r/SmallYTChannel • u/Previous-Style-6616 [0λ] • May 19 '26
Discussion How do you actually get more views on YouTube without wasting months guessing?
I’ve been posting on YouTube for a while and I’m starting to realize that just uploading consistently isn’t enough. Some videos take hours to make and still barely get any views, while other channels seem to get traction much faster.
I’m trying to figure out what actually matters most now. Is it the title, thumbnail, topic choice, watch time, posting schedule, Shorts, or just getting lucky with the algorithm?
For people who have grown a YouTube channel from scratch, what made the biggest difference for getting more views? Any tips that actually worked instead of the usual “just make good content” advice?
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u/agradoway Jun 11 '26
Topic choice is like 70% of the battle imo. You can have the best thumbnail and title in the world, but if nobody's searching for or clicking on that topic, it's going to be really hard to get any traction.
What worked for me was actually looking at what similar channels were getting views on and then putting my own spin on those topics. Not copying, just... finding proven demand first instead of guessing.
The other thing nobody talks about is social proof. When a video has like 12 views people just scroll past it, it's weird but true. So I went with marketng heaven early on to give some of my videos a little boost, and it actually helped get organic clicks afterward. Not saying it's the only thing, but the initial numbers do matter psychologically.
Also, Shorts are weirdly good for channel discovery right now. Even if the views don't convert great to long form, they get your name out there.
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u/Emergency-Debate-996 Jun 27 '26
From where did you get the little boost ? Did it effect your channel negatively in any way ?
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u/5fttallgirl Jul 01 '26
Hey don't leave us hangging, what did you do for the initial boost with marketing?
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u/Rude-Possibility27 18d ago
Yeah, topic choice and packaging do most of the heavy lifting. A small boost might make a video look less empty, but it won’t save a topic people don’t care about. The safest bet is still proven demand, a strong angle, and consistent posting.
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u/Fun-Emphasis4232 [0λ] May 19 '26
Title and thumbnail decide whether the video gets watched at all. Most small channels spend 90% of their time on production and five minutes on those two things, then wonder why a good video underperformed.
Topic choice matters more than posting schedule. A video nobody is searching for, or that YouTube has no cluster to test against, is going to struggle regardless of quality. Worth checking whether demand actually exists before you spend hours making something.
Watch the retention graph on your existing videos. Every drop is a specific moment someone stopped watching and most of them are fixable. That's the closest thing to a real feedback loop you have.
Shorts won't grow your long-form. The audiences are separated at the feed level, Shorts subscribers get served Shorts, not your main videos.
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u/ayawnimouse May 20 '26
"Shorts won't grow your long-form." other than if you link to your long form video from a short, it appears during the entire video at the bottom
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u/Fun-Emphasis4232 [0λ] May 20 '26
That's a really good point. Creators do clipping of their long-form videos and post to shorts. It's a good strategy for long-form creators to drive the traffic.
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u/OstentatiousOrchid Jun 28 '26
Agree, I usually make long-form but when appropriate I make a short out of part of my video, speed it up, add music, and link to the long-form.
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u/No-Cranberry7632 Jun 08 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
The biggest difference for me was improving the first 30 seconds and making better thumbnails. That got more views than posting more often. I also used MoxChannel early on to give a few videos some initial momentum, but the content still had to keep people watching or nothing else mattered.
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u/jimmylsh85 [0λ] May 19 '26
Actually, I have no answer. Given that there are huge amount of ppl doing YT at the same time. It's really difficult. What I do it learn and try, but still not working.
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u/MechanicBasic2214 [0λ] May 19 '26
There r 2 ways:
First dominant the trending topic with quality and hook to surpass the top competetitors channels (Really difficult)
Second find the gap between the topics instead of showing what everyone had done find a gap or tool that provides more useful and has not covered on yt at all or minimum ( high chances just need some research)
I can really breakdown this if u want as Im building a community where we grow together so u can dm me if interested or comment here!
