full

Cracking the YouTube Algorithm for a Successful YouTube Channel

Our YouTube channel recently reached 26k subscribers! It’s also our strongest lead generation tool and is where I go for all of my hirings. Here are the 9 things I’ve learned about cracking the YouTube algorithm for a successful YouTube channel.

First, I need to thank Evan Carmichael and Uzair Kharawala for all of their guidance and mentorship in launching our YouTube channel.


Post every single day

Make sure to niche down!

You want your videos to be 10 minutes or longer

Aim for a 70% retention at the 60-second mark

Your primary call to action should NOT be to leave YouTube

Thumbnails are absolutely key

Your title needs to be clear and compelling but shouldn’t over-sell the video

Use the video description to offer additional resources, time-coded notes, and deeper calls to action

Ask for the like and subscribe!


Related videos:

The Secrets to Starting a Successful YouTube Channel With Uzair Kharawala:   

 • The Secrets to Starting a Successful ...  

YouTube Ads Beat Facebook Ads Every Time! (With Aleric Heck of AdOutreach):   

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0:00 Cracking the YouTube Algorithm

1:07 Post every single day

2:53 Make sure to niche down!

6:33 You want your videos to be 10 minutes or longer

8:49 Aim for a 70% retention at the 60-second mark

11:01 Your primary call to action should NOT be to leave YouTube

11:54 Thumbnails are absolutely key

12:48 Your title needs to be clear and compelling but shouldn’t over-sell the video

13:02 Use the video description to offer additional resources, time-coded notes, and deeper calls to action

13:45 Ask for the like and subscribe!



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Transcript
Kasim:

I'm gonna teach you to crack the code on YouTube which, by the way,

2

:

I didn't learn to do myself, I learned

from others two people in particular

3

:

Uzair Karwala, SF Digital, out in the

UK, my buddy and YouTube mentor, the

4

:

reason this YouTube channel exists,

thank you so much, forever grateful

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:

to you, And Evan Carmichael, and

I've got a funny story about Evan.

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:

If I can weave it into this, I will.

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:

But let's just dive in.

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:

I think a YouTube channel is maybe

one of the most powerful tools you

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:

can have from a marketing perspective.

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I actually think it's more

powerful than podcast.

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People spend more on YouTube than.

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Any other website on the internet,

on average, isn't that amazing?

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But it also makes a lot of sense, right?

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Like YouTube is meant for long form

content, deep dives, retention,

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subscription, and people get

really obsessive over YouTube.

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It's a really powerful medium.

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It's visual and audio, audible,

audio based, It's sticky, and

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everybody uses it, dig into YouTube.

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But it's also tedious to manage.

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It's tedious.

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And if you want to be successful,

the first tip is the hardest.

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And it might be repellent

to you, by the way.

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You have to post everyday.

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You have to post every single day.

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YouTube loves consistency.

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As a matter of fact, you'll notice

that you're going to start posting

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and you're not going to get any

views, likes, comments, subscribes, or

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anything for 90 to 180 days, depending

on the niche that you've chosen, but.

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If you can get past that timeline,

YouTube starts to say, you know what?

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I think this person's serious.

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Let me start prioritizing their

videos and actually referring them

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out to other people organically.

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And then you can start to see like,

duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck.

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I it just starts to climb slowly.

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Surely when we started, we had like

300 fake subscribers and we're at 26,

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000 subscribers, which by the way is

not a lot in the world of YouTube,

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but it's a lot given our niche.

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Right?

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Like we're not marketing, we're

not digital marketing, we're not

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paid media, we're Google ads.

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And I'm starting to expand a little bit

out of that, which is another strategy

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that we can talk about a little bit.

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You start super, super,

super, super, super niche.

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So you can actually, A, provide value,

let people know who you are, and

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then also capture people's attention.

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And then you slowly zoom out as

you've established that niche.

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And you look at the other

people who've done this.

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Look at Gary V.

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Gary V started talking about wine.

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And that's it.

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You want to talk about niche.

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Like, Gary Vee is famous because

he was talking about wine, and then

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people liked him and his personality,

and then he started to, expand.

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So post every single day.

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Now, that doesn't mean that you

need to record every single day.

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I batch record.

