How To Promote YouTube Videos: 7 Practical Tips

If you’ve been spending countless hours creating videos only for them to get lost on YouTube, you're not alone.

With creators dropping thousands of new videos every minute, the competition feels intense, but with the right promotion strategies, you can reach a wide audience.

Learn how to promote YouTube videos using tactics that will up your follower count.

YouTube Paid Promotion Versus Free YouTube Promotion

Not sure how or where to promote your YouTube videos? Generally, you have two main options: paid YouTube ads or free promotional methods. 

1. YouTube Paid Promotion

You can pay to promote YouTube videos with YouTube Ads. Your videos will appear at the top of YouTube search results and feature the “Ad” label. They can also appear in the “Up Next” or “Recommended” sections, or they’ll appear when people watch videos in your content category.

Here are a few benefits of using paid ads to promote your videos and advertise your YouTube channel:

• Prominent placement — Paid promotions feature your videos in highly visible places, such as the top of search results, the sidebar, or directly below videos users are currently watching. Audiences are more likely to notice, click, and watch these videos. 

• Increased discoverability — With paid promotions, YouTube shows your video to more people, which allows new audiences to discover them. If your content resonates with these viewers, they're more likely to subscribe. If enough new people find your videos, it can help you build a viral channel.

2. Free YouTube Promotion

Free YouTube promotion involves using unpaid strategies to increase the visibility of your videos. These well-established methods put your content in front of more people who are likely to interact with it.

Here are a few advantages of free YouTube promotion methods:

• Authentic and sustained connections — YouTube matches viewers' searches with your videos based on keywords, content, and descriptions. When people find your videos organically (not through a paid suggestion or ad), it means they’ve searched for the topic and are genuinely interested in it. As a result, they’re more likely to watch the video, explore your channel for related topics, and subscribe. 

• Long-term results — Paid promotions only last as long as your budget allows. YouTube’s algorithm will continue to connect your video to viewers’ matching searches as long as it’s on the platform. You can also use organic methods like hashtags and optimized titles to boost your video’s long-term success.

7 Tips on How To Promote YouTube Videos for Free

To effectively promote your YouTube channel, aim to build an audience of loyal subscribers who increase your videos’ watch time — meaning the viewers watch most of or the whole video — ensuring steady and substantial channel growth. 

Viewers who only watch the first minute and then click away aren’t telling the algorithm that you’re making great content. But subscribers who constantly come back for more and stay until the end prove that your videos are worth watching. 

Here’s how to promote your YouTube channel to earn more subscribers.

1. Use Relevant Hashtags

Hashtags improve your content's discoverability by categorizing and grouping videos according to specific topics or themes. When YouTube users search for or click on a hashtag, the platform's algorithm retrieves videos that include that hashtag in their titles, descriptions, or tags. 

If you include relevant hashtags in your videos' descriptions, titles, or comment sections, YouTube will match those videos to corresponding viewer searches, making your videos easier to discover. To find out which hashtags are trending, try looking at which hashtags similar videos use, including on different social media platforms like YouTube’s “Trending” page. Use a mix of trending hashtags and hashtags that accurately describe your content.

2. Reach More Viewers by Adding Subtitles 

Make your YouTube videos more accessible by adding subtitles. Displaying the dialogue in your videos makes it easier for viewers to follow along, especially those who are deaf or hard of hearing, watching without sound, or in noisy environments. With subtitles, viewers are more likely to understand what’s going on and stick around to watch the entire video — increasing watch times and engagement. 

Adding subtitles can also improve your video's discoverability on search engines, also known as search engine optimization (SEO). Subtitles provide extra details about the video's content to YouTube's algorithm, making them more likely to appear in related search results.   

The easiest way to add subtitles to your videos is by leveraging the power of AI and using Captions to add subtitles in a snap. While you’re at it, give your videos a personal touch and make them more eye-catching by customizing captions in the style of your choice. Here’s how to do it: 

1. Open the Captions app.
2. Hit the purple “Create” button at the bottom of your screen.
3. Import a video or record one in the app.
4. Pick your language and click “Proceed.”
5. Wait as the app adds subtitles. 
6. Customize your subtitles by adjusting the font, size, and colors. You can also add extra effects such as images and AI eye contact.
7. Export your video to your camera roll and upload it to YouTube or other platforms.

3. Create Compelling Videos

Your videos should entertain, educate, or inform viewers in a way that holds their attention from start to finish. Doing at least one of these things helps viewers receive value from your content, making them more inclined to watch until the end (or watch another). As we mentioned, the more time viewers spend watching your video, the more YouTube will recommend it to others.  

If you’re new to content creation, you can get ideas for your YouTube videos by checking out other successful creators’ channels. See what you like about their content, what you would change, and how you could put a unique spin on your version. 

4. Create an Effective YouTube Channel Page

An effective YouTube channel page can help you make a good first impression on potential subscribers. Include a clear profile picture, a custom banner reflecting your personal brand, and an engaging description of yourself and your content.

If visitors see that your content is uploaded on a regular basis, well-crafted, and aligns with their interests, they're more likely to subscribe. A clear, organized channel page that reflects your vision can quickly turn casual visitors into invested followers. 

5. Use Keywords Strategically

Keywords are like labels that group and categorize content online, making it easier to find.

Here’s how keywords work:

• When someone searches a topic on YouTube, they type a phrase into the search bar — for instance, "funny cat videos." 
• If you make a video about funny cat moments, use the same or similar words in your title, description, and tags. “Funny,” “cat,” and “video” are your keywords.  
• YouTube will show your video in search results for “funny cat videos” because you used the same keyword in your video’s details. 
• To show up in more specific searches, try narrower keywords, like “funny orange cat getting stuck in things videos.”

If you need help identifying appropriate keywords, use Google Keyword Planner or a similar tool to generate keywords based on your niche. You can also type your video topic in the YouTube search bar and look through the automatically suggested searches to find related words and phrases. 

6. Embed YouTube Videos in Other Pages

Consider embedding your YouTube videos directly into your website or blog so viewers can watch them without leaving your site. Here’s how:

1. Go to your video on YouTube.
2. Click the "Share" button.
3. Click "Embed."
4. Copy the provided embed code.
5. Paste the code into the HTML of your blog or website where you want the video to appear.

Views from your website or social media platforms still count toward your YouTube metrics. This means you can leverage blog traffic and social media followers to increase your video's visibility without directing people away from those sites or diverting attention from your other content.

7. Get More Views by Dubbing Your Content in Any Language

Another way to get more views for your videos is by dubbing them into different languages. Eliminating language barriers makes your content more accessible to a wider audience. Since more viewers can understand and relate to the content, you can appeal to international audiences, meaning you have more potential viewers. This could help increase your likes and subscriber count. 

Open up new avenues for audience engagement and growth by using Captions to dub your videos, with language and subtitle translation available in 28 languages. Captions is an all-in-one creative studio you can use to effortlessly record, edit, add video captions and subtitles, and more.  

Develop an Effective YouTube Boost Strategy With Captions

Videos are time-consuming to film and edit, so no effective video promotion strategy is complete without a user-friendly editing solution to help streamline your video workflow and create compelling YouTube videos. 

Enter Captions, the ultimate all-in-one creative studio to script, record, and edit your videos in just a few taps.