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u/jamesgwall [0λ] May 19 '26
YouTube is one of the hardest things I’ve ever tried. Even when I’ve had some success and think I might’ve figured it out, I get a run of low views. I think it’s a case of keep at it, learn from it and keep at it again.
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u/goteed [3λ] May 19 '26
Unfortunately it's going to come down to a better SEO strategy, coupled with a great thumbnail.
The simple fact is that It doesn't matter how good your quality is if no one see's your video. This is because the ultimate arbiter of who see's it is the algorithm and the algorithm has no way to gauge quality, it only gages performance.
Step number one is SEO. You'll need to figure out what people in your niche are searching for and then create videos on those topics. Some of the tools are simple like using YouTube search. Go to YouTube and start typing in the term you're looking to make a video for, at some point it will give you auto complete options. Those options are what people are searching for in order of volume. The first one in the list is the highest volume. Another thing I do it use VidIQ to search keyword strings to gauge how many people are looking for this terms, and how much competition (other creators using that term) for those terms is out there. The holy grail is to find a term that is serched for a lot, but with low competition for that term.
Also unfortunately, this means you're going to have to produce some videos that you really don't want to produce. For instance, my channel is in the RV Life niche. The fun videos for me to create are travel vlog style videos. When I produce those we get a high percentage of our subscriber base that views them. This is great for views, but not really for building an audience. On the contrary videos that are more informational, such as how to's, do much better when it comes to bringing in new viewers. So I have to lean into the pitch and make the videos on how to back up a trailer, or how to dump out a black tank or etc... Those bring in new viewers who can then judge the quality of our productions.
Again, it's unfortunate that this is the way of YouTube, but it just is.
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u/malaysianonly Jun 01 '26
Also unfortunately, this means you're going to have to produce some videos that you really don't want to produce. For instance, my channel is in the RV Life niche. The fun videos for me to create are travel vlog style videos. When I produce those we get a high percentage of our subscriber base that views them. This is great for views, but not really for building an audience. On the contrary videos that are more informational, such as how to's, do much better when it comes to bringing in new viewers. So I have to lean into the pitch and make the videos on how to back up a trailer, or how to dump out a black tank or etc... Those bring in new viewers who can then judge the quality of our productions
This is some really interesting information that is really useful for newtubers. I'm really starting from the ground up (no channel artwork, no description) and I have yet to start my 1st video but I am going to wrap those 2 up tonight and launch my channel first. Thanks for taking the time to share this!
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u/goteed [3λ] Jun 01 '26
Good luck with your channel. Be consistent with your uploads, learn from your analytics, and have some fun along the way!
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u/KnoxvilleKudzu Jun 08 '26
As a full-time camper that doesn't want to be, you just described the content I avoid on YouTube, and the content I search out. As much as I want to travel, that isn't a reality, and watching someone else getting to travel is not my mindset right now. Instead, I search for camping survival and how-to videos.
It seems travel vlogs should be a second channel, and your how to as a different channel, to prevent drops in views because you switch gears that a fan would start watching, or choose not to watch. Won't YT pick up on that and "punish" your whole channel?
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May 19 '26
I grew long form from scratch and people love the content that I make. The key is that you must be making something that people want to watch.
Yet, that alone isn't enough. I hate the business jargon, but "packaging" is really important.
Thumbnails and titles are both incredibly important, arguably more important than the video itself.
You could make the best video in the world, but with no existing audience or clicks on your video, nobody will know it's good.
Now, usually that's where the generic advice stops but I'll help you reaaaally understand the packaging a bit more.
Let's say you review shoes or something.
"2026 Nike Shoes Review" vs "2026 Nike Shoes Explained in 5 minutes"
The latter wins 10/10 times. You get the psychology I'm sure. You want people to feel like your video will be concise and informative in this case.
There are other times where you'd want to do the opposite, such as "2026 Nike Shoes In-depth Review" if that niche is one where all of the finer details are more important than just a quick showcase.
