How do I get more views on YouTube?

Short answer

Views come from three things multiplied together: how many people see your thumbnail, how many of them click, and how long they watch. Find out which of the three is weak on your channel, then fix only that one.

Few clicks means fix the title and thumbnail. Clicks but early exits means fix the first 30 seconds. Almost no impressions means fix the topic. Most creators fix the wrong one, usually the thumbnail, when the real problem is the topic.

The three numbers, in plain words

Impressions

How many times YouTube showed your thumbnail to someone.

Click-through rate (CTR)

Out of the people who saw the thumbnail, the share who clicked. 5% means 5 in 100 clicked.

Average view duration

How much of the video people watched on average. 40% means they watched 40% of it.

All three are in YouTube Studio under Analytics. Impressions and click-through rate are on the Reach tab. Average view duration and the retention graph are on the Engagement tab. YouTube shows your channel average next to each number, which is the comparison to use. The YouTube analytics guide explains every other number on those tabs.

How to read them: three channels, three different problems

Channel A gets 40,000 impressions, a 2.1% click-through rate, and 55% average view duration. Plenty of people see it and the ones who click stay. Few people click. The fix is the title and thumbnail: put a number or a surprising claim in the title.

Channel B gets the same 40,000 impressions, a healthy 6.5% click-through rate, and only 28% average view duration. People click, then leave. The fix is the first 30 seconds: rebuild the hook so it proves the title straight away.

Channel C gets only 3,000 impressions, with a 6.0% click-through rate and 50% average view duration. The people who see it click and stay, but hardly anyone is shown it. The fix is the topic. People do not want it. Make the next video on an idea that already worked for a small channel.

The most common mistake

Channel C is the usual new-channel case. Clicks and watch time are fine, but hardly anyone is shown the video because the topic has no demand. People try to fix this with better thumbnails. A new thumbnail cannot fix a topic nobody wants.

The tell is the combination: healthy click-through rate, healthy view duration, tiny impressions. When you see that, stop working on packaging and go back to the idea. The post on the open-topic test shows how to find a topic where strangers are already clicking, and the search-first approach gives a channel with no impressions a second way to be found.

What to do this week

1. Open YouTube Studio, Analytics, and write down the three numbers for your last five videos, with the channel average next to each.
2. Find the number that is furthest below your average, or, if all are close to average, the one that is lowest in absolute terms. That is your weak number.
3. Apply the matching fix from the table above to your next video only. Do not change all three at once, or you will not know what worked.
4. Compare the next video's numbers with the five before it. If the weak number moved, keep going. If it did not, the diagnosis was wrong and you check the next number.

If you would rather have the diagnosis done for you, the prompt at the end of this page takes your three numbers and your last three titles, compares them with five outliers in your niche, and tells you which number to fix first. The subscriber growth guide covers what to do once views are moving and you want them to turn into subscribers.

Words used on this page

Reach tab

The YouTube Studio analytics tab that shows impressions, click-through rate, and traffic sources.

Engagement tab

The tab that shows watch time, average view duration, and the retention graph.

Retention graph

A line showing what share of viewers were still watching at each second of the video. A cliff in the first 30 seconds is a hook problem.