How to Use YouTube Video Views Analytics to Grow Your Channel

Understanding your audience is one of the most critical steps in growing your channel. By using YouTube analytics, you can easily find out what people are interested in and, therefore, create videos that people are interested in. 

One of the key analytics you should look at is video views. This can help you know the type of content that attracts views so that you can constantly keep improving your videos and channels. You can make high-quality videos that keep people engaged and looking forward to more of your videos.

Importance of Measuring YouTube Video Views

YouTube view analytics can help you understand how your channel is performing, how you can improve it, and what steps to take next. With the unpredictable YouTube algorithm, it's essential to keep checking your channel analytics to keep up with the platform’s new guidelines.

What Counts as Views on YouTube?

When a viewer clicks on your video and watches for at least 30 seconds, that usually counts as a view. Even if you are the one playing your video, that will be considered a view. If a viewer plays your video more than once, it will be deemed as different views. 

However, if you keep replaying your video to be considered as views, this will be detected by YouTube. If the views from embedded videos or your YouTube videos are shared on social media, they will be considered views. Remember that YouTube views go up every day or two. Therefore, you can check back later if your activity isn't reflected every day.

Importance of Views on YouTube

YouTube views are an essential ranking factor on YouTube. The more views your videos have, the more likely YouTube is to recommend the videos on the home page and suggested videos. 

Views are also important because they provide more visibility for videos. This can be a great way of boosting awareness and increasing revenue. Besides, if you would like to monetize your videos, one of the factors that YouTube considers is the watch hours. 

The more views you get, the higher your video watch time. If you are trying to monetize your videos, this makes it easy for you to do so. If your videos are already monetized, high viewership will translate to a higher income.

How to See YouTube General Analytics

If you want to understand how viewers are receiving your videos, you should look at YouTube analytics. It will show you data such as how your videos are being received. You can then use this data to create a long-term video strategy. Here are the steps to follow to view your video analytics:

1. Sign into your YouTube account either through a desktop or mobile device.
2. Go to YouTube studio at the top right corner of your profile.
3. After signing in and accessing your YouTube channel, you can go to the Analytics tab and click on Channel Analytics.
4. You can then go to Channel Analytics. This tab is located under the video thumbnails of your top upload.
5. You can switch between tabs on the analytics page, such as Content, Research, and Audience, to better understand what is happening in each tab.
6. You will see more details on your video and overall page analytics when you click Advanced Mode. This is an excellent place to track all the metrics that you want to see.

How to Access YouTube Analytics On Mobile Devices

1. Start by downloading the YouTube Studio app. This app is available for both Android and IOS devices.
2. Once you open the app, you will see your channel analytics through the Dashboard. This will show you the number of subscribers, video views, and even the hours they mostly watch your video. To see more details on any of these metrics, you can click on See More.

Channel Analytics Overview

When you log into your YouTube Analytics page, you will see the Overview report first. This will give you an idea of your channel's success in the previous month. Under the Overview tab, you can view different metrics, such as:

• Views. This is where you will see the number of views your videos have received in the last 28 days.
• Subscribers. This shows you the number of subscribers you have gotten in the last 28 days. If you need instant notification, you should activate the notification bell.
• Watch-time report. This will show you the number of hours people have watched your video.

Real-time View

This feature will show how often your videos have been watched in real-time. It is an excellent tool for identifying the videos getting a sudden engagement spike. Therefore, you will be better positioned to know which kind of videos you should focus on.

Watch Time

Watch time calculates how many minutes that viewers spend to watch your videos. This is a very important metric because YouTube assumes a video with a higher watch time is more engaging. Therefore, if your video and watch time are high, your videos will be elevated in recommendations and search results. To view a video watch time, navigate to Analytics, Overview, and Watch Time.

Watch time is a great YouTube video view analytics showing the type of content that draws viewers' interest. It can help you improve your videos no matter the number of videos you have. You can also use this data to ensure an optimal viewing experience for your viewers. Some of the watch time metrics you should pay attention to are:

Average percentage views

This metric shows you the average time a viewer spends on a video. It's an excellent metric for showing your video's ability to hold a viewer's attention. YouTube ranks videos that hold people's attention higher and even recommends them to viewers. You can see this report in the watch time report.

Estimated watch time

This refers to the period users have spent watching your videos on your YouTube playlists or channels.

