17 Powerful Tactics to Get More YouTube Views in 2026

In this post, I’m going to show you how to get more views on YouTube.

In fact, these are the exact techniques that I used to grow my channel, at one point, generating 189K views per month:

Let’s dive right in.

1. Use “BOGY” Thumbnails

It’s no secret that your video thumbnail is HUGE.

In fact:

According to YouTube, 9 out of 10 of the best-performing videos on YouTube use a custom thumbnail:

And YouTube itself states that:

The question is:

How do you create a thumbnail that stands out to YouTube users?

BOGY Thumbnails.

BOGY Thumbnails are thumbnails that use these four colors:

• Blue
• Orange
• Green
• Yellow

Why is this important?

Well, if you look around YouTube, you’ll notice that the site is mostly red, black, and white.

And if your thumbnail also uses red and white, your video will blend in.

But when you use BOGY thumbnails, your videos stand out and grab attention.

(Which makes people MUCH more likely to click.)

For example, I use a lot of blue, orange, and green (along with other non-YouTube colors) in my thumbnails:

It helps my videos stand out on the YouTube platform:

How about another example?

5-Minute Crafts (which has over 80.6 million subscribers) uses lots of blue and yellow in most of their thumbnails:

Of course, you can use a little bit of red, white, and black in your thumbnail.

You just don’t want to make them your main thumbnail color.

For example, I use some black and white in this thumbnail.

But 80%+ of that thumbnail is green.

2. Copy This Proven Video Description Template

YouTube has confirmed that your video descriptions “let YouTube’s algorithms know what your videos are all about.”

With that, I have some good news:

I developed a YouTube description template that works GREAT.

Here it is:

Now I’ll break down each section in detail.

First, you have the Strong Intro.

The first few lines of your description are SUPER important.

Specifically, you want to include your target keyword once in the first 1-2 sentences.

That’s because YouTube puts more weight on relevant keywords early on in your description.

So make sure to mention your target keyword at the beginning of your description.

Here’s an example from my channel:

You also want to sell your video.

Why?

The first few lines of your description show up in YouTube search:

And if that snippet is super compelling, more people will click on your result:

Plus, some people even read your description after they land on your video page.

So it’s important that the content above the fold really sells your video.

Next, you have the 150-word outline.

All you need to do here is outline what someone will learn from your video.

Don’t be afraid to get into the nitty-gritty details here. In fact, I recommend writing AT LEAST 150 words.

And make sure to use keywords that you want your video to rank for.

That way, YouTube can fully understand your video content.

For example, check out this description from one of my videos:

It’s 194 total words.

And that thorough description has helped my video rack up 124,722 views to date:

Finally, you have your description links.

I actually got this tip from YouTube themselves:

The goal here is to send people to your website and social media channels.

I’m most active on Twitter, so I only include a link to my Twitter profile:

But there’s nothing wrong with linking to several different sites that you’re active on.

And if you want to get more subscribers, I recommend adding a call to action to subscribe here too:

3. Boost Your Video Title CTR

Your title is a BIG part of your video’s success.

First tip: add brackets and parentheses to the end of your YouTube video title.

An industry study by HubSpot found that adding brackets to a title increased clicks by 38%:

To be fair:

This study looked at blog post titles.

But I’ve found that the same rule applies to YouTube videos.

For example, this video from my channel has 512K views:

And the “[New Checklist]” at the end of my title is a big part of that video’s success:

Next, use a number in your title.

This number can be:

• The number of tips or strategies you’re going to cover
• The current year
• Number of steps in a how-to video
• The amount of weight someone lost (or lifted)

Or pretty much any number that makes sense for your video.

For example, here’s a video on my channel about keyword research:

My original title was just “Advanced Keyword Research Tutorial.”

That title is pretty flat.

So I decided to add “5-Step Blueprint” to the end of my title:

This has helped that video rack up over 336K views so far:

YouTube has their own recommendations for writing titles too.

Most importantly, keep them short and frontload important words, since mobile viewers may only see the first half of them.

Then, make sure they’re accurate.

If the video is about something other than what the title suggests, viewers will stop watching. And that can affect your discoverability.