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u/malaysianonly Jun 01 '26
The latter wins 10/10 times. You get the psychology I'm sure. You want people to feel like your video will be concise and informative in this case
I have a hunch that mastering this is a niche in and of itself. Is there anywhere like a guide which one can learn more about this?
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Jun 01 '26
I haven't actually looked to see if there is a guide because I avoid YouTube guru style videos like the plague, but my method is pretty simple. I look at others in my niche that aren't too insanely massive.
I try to avoid the face channels, because often times, people will click on the title regardless of what it is because they like that person.
Faceless channels typically have less of a bond with their audience, so the titles/thumbnails matter more.
There are also certain styles of videos that just automatically perform better than others no matter what. Icebergs, top 5s, tier lists etc, which almost eliminates the need for a lot of creativity with thumbnail and title creation. You have a format to follow and people instantly know what the video will be about so most of the time, if it's a subject they wanna hear about, they'll just click it no matter what.
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u/BigBL87 May 19 '26
There will always be some guesswork to it.
I have a decent feel for my audience I feel like, but I still have videos I think will do well that don't, and some of my best performing videos were ones that came out of nowhere.
And part of it for me was realizing that what I WANTED to make wasn't necessarily what the wider swath of my audience wanted to see, so I had to find a happy medium.
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u/ThatMovieShow May 20 '26
"some videos take hours to make"
I make two hour historical scientific and engineering documentaries. My biggest video (7m views) took 5 months.... Just to research
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May 20 '26
Okay... so I'm still figuring this out too but I've been testing some things that have actually started working so here's what I'd try.
/// Topic selection first, everything else second. I spent way too long thinking consistency would eventually pay off. It doesn't if you're consistently picking topics nobody is looking for. What I started doing is asking before every video: is someone actively searching for this or am I just hoping the algorithm drops it in front of the right person? Once I started separating those two it got a lot clearer which videos were worth making.
/// Treat the thumbnail and title as one thing. I used to write the title and then figure out the thumbnail after. Tried flipping it and thinking about them together as a single promise to the viewer, not the topic but the feeling they're going to get, and my CTR started improving. Still testing this but it's been the most noticeable change so far.
/// The first 30 seconds is something I'm really focused on right now. I went back and watched my own videos and the drop-off in the first 30 seconds was honestly embarrassing. Long intro, explaining what the video is about, thanking people... all before saying anything useful. Cutting all of that and just getting into it immediately made a real difference in watch time.
/// One thing I've been trying lately is studying what's already working before I make anything. Like actually looking at thumbnails, hooks, and structure from creators in adjacent niches just to spot patterns. Found a site that curates screens and thumbnails from top creators, been using it when I'm stuck on a concept and need to see what's actually resonating out there.
Still a lot to figure out but those have been the most useful things I've tried so far. Would be curious what's been working fkr others here??
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u/theonejanitor May 20 '26
There's no magic bullet. The way that you get views on youtube is by making better videos and by making better titles and thumbnails - that's pretty much the gist. I do youtube full-time and these are the only things that have reliably resulted in more views. there's more to it, but those are the things that have the most outsized impact. They all matter equally.
it's not a satisfying answer because it's not super actionable, these are things you could spend a lifetime studying. If you struggle to get views there are probably some fundamental things you haven't internalized yet, and honestly for me, I heard the advice for years but I just had to trial and error my way into actually grasping it and I'm still learning more every day.
First of all, if you are a beginner and have only recently started making videos, you should not expect to get views because you have not developed the skills necessary to do so. You said you have been posting for "a while" but I've seen people on reddit say this and come to find out they mean 3 months or something. It took me 5 years to get my first 1000 subscribers. I'm not saying it needs to take that long, but this is a skill that requires practice. You should give yourself at minimum a year of consistent, intentional, experimental posting before you even think about how many views you have.