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I usually record five to ten videos

a week, generally in one sitting.

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I just sit here, and I've got all my

slides open, and they're based off of

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Twitter threads that I've written, I

power through them, which is, it's the

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easy thing to do to get into a cadence,

and I'm, you know, kind of used to,

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I've got my, podcast voice on, and the

camera's rolling, and it's just, it's

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easier to carve out, you know, an hour

or two, and I can bang out a whole week's

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plus worth of videos in about an hour.

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You can do that same thing too, so

if you can dedicate an hour a week,

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you can have a YouTube channel, but

you have to post every single day.

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Every single day number two, you have

to make sure to niche down niche niche.

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Who knows how it says nobody

knows There's no consensus.

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I like niche But except when I rhyme

it with riches riches are in the niches

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YouTube needs to know who you appeal

to Google is a matching mechanism.

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It matches searchers with And

the more niche you are, the more

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effective you're going to be.

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Alrick Heck, who has been on

my channel a couple times,

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been on my podcast a few times.

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Really brilliant guy.

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Alrick, at 12 years old, started

a YouTube channel teaching old

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people to use their iPhones.

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Great niche, right?

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Like, a lot of foresight there.

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Really brilliant guy.

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He was a millionaire

before he was 18 years old.

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Pick a niche.

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and here's the thing.

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You don't have to live

in that niche forever.

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I have a concept that I call

the hourglass of niching.

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And the hourglass of niching says that

you choose the niche and maybe it's a

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little broad to start if you're not sure.

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Where to go so like I owned a Google

Ads agency my niche as far as Google

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Ads made all the sense in the world But

you might say like hey, I want to launch

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YouTube channel I'm not entirely sure

exactly what my niche is, but I do know

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that I want it to be in personal finance

Okay, so I'm inside of personal finance

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I'm at the top of my hourglass and then

I start to shoot videos and I've got

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videos on Budgeting and videos on side

hustles and videos on crypto, God forbid.

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And then all of a sudden you're like, man,

my side hustle videos are like taken off.

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I'm getting two, three, four times

the number of views I'm going to

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start to narrow my niche and all of

a sudden I'm side hustles and you

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know what so now you're, traveling

down the hourglass and it's not just.

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side hustles.

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I noticed that I'm getting a lot of stay

at home moms, like all my commenters, the

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messages that I'm getting really feels

like there's like, you know what I mean?

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I'm speaking to the

stay at home mom crowd.

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And so I narrowed down

my niche even further.

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And so now it's like, I've got a

YouTube channel about side hustles for

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stay at home moms in North America.

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Like that's a great, great, great niche.

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So now \ you're at the center of the

hourglass where the hourglass tapers.

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And if you try to taper it any further,

you realize like, Oh, that went too far.

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This is good.

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I'm narrow as I want to get.

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That's where maximum efficiency is

found, from a niching down perspective.

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However, the issue that you run into is,

you can't scale and maintain efficiency.

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So when you find maximum efficiency,

you also notice that you actually kind

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of run out of the ability to grow.

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I'm there now with my YouTube

channel, our growth rate plateaued

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at around 22, 000 subscribers.

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And then our subscriber rate started

to slow because there's only so

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many people that want like dedicated

Google ads content every single

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day, which is why I'm zooming out

into broader business topics, right?

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I'm, I'm, I'm now starting to branch out.

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I would not have been able to do that

at the beginning and achieve the same

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level of traction because there's so many

people in the broad business topic space.

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But because I have my subscriber

base of 25, 26, 000 people, I get the

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views and the clicks and the likes and

the comments to allow me to compete

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with the other people that are in

the mildly broader business space.

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And you'll notice that most of my

content still speaks specifically

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to agencies, small business owners.

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So it's still kind of the same avatar.

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that says you taper down out

of the hourglass of niching.

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So you start a little broad, you taper

down, you find maximum efficiency and

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you maximize that efficiency, by the way,

you don't broaden out right out of the

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gate, but you wait and decide like, okay.

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I think I've run out of runway here.

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gotten as much juice as I'm

going to get out of this audience

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and I want to continue to grow.

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So I'm going to broad now to get

that's the hourglass of niching.

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I hope that's helpful.

