20 Smart Ways to Get More YouTube Subscribers in 2022

After Google, it is YouTube, which is the 2nd largest search engine. You will find people uploading more than 100 hours of video per minute to YouTube. If you are looking at promoting your products or services, providing some useful information that is educative and helpful, and want to reach a wider audience, then you need Youtube to post your videos. Besides saving time and budget for people, YouTube is one of the most significant mediums with a huge library of both images and sound. Here you will get insights into 20 smart ways to get more YouTube Subscribers in 2022.

We have listed out some 20 smart ways to get more YouTube subscribers in 2022 for you, which will help you retain the the attention you are seeking not just acquire it:

  1. Choose Google-friendly keywords
  2. Use concise, descriptive video titles
  3. Create Custom thumbnails
  4. Optimize your video descriptions
  5. Offer real value
  6. Create high-quality videos
  7. Try a Q&A
  8. Interact with your fans
  9. Run contests
  10. Be active in the community
  11. Work with (the right) influencers
  12. Respect YouTube’s community guidelines
  13. Create a series
  14. Make playlists
  15. Add a call-to-action
  16. Cross-promote your channel
  17. Promote your channel, not just your videos
  18. Participate in Youtube trends and challenges
  19. Do what your favourite YouTubers do
  20. Ask your viewers to subscribe

1. Choose Google Friendly Keywords:

There’s no set rule of what kind of keywords helps your YouTube to rank on top. You should keep in mind that a great YouTube channel always starts with great SEO, which in return starts with understanding what users would be searching for.

To begin with, people don’t just look for videos on YouTube but they start their search journey on Google using keywords related to their search. Videos are given priority over other content by Google.

Here are some suggestions on how you can find a Google-friendly keyword for any video:

  • Use a tool like the Google Ads Keyword Planner to identify possible keywords
  • Analyze each keyword on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP), and check if the top-ranking results are written content or videos
  • Keep tweaking your keyword and keep trying again. Use the keyword in a question form like “How to” or “What is “ to get the desired results
  • Choose a keyword that is related to your content and that which prioritizes video

2. Use concise, descriptive video titles:

The title is the most important part of on-page SEO as users will be using keywords of your title to get the information they seek and that is the first thing they will notice when they find your content. If the title isn’t catchy, quirky, or punchy, it might be the last. Some basic tips for writing a strong YouTube title:

  • The title always needs to be short and concise. If you have noticed, the most popular YouTube videos tend to have the shortest titles. Keep the title to not more than 60 characters or less else you will lose some of your title which may get cut off when displayed.
  • The most important thing to keep in mind is to include your keyword(s) in the first half of the title. Most people always focus on the first half of the title and skip the rest.
  • The best headline or title should offer an obvious benefit or an emotional reaction which can be informative, humorous, educative, or whatever purpose it is intended for.

3. Create Custom Thumbnails :

Thumbnails do matter, maybe even more than titles as our brains tend to notice visuals first, which we process in less than 13 milliseconds. Though YouTube produces automatic thumbnails for all videos, they could be blurry or out of focus. To boost more views, you need to create an eye-catching custom thumbnail for every video you post.

For best results some simple of thumb” is recommended:

  • Resolution: needs to be 1280 x 720 px (but any 16:9 aspect ratio should work, as long as the width is at least 640 px)
  • Format: should be .JPG, .GIF or .PNG
  • Size: maintain the 2MB limit
  • To encourage more clicks, add text and colours
  • Choose a clear close-up image, if possible
  • You can use a Stock photo, if in doubt
  • Always be consistent with your other branding

4. Optimize your video descriptions

In a nutshell, when writing your YouTube video descriptions, keep these in mind:

  • Incorporate your main keywords in the description and title.
  • Maintain a 5000-character limit, but keep the most important information in the first 100 to 150 words, which appears above the “SHOW MORE” button.
  • Add links to relevant playlists (more tips on playlists are given below).
  • Include a few relevant hashtags, and ensure that you follow YouTube hashtagging rules before you post.

5. Offer real value

You may think this is obvious, but it’s still worth a mention. Great content is the right and the best way to keep viewers engaged, besides it is the most effective way to rank well in YouTube searches. And that is because Youtube’s ranking system prioritizes the viewer’s experience.

Before publishing any video, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions, such as

  • What is the purpose of this video? Is it going to solve the problem of the viewer?
  • Is it educative/entertaining/informative? Put yourself in the shoes of the viewer to understand this.
  • Is the video going to improve lives in any way?

6. Create high-quality videos

The best of your content will get undermined with a poor-quality video. So ensure your video content looks professional and is top-notch before you post it. Learn some basic editing skills, use a good quality camera and do a soundcheck before recording. It is but natural that all of us are not natural filmmakers. But you can always brush up on some best practices for social videos if you’re a little rusty.

7. Try a Q&A

Always have a comment, email, or tweet options wherein you can ask your viewers to post their queries and suggestions. This is one of the most effective ways to build a community on YouTube. Your next video can be on addressing the questions and comments posted by the viewers. This shows that your fans matter to you which in turn will boost your view counts and engagement. You also get ideas on fresh content for your next video.

8. Interact with your fans

You need to constantly monitor and interact with your fans in you want to be a successful YouTuber. Real engagement does not end with just content creation.

Respond to all the viewers’ comments, even the negative ones. Analyze all the responses after you post the videos. Understand your top fans and pay extra attention to them. They will appreciate your attention and will thank you for it. You can convert them into your subscribers too!