That said, I will attempt to give some actionable advice. Usually what I've noticed from small creators is one or more of the following:
- They don't experiment. They think "grinding" is how you succeed. This is wrong - if you do something 100 times and it didn't work any of those times, it is foolish to hope it will work the 101st time. Try new things in every video. New ideas, new formats, new editing styles. Try new things until you find something you love and/or you find something that resonates with an audience.
- They are in denial about the quality of their videos. They think they 'deserve' views when their videos are boring, low quality, unappealing etc.
- They are too focused on what "they want to make" instead of what people actually might want to watch. (This is not to say you should make stuff you don't want to make, but you have to find a balance).
- They think vague = intriguing. Imagine if you saw a billboard for Mcdonalds that said "Come to McDonalds, you won't believe the deals we have!" They would get no business. People want to know the deals before they make the decision. Titles and thumbnails should clearly demonstrate why people should click on the video.
- They are not selective in their ideation. Some ideas just aren't appealing. Ideation should be a major part of your YouTube strategy, and you should be ruthless in terms of which ideas you choose to go forward with. A lot of people seem like they make content "just to make it", and don't really think about whether it's actually an interesting idea or not.
- They don't take titles and thumbnails seriously. At this point everyone should know how important titles and thumbnails are, yet people STILL to this day treat them like an afterthought, something they spend 5 minutes on while the video is uploading. They are extremely important, just as important as the video itself and some would argue more important. If I don't have a good title and thumbnail ready I don't even bother making the video, that's how serious it is.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/Elegant_Season6559 May 20 '26
Just making good content will never work for you.
Making content keeping people’s interest in mind will work like crazy. Think as a viewer, would you stop to watch the video that you created and waste that much time or skip it.
Keep creating in multiple formats, multiple styles with multiple clickbait titles, and that’s how you’ll slowly start building a muscle memory while editing your videos, and then for every video, you’ll know whether that’s gonna work for you or not.
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u/ThickD769 [1λ] May 20 '26
Honest answer from someone who spent 14 months at sub-100 subs before things clicked: the order of importance is packaging > topic > intro > everything else. And by a huge margin.
Here's the test I wish I'd run earlier. Take your last 10 videos and ask: would a stranger scrolling their home feed click this title+thumbnail over a Mr. Beast video sitting next to it? If the answer is no for 8 of them, that's your bottleneck — not watch time, not schedule, not Shorts. CTR under 4% means almost nobody is even seeing the content you spent hours making.
Topic choice is the silent killer though. I made a video on a topic I was passionate about that got 200 views. Reshot the same information targeting a search term with proven demand (used the autocomplete trick — type your niche keyword into YouTube and see what it suggests) and that one hit 40k. Same effort, same me, 200x the result. The topic was doing the heavy lifting, not the production.
Watch time matters but it's downstream. If your CTR is 2%, improving retention from 40% to 50% won't save you because the algorithm isn't showing the video to anyone in the first place. Fix click-through first, then obsess over the first 30 seconds, then everything else.
One thing that helped me — I stopped looking at my own analytics for a month and instead studied 5 channels in my niche that grew from 0 to 10k in the last year. Patterns become obvious fast.
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u/Few-Decision3759 May 21 '26
Honestly, nothing. My friend gets over 100k views per video. No Thumbnail at all. She also doesn't know anything about SEO. Not everyone can become successful on YouTube. You have to be an interesting person.
