. They're getting impressions in this niche. And you can take that, make it your own.
Now, this is going to sound like super simple and super basic, but I want you to, to think about this, right? On YouTube, we're literally just getting videos oftentimes based on our watch history. It's based on the topics we watch. So, if I'm going to watch a lot of camera videos, I'm going to get more of those cameras. And the thing is, like, I was interested in a specific camera, and I started getting that specific camera in my homepage recommendations. And so think about maybe being a little bit more specific with your content. How can you actually just hyperfocus and and target that topic that you are super passionate about? So instead of just being a food channel, be a vegan food channel if that's what it is. And try and really dominate a niche or a sub-niche before you go super, super broad. And, and a lot of people are winning on YouTube by being very direct. I, we call it the dog whistle method. Uh, if you, if you think about a dog whistle, and I were to blow this at a park, no humans are going to like turn around and be like, "What was that?" But the dogs that can hear that dog whistle are going to turn their heads and see where that's coming from. And your videos need to be a dog whistle, especially on YouTube when it can be crowded. You want to make a video and be specific with who it's going after and what your niche is about. People should land on your page or look at your videos and know exactly what your channel is about and what niche it's in. Okay? And so that's, that's step number one is really focus on your niche. What kind of topics that you want to post about that actually get views, not just satisfy your own selfish desires of making a random video, but really start to think, what would people want to watch?
Step two is, you got to master the click because now that you're getting recommended, you got to get people to click. And then from there, you can focus on getting them to watch because you can make the best video in the world, but if they do not click on it, they're never going to know it exists. And you really don't want to skip the steps and try and get ahead and make the best videos in the world, but people still aren't watching your stuff. They're not clicking on it. You're still not growing. And so that's why I always tell people, like, let's first focus on getting people to click. Because typically, most of you guys have good content that people would want to watch. And when I say good content, I mean it's valuable. And I don't, I'm not saying it's hyper-edited. I'm not saying that it is, uh, crazy storytelling and challenges. Uh, that can be the case and that can be, you know, content people want to watch. But sometimes, like, you just pulling out your phone, recording a video unedited could be the best video in the world. I want people to find that video. And that's why we got to focus on how do we title this thing? How do we thumbnail this thing? And video ideas, titles, thumbnails all go together. I call it packaging. But you have to master the art of packaging if you want to win on YouTube and win with the new YouTube algorithm.
So, I have a whole video breaking this down, exactly how to get people to click on your videos. I go super in-depth, so I'm not going to do that right now. Just click on the screen, check that out, and I'll see you guys over there. Peace.