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I think I'm gonna make a

whole separate video on this.

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I just actually wrote a note for myself.

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Isn't that fun when it happens live?

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Number three!

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You want your videos to

be ten minutes or longer.

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This comes directly from Evan Carmichael.

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Who, by the way, is brilliant, brilliant.

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If you don't know Evan,

you should go follow him.

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Super, super sharp guy.

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Tons of amazing interviews

on his YouTube channel.

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the space of an hour, taught

me, like, more than I ever, ever

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cared to know about YouTube.

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YouTube likes long form content.

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Which is interesting.

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Now, there's a difference between YouTube

and YouTube Shorts, and you can use

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YouTube Shorts in order to drive towards

your YouTube videos, but you want to

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have your videos 10 minutes or longer.

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Not all my videos end up being 10 minutes.

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I don't like to force it.

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I like to just shoot the video for

as long as it needs to be with the

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understanding that maybe when I'm Ideating

the ideas should be 10 minute ideas.

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So don't take a three minute

idea and make it 10 minutes.

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Don't take a 45 minute idea

and make it 10 minutes either.

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Right?

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The idea will take as long as it

needs to get out onto the table.

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And I've actually had some people recently

complained in the comments that I ramble.

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And you know, the problem with that

is, is that's my comfort zone from

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a content creation perspective.

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If I'm too strict and rigid and

scripted, I don't have any fun.

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I don't execute very well

and it just doesn't happen.

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And so this is where I like to live.

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And if you don't like the rambling.

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not trying to push you away.

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I love you.

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I'm rooting for you.

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Don't watch my channel, you know, and

go find somebody who just gets it out

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the way that you want it to get out.

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be comfortable in your delivery

of content in the way that you're

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pushing it out and that will help you

reach some of these time thresholds.

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And I actually think it's

okay to make it organic.

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I prefer that.

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I like listening to thought

leaders that hop in and they're,

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thinking and learning as they go.

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Jordan Peterson is like this for me.

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when I listen to Jordan Peterson,

I can see him discovering the

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topic as the discussion happens.

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It makes me feel like a participant.

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It makes me feel like I'm

actually, like, actively there.

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I like to do that same thing.

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Not that I'm anywhere near as

intelligent as him, but trying

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to follow kind of those themes.

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That'll help you get to 10 minutes.

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Instead of just saying like,

here's the news, right?

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You're not a newscaster.

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Don't use a teleprompter.

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Talk about what's happening and then

what your ideas are behind that thing.

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And again, YouTube

likes long form content.

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And by the way, 10 minutes is

the minimum you could have.

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We've got some of our highest

traffic videos are hour Or more.

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As a matter of fact, one of our

highest performing ads was an hour.

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Can you believe that?

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It's unbelievable.

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Number four, aim for a 70%

retention rate at the 62nd mark.

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Also, from Evan, you want

people to click and to stay.

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70% retention at the 62nd mark.

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And by the way, this is hard.

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I rarely achieve this.

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As a matter of fact, I've got a Slack

channel where my marketing team.

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Dumps in our YouTube analytics,

so I'm gonna read you my analytics

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from last week Monday uncovering the

dark side of Google's price fixing

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Retention rate at the one minute mark

71 percent That's great Tuesday, why

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you should embrace imposter syndrome.

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Retention at the one minute mark, 62%.

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Wednesday, how I lied my way to

the number one spot on Amazon.

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Retention rate, 59 percent

at the 60 second mark.

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Thursday, why scaling and

maintaining efficiency don't mix.

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59 percent retention at 60 seconds.

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And Friday, Rest in peace, Google search.

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Generative AI is here and it's awesome.

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61 percent retention.

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So out of five days, I hit the 70

percent retention mark one time.

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Now, obviously I want to optimize

that, but just here to tell you, this

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is a gold standard and it's hard.

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However, what it means is you actually

don't want to clickbait videos.

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You don't want clickbait titles,

or at least you want to be really

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careful, like obviously you want

your titles to be compelling.

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But you want to be so compelling that

the person who clicks and starts to

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watch goes, You know what, this isn't

as interesting as the title was,

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because then they're gonna leave.

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And you're not going to get recommended.

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And being recommended as a YouTube

video is, is, that's the mecca.