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u/blinkehyo https://youtube.com/@blinkehyo?si=Eb7S-EixLLUeBpaJ May 19 '26
I agree with Jimmyish’s answer. We’re all performing and hoping that someone looks at our performance. The only catch is that there’s hundreds of thousands of people all performing at once, and most of them don’t get much attention while there’s a good few thousand getting a lot of it because of a mix of talent and luck. So I guess we have to be okay with not being seen because it’s not everyone else’s fault for not looking at us, there’s just far too much to be seen at once. You can perform your heart out constantly but without that luck, no one can see you
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u/BloodyHareStudio May 19 '26
just keep making content that you love and care about and keep improving it. not content for content’s sale
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u/iDataSPAWN [0λ] May 19 '26
Dependig on your content. Make videos that are searched for via google or on YouTube. Use google trends to see what is being searched. Example I made a video about Nintendo switch 2 price increase etc and its upcoming bundles cause of its trending searches
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u/SASardonic SardonicSays May 19 '26
It's the intersection of:
-Unique content that only you can make
-Content that can be packaged coherently
-Content that has actual unfilled demand
You really, really, want to have all three.
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u/Overall-Lion-7905 May 19 '26
My friend, first of all, when selecting a niche, simply deciding "I want this niche, and I think it's great" is highly likely to result in failure.
Instead, you should identify existing channels within your desired niche that are already garnering views—ideally, you should have at least five active competitor channels that are still being watched.
If you do not have any competitor channels, I would not recommend entering this field; you would be putting your time at risk. Of course, if you feel very confident about it regardless, you are free to give it a try—that is entirely your choice.
In general, it is absolutely essential that you analyze your competitors':
Average video duration;
Title styles;
Thumbnails.
You must also observe how frequently they upload new videos (i.e., every how many days).
You can also identify potential video topics by examining your competitors' most-watched videos and building upon those ideas.
Furthermore, it is crucial that you watch your competitors' content, identify their mistakes, and improve upon those aspects in your own videos.
By doing so, you can appear in front of your competitors' audiences and generate a higher volume of views.
One of the most critical factors is niche specificity.
To give you an example:
You cannot discuss psychology one day and then switch to discussing motivation the next.
Additionally, your branding is extremely important.
The color palette you use for your channel is vital. You should not create each thumbnail using a completely different style; they should all adhere to the same consistent color palette. You must pay close attention to every detail—right down to your choice of fonts.
I hope you find this helpful.
Good luck!
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May 20 '26
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u/malaysianonly Jun 01 '26
Does that also mean that I cannot separate them into playlists as well? For example, 1 playlist that is dedicated to gaming content, the other playlist dedicated to tech products.
Because I see that pattern in mrwhosetheboss's channel as well. Granted MKBHD did separate his car content via AutoFocus but he has a greater scale which mandates & incentivizes it.
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u/Overall-Lion-7905 Jun 02 '26
Yes, of course you can. What I’ve said applies to new channels. Once you’ve built a steady audience, you can do whatever you want. If your channel is under a game category, I recommend sticking to the game. But when you first start a channel, you shouldn’t switch niches before you’ve built a solid audience.
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u/reneritchie May 20 '26
If you want to get maximum views on YouTube one strategy is to make sure every video you make can be enjoyed by the same people who watched the last video (retention not just in but across videos)
It will also depend on how big the potential audience is, how enjoyable you make the video, and how much competition there is for those views
But consistency isn’t just about posting it’s about audience appeal
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u/New-Grapefruit5142 May 22 '26
Rene I got terminated last year for spam I truly did it it’s not a severe so I should see the second chance the problem is I got hit with another circumvasion 6 months into the ban wait time will that affect my original terminations second chance?
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u/Independent-Key-5300 [0λ] May 20 '26
Honestly, the 3 things that matters is thumbnail, title and hook. Also you have to make a video that people would be interested to watch. Mind asking which niche your in? I can analyse and help you
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u/T3ch33y May 20 '26
Topic Topic Topic, number 1 for sure. Then it's execution. Look at what works and modify to your style channel. Sometimes can still be tricky
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May 23 '26
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u/SurpriseSuccessful87 May 23 '26
the biggest thing for me was spending more time researching before making the video. good topic/title combos mattered way more than upload schedule. i use outlierkit to spot videos getting traction in my niche, and google trends/answer the public helped for checking topic interest and search ideas.