For example, I could have called this video “You Won’t BELIEVE How This ONE Newsletter Trick Changed EVERYTHING 😱.” And maybe it would have gotten lots of clicks.

But readers would have clicked away once they realized the video doesn’t offer “one” secret trick.

The current title is much more accurate. It offers a specific, true number (91,892 subscribers) and a clear promise that I actually deliver on (a list of achievable tactics I actually used).

4. Get More “Suggested Video” Views

Over the last few years I’ve studied dozens of YouTube channels.

And I’ve noticed one consistent pattern:

Successful channels get lots of views from Suggested Video.

As a reminder, “Suggested Videos” are related videos that YouTube promotes next to the video you’re watching:

And as it turns out, Suggested Video can bring in MORE views than YouTube search.

For example, my channel gets 34.8% of its views from SEO.

And 38.2% from Suggested Video:

So:

How can you get more views from Suggested Video?

I used to say “Use the same tags as your competitors.”

But YouTube no longer uses tags as a major way to understand what your video is about, and thus recommends it to others through Suggested Video rankings.

Tags aren’t gone, but they mainly exist to catch common spelling mistakes now.

Suggested Video now ranks on two things:

• How closely your video matches what’s playing
• How closely it matches the viewer’s own history

That means the best and easiest thing to do to get into Suggested Video rankings is to own your niche and stick to it.

For example, my channel is all about SEO expertise.

The more videos I publish on this topic, the more likely I’ll be to show up in the Suggested Video feeds of viewers watching SEO videos.

This is one of my videos showing up alongside Ahrefs’ “Beginner SEO” YouTube video.

The other thing you can do is group related videos into a playlist, set to “Series.”

The Backlinko team does a great job of this.

They use series to group videos around themes their audience cares about.

If someone wants to go deep on the topic of SEO & AI Search, they can get 13 videos on the topic with Backlinko alone.

Series matter because YouTube’s “Up Next” suggestions (that play at the end of a video) use the video currently playing as its main signal.

So, a Series playlist tells YouTube explicitly which video should follow which.

Plus, videos from the series will show up alongside the one that’s playing, improving your chances for more views.

5. Share Videos on Quora, Reddit, and Forums

Online communities are GREAT places to promote your YouTube channel and videos.

That’s because people in these communities have burning questions that your video can answer.

For example, let’s say that you see someone asking this question on Reddit:

Well, if you had a video that talked about frozen Paleo meals, you could link to it in that thread.

In fact, I used this exact approach to promote one of my videos on Quora:

Which helped my brand new video get a handful of high-quality views.

6. Rank Your Videos in Google Search and AI Overviews

Ranking your videos in Google and AI Overviews can lead to LOTS of extra views.

In fact, Google sends my channel 8,396 views per month:

So:

How do you get your videos to show up on Google?

Well, it’s not always about ranking #1 on YouTube.

For example, if you search for “advanced knitting tips” on YouTube, these videos are shown at the top:

But when you search for that same keyword in Google, two out of three videos are nowhere to be found:

With that, here’s how to boost your video’s chances of ranking in Google and AI Overviews:

First, add accurate captions to your video.

Captions give Google and YouTube a text version of what’s being said, which can help them understand the topic.

For my SEO tutorial, I used a professional transcript and covered the target phrase, “rank #1 on Google,” naturally in the video.

And I made sure to say my target keyword phrase — “rank #1 on Google” — out loud five times while filming the video.

The video later appeared near the top of Google for that query:

Second, if you have a website or blog, embed your video on it and add structured data to it.

Google itself confirms that VideoObject schema can “make it easier for Google to find your video.”

Meaning: Schema doesn’t promise higher rankings, but it’s table-stakes work for getting in the door.

Clip and SeekToAction schema can help Google identify and serve viewers “key moments” with timestamps.

This could help your video rank for long-tail queries rather than just the head term.

Third, lean into how-to and demonstration videos when you can. In NP Digital’s Q1 2025 analysis of Google AI Overviews, how-to and instructional videos were cited more than any other type of content.