Average view durations 

This is the average period for a playback video. It is measured by dividing the total video watch time by the total video plays, including replays. This is a crucial metric for measuring how well your videos engage viewers. If your videos aren't engaging enough, viewers will bounce off them.

This will result in a low view duration. To see the average view duration, navigate to Analytics, followed by See More>Watchtime. You can then click on More Metric, followed by Average View Duration.

Audience retention 

This shows you the number of people who have viewed your videos and bounced off particular parts of the video. YouTube gives preference to videos with a higher watch time as such videos can capture viewers' attention. This metric can also help you create an excellent future video strategy. For instance, if you note a particular video has a higher audience retention rate, you can create more of such videos.

If you pay close attention to where your video dips are happening, you can quickly determine what is boring your viewers. You can then remove those elements in current and future videos. If your videos have enough data to generate the video retention report, you will see two graphs:

• Absolute retention curve. A graph showing how well your videos are retaining viewers.
• Relative retention curve. Compares one video's viewer retention compared to other YouTube videos of a similar length.

Navigate to Analytics, Engagement, and Audience Retention to watch your audience retention data.

Unique viewers 

Consider how many unique viewers are watching your channel depending on the number of unique cookies they have. Therefore, the number may be overstated for viewers watching from different devices. This can be an excellent metric to help you understand how big your audience is. 

This is also a good metric to determine the subscribers engaging with your videos. If your videos have lower unique views than subscriber count, it shows your viewers aren't watching as many videos as possible. One of the ways to increase YouTube subscribers' activity is by asking viewers to subscribe and put on the notification button for your videos. To find your playlist's unique views, navigate to Analytics, followed by Audience, and then Unique Views.

Rewatches

When viewers rewind a particular part of your video, this is known as rewatching. It is an excellent metric to show you which part of your video draws interest. If there is a particular part of the video that is receiving a lot of rewatches, this is an indication that it is a popular topic you should consider creating a video on.

This data is visible in the absolute retention graph. The rises in the curve are an indication of rewatches. To view the rewatches data, navigate to Analytics, followed by Engagement, and Audience Retention. You can then click on Absolute Audience Retention.

Engagement

You can also get a lot of quantifiable data by looking at the data on comments, likes, shares, and dislikes. The comments will show the emotional effects of the videos on viewers. The number of shares is an indication of how viewers value your brand. The number of likes and dislikes will show you the content your audience is resonating with.

View per unique viewer

This refers to the number of times a viewer watches your videos. This is a good metric for showing you if people are getting enough of your videos and if they keep rewatching them. If you find a particular video topic has a high view per unique view, this could indicate that the topic is quite popular. 

You can find the playlist's unique view through Analytics, Audience, and Unique Views. You can then click See More, followed by Average Views per Viewer. To see this metric, navigate to Analytics, Audience, and Unique Viewers. You can then tap on See More and Average Views per Viewers.

People watching your videos

YouTube analytics also provides data on the people who are watching the videos. These are segmented according to age, geography, and gender. You can easily understand your target audience by determining your most engaging audience. If you aren't targeting the right audience, you can use the data to pivot your video strategy to cover topics that interest them.

How to Increase Your YouTube Video Views

Here are ways to increase your YouTube video views to help rank your YouTube videos.

Use catchy titles

One key factor that affects a video's viewership is the title. You should ensure that your titles grab the audience's attention without resorting to clickbait. People love pages with entertaining content and want to know what your page is all about from the word “go.” Therefore, create a catchy title that grabs the viewer's attention.

Optimize Your YouTube Videos

Studies indicate that 70% of YouTube videos now appear on Google Search. In fact, it's becoming common to see YouTube videos appear on search results before traditional blog posts. Besides, YouTube is also the second most popular search engine after Google.

Therefore, think of a way to optimize your YouTube videos. Here are some of the best practices for optimizing your videos for YouTube:

• Title and tags. Ensure that your target keyword is included in the title and description. You can use tools like VideoIQ to get keyword ideas.
• Mention the keyword in the video. Mentioning your video's target keyword can help YouTube understand what your video is about.
• Categories. YouTube uses categories to place videos in broader categories, such as Sports or Comedy. Using categories can help YouTube understand which category the video belongs to and the topic the video should rank for.
• Tags. Also, include tags in your YouTube videos to help YouTube understand who they should show your videos to.

You can read our guide on creating stunning video content for YouTube videos.