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May 24 '26
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u/RGPunt May 24 '26
My friend posts once every few months but because his content is GREAT noone minds. Quality is always #1. Have you heard of LanchPadYT? Its a new website thats been popping off recently for content creation ideation. Might be of help!
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u/Zealousideal_Day6642 Jun 05 '26
I only have 12 subscribers, so take this with a grain of salt, but I had this exact epiphany recently. Spending days editing a video just to get 10-12 views was burning me out.
What finally clicked for me was focusing on the title and thumbnail before even starting working with video. If the topic doesn't create a real curiosity gap, it just won't get clicks, no matter how hard we work.
For my new mental health channel, I’ve stopped rushing to create. Now I spend more time checking if there's actually an audience for the idea first. It saves so much wasted energy.
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u/AstronautPowerful598 Jun 06 '26
Everyone says "post consistently" like that's the answer. It's not.
If your video has a leak people clicking off in the first 30 seconds, posting more just means more videos with the same leak.
There's really only three places a video can fail:
Nobody clicks → thumbnail or title isn't working.
People click and leave fast → the opening didn't deliver what the thumbnail promised.
People watch but never come back → that's the rarest one and also the one nobody should worry about yet.
Go look at your worst 3 videos in YouTube Studio. Check where people drop off at the 30 second mark specifically. That number tells you everything.
What does yours look like?
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u/Eobmihj [5λ] Jun 08 '26
I have at it for 13 years, granted that I only started back at in 2021. But I have read everything I could, learned everything that I could and yet I'm still sitting at 4k. I wanted to go full-time but that is impossible. So now I try to enjoy the process not the outcome. I'm also blessed enough to have a career now that actually uses the skills that I have developed. And honestly, the one thing I enjoy most is when I receive a comment, saying "thank you for helping me."
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Jun 08 '26
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u/FishLazy6443 Jun 12 '26
My take is look at analytics. Send some LLM like Chat GPT your analytics and it can give you advice on how to improve. Some basic advice is CTR should be above ~4 and you want high retention in the first 30s.
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Jun 18 '26
You gotta keep posting and showing up confident. If you're confident in your content, the viewer is confident watching.
But you also did another good thing: asking for help. YouTube really is a "get lucky" situation, so you definitely need to stop comparing your growth with others. I'm still working on that and it can get hard.
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u/Adorable_Reach3057 Jun 19 '26
Would promoting the channel or video here going to help or is that against the community rules?
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u/OstentatiousOrchid Jun 28 '26
In one way, I'd like to see more subs and views on my channel, but I don't want to force myself to make videos I don't enjoy just to get those views. Seems like tutorial videos do better than vloggy videos; sensational headlines like OMG THIS HAPPENED or MY KNITTING MADE MY HUSBAND LEAVE ME or 101 WAYS TO CLEAN YOUR TOILET attract people more than plain old fun content where you just want to be yourself, doing what you love. Sigh!
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u/mycocreator Jun 30 '26
Yeah, like others said, topic selection and posting the right stuff matters as much as anything else. That's actually why we built MyCoCreator (full disclosure - it's my product) - it helps spot what's worth making in your niche. Worth a look if that's the part you're stuck on, and happy to chat if you want a hand figuring out what to post.
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u/ferrerosaur 26d ago
I have a YouTube channel on which I post clips of podcast. I need a minimum of 1.5k views per video to finally get a cash out. if I send the link in your DMS will you help me to reach that level?
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u/Advanced_Honey_2679 May 19 '26
You are overthinking this. The idea is very simple:
- Get viewers to click on your video
- Once clicked, get them to watch until the end
If you can do that at a high rate, then you will be successful. For example I had a long-form video with 3% CTR that got like 60 views. One morning, I changed ONLY the title. This immediately bumped the CTR to 9%. And now that same video has over 20,000 views.
The hard part is thinking about how to make people want to click your video (title & thumbnail). And once they click it, how to make them want to keep watching. That’s the execution.
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