9. Run contests

Another strategy to get your audience is to run contests. Through contests, you can get viewer data, likes, and comments and gain subscribers in the long run.

Some quick takeaways while running contests include:

  • Have a clear goal in mind
  • Ensure you respect YouTube contest rules & restrictions
  • While choosing a prize, keep in mind that your viewers need to enjoy the prize
  • Use other social channels to maximise your reach
  • You can use a tool like Hootsuite for YouTube

10. Be active in the community

YouTube is nothing but finding your niche and building your followers around your niche. Be active in other social community channels. Subscribe to channels that interest you and have a similar target audience as you. Watch their videos, like them, share them if it interests you, leave thoughtful comments, or mention them in your videos. This will give you an idea of what your competition is up to, and also help you reach new viewers.

11. Work with (the right) influencers

You could partner with influencers to broaden your reach, which in turn can help in tapping into existing highly engaged communities. Influencers can help you with new ideas, and new content and mainly get more followers and they have a huge fan following. But for any partnership, while doing so, you need to be authentic. You need to identify influencers who represent your values and are aligned with your brand. But keep in mind, if you do not partner with the right influencer, it can do more damage than good.

For example, a collaboration between a makeup artist with a makeup brand makes sense for a partnership.

12. Respect YouTube’s community guidelines

Due to a rise in the number of underage users, YouTube is cracking down hard on inappropriate content. If any content is inappropriate for your younger brother, then do not post that content. If you do so, your video will get flagged and will be removed from YouTube’s recommendation feature. A statista study in 2021, shows that tens of millions of Youtube videos were removed through automated flagging alone. If you want more clarity on this, go through the YouTube community guidelines first.

13. Create a series

Keep posting videos regularly so that viewers keep coming back to your channel again and again, as consistency always pays. While choosing a name for your series, choose a trendy, catchy, keyword-friendly name for the best results. to give each video in the series a similar look and feel, you can create a custom thumbnail.

14. Make playlists

Playlist collections are addictive and also help with discoverability, playlist titles are the best place to add keywords. People love to watch them in one go, they would want another video to play immediately after one ends.

There are two ways to create effective playlists:

  1. Use a common theme under your channel page where you can group existing videos together. This will ensure that you keep keeps viewers on your channel and not your competitors.
  2. You can research and gather videos from other relevant influencers or partners, which are trending, which in turn will signal to your viewers that you are in the game, and will encourage them to share your playlists.

15. Add a call-to-action

Including a compelling CTA in your video is very important to take the maximum benefit of your hard-earned audience.

The intention of a CTA could be that you want to encourage your viewers to like or share your video or maybe you want them to click through to your website. Whatever the intention, the best CTAs should always be clear, compelling, and urgent.

For in-stream ads, YouTube has a call-to-action extension, but you will also find a lot of free ways to add CTAs to videos like:

  • The direct host mentions: You can verbally tell viewers what you want them to do when you face the camera
  • In Video descriptions: you can ask them to comment, share, or like your video there itself
  • End cards: you can add powerful customized visual cues and punch screenshots to the beginning, middle, or end of the video.

16. Cross-promote your channel :

  1. To build a community around your channel, you need to reach out to audiences outside of YouTube. Incorporate your videos into your blog, email newsletter, and any other social media accounts.
  2. You need to research some creative ways to cross-promote a YouTube channel without posting the same message twice.
  3. Social media: Use all social media channels to promote your videos. Remember for any social media platform, different social strategies work well differently. If you have multiple social media accounts, then you can use a tool like Hootsuite which helps in streamlining this process.
  4. Work on the video specs for each social platform and optimize your video accordingly. Your brand’s overall look and feel should be consistent everywhere and use different captions every time you post.
  5. For YouTube videos on Twitter, GIFs are a fun way to promote.
  6. Blogging: If your website has a blog, embed videos in your posts, along with searchable transcriptions, which will increase both video and page views. Blogs help you generate new ideas for your channel.
  7. Email marketing: Though old school, it’s still effective. Use your YouTube subscriber’s emails to create an email list, and keep sending your new content whenever you create one. Besides helping you increase your video’s view count early on, this will also help in kickstarting YouTube’s recommendation algorithm.

17. Promote your channel, not just your videos

As in SEO, domain authority affects the page authority, the same applies to videos too. Besides your individual videos, promote your channel as a whole. Keep pushing for subscribers and link to your account, which will help your videos rank higher in YouTube and Google searches.

18. Participate in Youtube trends and challenges

To check what’s trending on Youtube—the explore page is a good place to check the content that is new and happening. Trends and challenges on Youtube often last longer than trends on other apps Videos like morning and night routines are big in 2022.

19. Find out what works (and do more of it)

YouTube’s analytics are very powerful, so use them wisely! Do thorough research and analyze the data of your target audience to understand them in detail like their age, languages they speak, which videos they generally watch/prefer, etc. Use this data/information to create content that can connect with the audience and capture their interest.

20. Ask your viewers to subscribe

Asking viewers to subscribe may seem too salesy, that is if you ask them too soon or too often. When you end your video, a quick reminder to subscribe will do the trick. The viewer just needs a reminder. Also, you need to keep in mind that you should demonstrate why your channel is worth subscribing to, and ask for a subscription-only after you have provided information that is new and useful, or you just made them laugh.

And lastly, you can release a teaser of what you are working on next to keep the engagement on and keep them coming back for more. Hype your next video making it clear why one should not miss it. This is the most organic way to encourage people to tap subscribe.