Understand what your audience wants

When creating your YouTube videos, you should ensure it is on a topic your audience wants. Take time to understand your audience before you begin creating your video. One of the ways you can understand your audience is by watching your competitors' videos. See which of their videos are getting the most views and engagements. This will give you an idea of topics your audience wants to watch.

Another option is to look into your video analytics for the videos you previously uploaded. You can see engagement, audience demographics, location, and other key statistics on YouTube Studio. Use this data to improve your videos.

Join a YouTube community

While YouTube isn't a social media site per se, it has thriving communities where users can engage with your videos through comments, likes, and shares. If you engage with your viewers positively, this will be a positive signal to YouTube. Besides, you can create a stronger connection with your audience by engaging with them. Therefore, respond to comments on YouTube like other social media sites.

Create outstanding thumbnails

Your YouTube thumbnail offers you the first opportunity to engage with your audience, especially when combined with the correct title. If you don’t add a custom thumbnail, YouTube will pick any part of your video as a thumbnail. 

This may not be the best image for your YouTube thumbnail, as it may even be blurry. A good rule of thumb would be to use a custom thumbnail. Not only will this make your videos more appealing, but they will also be more professional.

Cross-promote videos on YouTube

You can cross-promote across different channels if you have videos in the same category. For instance, you can include links to your other videos and ask your viewers to check them out. This will encourage your viewers to stay on your page without clicking away.

Use cards and end screens, the little interactive boxes in YouTube videos, asking viewers to view other videos. These are great ways to encourage viewers to watch your other YouTube videos. Both end screens and cards keep viewers engaged and keep them longer on your channel.

You can also embed videos in your blog if they are on a related topic. When doing that, ensure that the videos are relevant to the keyword and URL they are linked to.

Optimize your videos for Google Search Results

While creating a video that pleases your audience is always a good idea, you should also have SEO in mind. If you are creating videos on how-to, product reviews, or long-form videos on a particular keyword, ranking highly with such topics on the SERPs is possible. Therefore, you should also optimize your YouTube videos for Google Search results. Some of the good practices you can use to achieve that are:

• Use primary, secondary, and long tail keywords. Leverage the YouTube search bar to find the terms people are searching for.
• Caption your videos. Captions are great for helping hearing-impaired viewers. They also add context to your videos and any audio gaps that may exist in your videos. This can also be an excellent place to include your keywords.
• Add keywords strategically to your YouTube videos. This is in the file name, video title & description, tags, video chapters, title cards, and overlays in the video script and chapters. Ensure the target keywords are used as close to the beginning as possible. 
• Include video timestamps. With YouTube video timestamps, you can inform YouTube when the essential parts of your video start and end. This makes the site even better at understanding your content and gives your channel a strong SEO advantage. The timestamps on the Google search results are usually shown at the bottom of the video. Also known as chapters, you can add YouTube timestamps to the video and its description.
• Use hashtags. Another great way to enable people to discover your content is by using hashtags. When you add them to your titles and descriptions, they will be clickable, making your videos more discoverable among people searching for those hashtags.
• Create playlists. You can place your videos in a keyword-optimized playlist to keep them organized. This will make it easy for YouTubers to understand what the videos are about and help viewers navigate the topic more easily. Ensure that all the videos on the playlist are on the same subject.
• Post videos consistently. For the YouTube algorithm to recognize you as an active user, you should always post videos. If your old videos haven't received traction, update the title, description, and thumbnail to make it easier for the YouTube algorithm to find them. It also ensures that you always have evergreen content.
• Target the same keyword multiple times. Unlike Google, YouTube allows you to target the same keyword several times without affecting your channel by keyword cannibalization.

By utilizing these basics of YouTube SEO, you can get better results.

Run a giveaway or contest

One of the things that YouTube viewers love is giveaways. You can host giveaways and contests to encourage people to subscribe to your channel. To enter, ask people to like, comment, and subscribe to your channel for a gift. But even while doing that, ensure that you follow the YouTube policy. Ensure that the gift is related to your channel. You can read our guide on running contests and giveaways.

Use the call to action button

Sometimes, you only need to ask people to subscribe and turn on the notification button to increase your viewership. If they are sold out to your channel, they will have no problem subscribing. Since not everyone who loves your video will remember to like or subscribe to your channel, adding these reminders can increase your subscribers.

Final Thoughts

Understanding your YouTube video views can be a good way to understand your audience and create content that meets their needs. With YouTube analytics providing many such metrics, it should be easy to get this information. By following our guide, you can understand how to get YouTube video view analytics data and pivot your channel to their needs.