7. Optimize Videos for Comments, Likes, and Subscribes

When it comes to the YouTube algorithm, the number of views your video has is important.

But it also wants to see that people ENGAGE with your video.

In fact, Backlinko conducted a YouTube search engine ranking factors study:

And we found a significant correlation between ranking in YouTube and viewer engagement.

Specifically, we found that comments:

Likes:

And subscribes:

All correlated with rankings in YouTube search.

What’s the best way to get more engagement on your videos?

It’s simple: Ask people to engage with your video.

For example, let’s look at this video from my channel.

At the end of my video I ask people to leave a comment:

And subscribe:

Which has helped that video rack up more than 7K comments:

And over 790K total views:

8. Improve Your Channel’s “Session Time”

Audience retention and watch time tell you whether people keep watching your video.

But it can also help to think beyond a single video.

Session Time (also known as “Session Watch Time”) is the total amount of time someone spends on YouTube after watching your video.

YouTube has described the goals of its search and discovery system as helping viewers find videos they want to watch and maximizing long-term viewer engagement:

If someone watches your video and then leaves YouTube, that viewing session ends:

But if they continue to another relevant video, the session continues:

And the best way to improve your Session Time?

Promote your BEST videos on your channel page.

That way, you’re showing people videos that will keep them watching.

For example, I show off my best videos at the top of my channel page (inside of playlists):

YouTuber Evan Carmichael even replaced his traditional channel trailer with one of his popular videos:

As it turns out, there’s another easy way to boost your Session Time.

9. Optimize Your End Screen for Views

Here’s how to get more views on YouTube using your end screen:

First, pick a popular video from your channel.

To do this, head over to the YouTube Studio and find a video that generated lots of views over the last 90 days:

Next, find a video from your channel that someone would want to watch AFTER they finish watching your popular video. And feature that content at the end of your video.

For example, this video was one of my top 10 videos over the last 90 days:

So I asked myself:

“What does someone who just learned about keyword research want to learn about next?”

How to use those keywords in their content.

Luckily, I published a video on that exact topic a few months earlier:

So I linked to that video from the End Screen:

And because your “Next Video” is EXACTLY what someone wants to see, they’re super likely to watch it.

10. Master YouTube SEO Fundamentals

If you want to get more views on YouTube, you need to learn as much as you can about YouTube SEO.

Specifically, you want to master SEO basics like:

• Keyword research for videos
• Optimizing titles, descriptions, and tags
• Improving Audience Retention and Watch Time
• YouTube engagement signals
• YouTube keyword analytics

And if you want a crash course on SEO for YouTube, I recommend watching this entire video.

11. Use Eye-Catching Playlist Titles

I used to name my playlists with whatever word popped into my head first.

For example, one of my first playlists was called “Advanced SEO Strategies”:

Not a horrible name. But not super compelling either.

So I added “and Case Studies” to make the title more interesting:

And I’ve applied this same rule to all of my playlist titles.

For example, one of my most popular playlists is called “How to Get Higher Google Rankings”:

My original title for that playlist was: “SEO Tips and Strategies”.

But I knew that my audience wanted to learn “how to get higher Google rankings.”

So, I made my playlist title that exact outcome.

12. Feature Your Videos on Your Blog

You might have noticed that I’ve embedded quite a few of my YouTube videos in this post.

And there’s a good reason for that:

These embedded videos lead to a ton of high-quality YouTube views.

And as Backlinko discovered in our YouTube Ranking Factors study, more views often means higher rankings.

13. Share Video Clips on Social Media

Back in the day I’d share my entire YouTube video on social media:

And sure, this led to a handful of video views.

But not as many as I wanted.

That’s when I realized something:

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites want to keep people on their platforms.

(Yup, just like YouTube.)

And when you post a link to your YouTube video, their algorithms are going to hide your post from your followers.

So:

What’s the solution?

Upload a clip from your YouTube video as native video.

Here’s an example:

Because my clip was native to Facebook, it was promoted around the platform like crazy.

Which led to over 23k views on my Facebook post:

And once you post the clip, link to the full video as the first comment:

That way, people who enjoyed your clip can easily find the full video on YouTube.