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Like, that's where you

want to be, you want to go.

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So aim for a 70 percent retention

rate at the 60 second mark.

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One of the ways to do that is

to front load all of, like, the

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amazing nuggets and sound bites.

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And so I stole this from Evan.

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We used it for a short period

where it said coming soon, and

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then there was like all these quick

little snippets and quick hitters.

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I ended up stopping that

for a couple of reasons.

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I didn't like that it took the wind out of

the sails of the remainder of the videos.

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And then, I also felt like, just because

I do a lot of shorter form content

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than people like Evan do, you know,

I'm not doing a three hour interview.

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And so, if you're doing a ten minute

video and you bring all the, highlights

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forward, it's a little less effective.

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But it can work for you if

you're doing longer form content.

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Number five!

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Your primary call to action

should not be to leave YouTube.

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everybody's called action is like go

to my website and fill out my form

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schedule an appointment go buy this thing

YouTube's number one goals retention

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Then I think they're stated number one

goals retention and google very rarely

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tells the truth about their goals so

that this will be a first google wants

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the people to stay in app You have to

feed that by recommending other videos.

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So instead of the recommendation

being to go do anything else, and

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you can have those softly, right?

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It's like, hey, if you ever want help

with Google Ads, you can go to my

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website and request a free action plan.

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And then that'll happen

every now and again.

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But, your primary call to

action is to watch this video.

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And this video is a video that's relevant

to the video that you're watching.

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So right now you're watching a video on

cracking the code on YouTube algorithms.

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So maybe the next video that I recommend

to you is like, content creation,

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video production made easy, how do you

run YouTube ads, that type of thing.

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Primary call to action should

not be to leave YouTube though.

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You want to help YouTube

maintain retention.

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Number six!

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Thumbnails are key.

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And I hated this part

to be honest with you.

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I was like, if my video is

good, if my content's good,

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why do my thumbnails matter?

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Here's what's sad.

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Your thumbnails matter more

than your video content.

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Doesn't that hurt to hear?

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It hurts to say.

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You wanna overinvest in your thumbnails?

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We have our designer, her name is Jack.

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She's brilliant.

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She's a, literal genius, and she comes

up with these amazing thumbnail ideas and

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you know, one of the primary reasons that

our YouTube channel's been so successful.

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and, technical details, you want your

text on the left, not on the right because

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it'll get covered by the time code.

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You want your image on the

right and you want your text

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to be bold and easy to read.

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We used to slam our.

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Thumbnails with just lots of text

and nobody could get through it.

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So make sure your thumbnails are good With

AI tools now that I'll actually get better

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and better and better And then you also

want sure your title has to be clear and

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compelling And don't oversell the video

because you're gonna hurt your retention.

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So make sure that your title is

very Consistent maintain continuity

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with what it is that you're offering

people that was number seven Number

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eight use the video description to

offer additional resources, timecode

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notes, and deeper calls to action.

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Anytime I'm on a video that I love, I

notice that one of the first comments

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that people like, above all other

comments, is anybody who's gone in

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there and offered the timecoded notes.

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So they like it, you know, one

minute, thirty seconds, they do this.

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At four minutes, they talk about this.

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At nine minutes, they talk about that.

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Just do that for people!

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Naturally.

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It's not hard to do.

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And then give them stuff.

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Give people the ability to

like, comment, subscribe.

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Obviously Instead of YouTube, but like

give people the ability to sign up and

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for your newsletter or request something.

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Let them know what you want to do.

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What is it you're selling?

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Because as people learn to know and trust

you they also want to buy from you and

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you want to give them that opportunity.

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And the description is

the best place to do that.

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Number eight Is you have to ask

for the like and the subscribe.

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You have to tell people

what it is that you want.

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I'm, not very good at this.

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I usually make it a dismissal.

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But when people like, and comment, and

subscribe, those are indications to

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YouTube that you're doing something right.

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So, if you're watching this video, and

I've offered anything of value, like would

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be great, a comment is better, and if you

actually want to hear from me every day,

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because I shoot a video every day, then

go ahead and hit the subscribe button.

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I appreciate everybody YouTube channel.

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Truly grateful to you and for you.

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and I'll see you tomorrow.

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