YouTube is an entertaining platform with over 2 billion active users. In 2020, the platform introduced a fun way for its users to engage and interact with one another. YouTube Shorts is similar to Facebook and Instagram Stories. Shorts are short-form videos that can be created using the YouTube Mobile App.
Some call Shorts the YouTube version of TikTok. These vertical videos can be recorded for up to 60 seconds and show up in YouTube’s search results. Let’s walk through the detailed steps on how to optimize YouTube Shorts that capture your target audience’s attention and increase views for your long-form videos. But before we dive in, let’s first learn why you must optimize YouTube shorts.
Why Optimize YouTube Shorts?
Investing time to optimize your YouTube Shorts can help you exponentially grow your channel in the long term. A few key factors for optimizing YT Shorts include.
Higher Visibility
YT shorts are the gateway to enhance the reach of your long-form videos. Industry reports state that YouTube Shorts had gained an estimated 70 billion views in a single day, indicating the rising popularity among the audience on YouTube. Optimized YouTube Shorts have higher chances of appearing in the Shorts feed of your target audience, thus increasing their discoverability.
Attracts More Engagement
Creating interesting short videos with intriguing titles and trending topics or audio keeps your viewers hooked and attracts more likes, shares, and other engagement. This encourages the platform to push your content further to a larger audience segment.
YouTube Shorts Pulls in More Potential Subscribers
If your Shorts videos are optimized to resonate closely with your target audience, they are more likely to convert into loyal subscribers from casual viewers. Why? Because they are constantly scrolling through content. When something engaging and interesting comes up, it immediately grabs their attention.
Increases Overall Watchtime
What is the single best way to increase the watch time of your YouTube videos? Constantly getting more views on your videos helps to get higher watch times and positively impacts your performance. Additionally, it can also help you achieve your YouTube monetization goals.
Better Algorithm performance and higher growth
Constantly uploading videos on YouTube helps the algorithm better understand your content and your channel’s active status, and accordingly pushes your content to your target audience.
Overall, knowing how to optimize YouTube Shorts can give you a significant advantage in growing your YouTube channel.
Proven Tips To Get More Views on YouTube Shorts
Optimizing YT shorts is critical to consistently attracting long-term viewers to your videos and channel. Here are a few strategies you can implement right away.
Right aspect ratio for YouTube Shorts Videos
When creating them, use the square aspect ratio, i.e., 9:16, in the vertical format. This practice will help YouTube automatically categorize your videos as Shorts.
Length Restrictions
While recording Shorts, remember to trim your videos to 3 minutes in length. However, with a longer duration, ensure the content is engaging enough to hold the viewer’s attention. This will help you optimize your videos more effectively.
Hashtag for YT Shorts Video
While writing titles and descriptions for your YouTube Shorts, remember to include the hashtag #Shorts in both places. Although optional, this step will help your Shorts appear on YouTube’s Shelf, which is the YT Shorts home feed section on the app. Once you start attracting viewers to your videos, you will see ‘Shorts’ as the new traffic source in YouTube Analytics.
Use Customized Thumbnails
Ideally, creators customize their YouTube video thumbnails to make them visually appealing to viewers. Usually, YouTube Clips selects a random frame from your video as a YouTube thumbnail, but you can customize it using tools like Canva. Customized thumbnails increase your click-through rate, leading to more views of your videos.
Include Trending Audio
Your shorts tend to perform better if you use trending audio or copyright-free music from the YouTube audio library. Ensure that the audio is of high quality and clear. Clear audios engage the viewer more and is critical to higher viewer retention.
Use Captions
Many viewers prefer to watch videos without sound. Therefore, you should add captions to enhance viewer retention. You must manually add the captions, use auto-generated CC, or add them via an editing tool like CapCut.
Write Catchy Titles
To hook the audience and compel them to engage with the video, write a catchy title that incorporates your focus keyword. Without using clickbait words, you must use titles that include numbers, percentages, shocking statements, etc., which attract viewers to click on the video, improving the video’s CTR.
Be Consistent
To appear in the search results or the trending section, so that more audiences discover your channel, you must regularly upload videos. You must post at least twice a week.
Analyze the Performance
Consistently monitor the performance of your shorts in YouTube analytics. The insights gained help you adjust and refine your content strategies to better suit the needs of your audience.
Conclusion
Learning how to optimize YouTube shorts is the key to standing out in a crowded niche. Follow the strategies in this article and watch your short views soar with time. However, to ensure the success of these strategies, you must consistently implement and adjust them according to your niche and target audience. Embrace this exciting new YouTube format and utilize it as a tool to grow your channel.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. How do I get a lot of views on YouTube Shorts?
Focus on creating engaging, entertaining, short-form content with a strong hook, add the right hashtags, utilize trending audio, and leverage trending topics to create YouTube Shorts that attract a lot of views from your target audience.
Q2. What is the best time to post YT Shorts?
It is best to dive into YouTube analytics to discover the best time to post YT shorts that reach your potential audience. However, according to statistics, you can post Shorts between 2 pm and 4 pm on weekdays and between 6 pm and 1 am on weekends to attract maximum viewership.
Q3. Does SEO matter on YouTube Shorts?
Yes, SEO matters on YouTube Shorts. For the short video to be discovered on YouTube, it is essential to optimize it with relevant keywords in the title and description to improve its visibility. Additionally, including 3-4 trending hashtags will attract the right audience and drive engagement to your channel.
Q4. How do I promote my YouTube shorts with Veefly?
Here’s how you can promote YouTube video Shorts with VeeFly:
- Open VeeFly and sign up.
- Copy and paste the URL of the Short that you want to promote.
- Choose your budget.
- Select the location or the countries you want to promote your Short video.
- Enter the keywords or phrases you want to target
- Finally, finish the check out process.
Q5. How many hashtags should you use on YouTube Shorts?
It is generally recommended to use at least 2-3 relevant hashtags for the YouTube Shorts video, but you must use a mix of long-tail and niche tags to improve discoverability. Also, using quality over quantity will help the video reach the intended audience.