14. Upload Videos When Your Audience Is on YouTube

What’s the best time to upload a video on YouTube?

Is it Tuesday at 3 p.m.?

How about Saturday at 6 a.m.?

The real answer: when your subscribers are on YouTube.

Unfortunately, YouTube doesn’t tell you when most of your subscribers are online.

So I recommend testing a few different days and times to see what works best for your channel.

You can even use a tool like vidIQ to analyze your channel for the best times to post:

15. “The Card Bridge” Technique

This is an easy way to boost your Session Time and YouTube views.

Here’s how it works:

First, look at the audience retention report for one of your videos.

Here’s an example from my channel:

As you can see, this video has a massive retention drop at 6:16.

Next, have a card appear at that time.

(That’s “The Bridge”.)

And that card sends people to another video on your channel at the exact moment they would have clicked away:

Nice.

16. Get Featured on the YouTube Homepage

The YouTube homepage can be a GREAT source of views.

(Especially for new videos.)

For example, look at the traffic sources to this video on link building the week after it went live:

More than 39% of all of my views came from “Browse Features”.

(Most of which are views from the YouTube homepage.)

And getting on the homepage led to 3,097 views in my video’s first week.

Not bad.

As you probably know, your YouTube homepage is highly personalized.

So when I say “get featured on the homepage,” I’m talking about getting on the homepage for users who are signed in.

With that, here are two ways to boost the odds that your video will appear on people’s homepages:

First, promote your video in the first 48 hours after it goes live.

YouTube’s homepage algorithm tends to feature videos that have two things going for them:

1. They’re new
2. They’re popular

And when you get lots of eyeballs on your new video, YouTube will happily feature it on its homepage.

For example, I promote my new videos on social media:

And to our newsletter subscribers:

Which pushes lots of people to my brand new content on day one:

Second, build an audience that returns for your videos.

Subscriptions are one signal YouTube uses to personalize recommendations.

But subscriber count alone doesn’t guarantee homepage views.

The goal is to publish videos that subscribers continue choosing to watch.

17. Use YouTube Shorts to Get Long-Form Viewers

This tactic is working well for us at Backlinko.

The idea is: Share an important tip or surprising result from your long-form video as a Short, and link to the full video on the Short’s page.

The Short piques the viewer’s curiosity or gives them a satisfying nugget of knowledge that proves your channel’s value.

The full video promises to go more in-depth, explain further, or offer more useful tips on a similar topic.

At Backlinko, we cut up our long-form videos into engaging Short clips, linking to the full video for viewers who want to go deeper.

Others film original Shorts with catchy hooks and CTAs to do the same thing.

Bonus #1: Double Down on What Works

In other words:

1. Find videos from your channel with above-average audience retention
2. Use what worked in future videos

How about an example?

This video from my channel was my first successful video:

(Most of my other early videos completely flopped.)

So I decided to apply what worked in this video to my future videos.

And it worked!

Because I doubled down on what was already working, I was able to grow my channel in record time:

Specifically, I looked for spots in my video where my audience retention was higher than average:

And did more of what was already working.

For example, I noticed a big retention spike at 3:51:

At this point, I had laid out the steps for one of the strategies in my video:

So I decided to show steps in text form in all of my future videos:

Bonus #2: The Posts Tab Preview

This is an easy way to get your subscribers PUMPED about your next video.

Here’s how to do it:

First, publish a post about your upcoming video in your Posts tab (formerly called the Community Tab).

This can be a sneak preview shot:

An engaging question:

Or, a poll on the topic of your upcoming video:

Either way, your community post makes people look forward to your upcoming video.

(Which means they’ll be MUCH more likely to watch it when it goes live.)

More YouTube Views Start with Low-Effort Wins

Seventeen tactics is a lot to test at once.

Start small with your next upload:

• Design your thumbnail using BOGY colors
• Add brackets and a number to the title
• Set up an End Screen pointing to your best next video

Check YouTube Studio two weeks later to see if the numbers moved.

Once you’re seeing more clicks and views, our guide on Audience Retention: How to Keep Viewers Hooked covers what to do once people actually show up.