YouTube Algorithm brings billions of users together who upload, view and promote various contents related to numerous topics. We come across many recommendations that are similar to the content we have watched or might be interested to watch. Ever wondered how exactly YouTube know what the users want to see. If you’re a YouTuber or a YouTube SEO agency, you must have tried to understand how YouTube algorithm works.
With almost 500 hours of video contents uploaded to the server every 60 seconds, there needs to be an approach to automatically select the videos that need to be recommended to each user. The YouTube algorithm works on a few factors that help to filter out the best content for the person viewing YouTube.
Here are the factors that the YouTube algorithm considers while ranking videos:
#1 User Preferences
When you visit YouTube, you can view tons of content, but you usually select the ones you are interested to watch, so the algorithm generally filters out the content ignored by people and makes sure that it isn’t displayed anymore in the current session. User preferences are a major part of YouTube SEO.
#2 Watch Time
The total amount of time a user spends watching a video is also monitored by the YouTube algorithm, which is called as the ‘Watch Time’. The more the user spends time on a single video, similar videos of similar content or the content maker gets surfaced on the Recommended List. The YouTube algorithm also keeps a check on the amount of time a user spends watching a video whenever the user visits the website, again providing ample data to the computerized YouTube algorithm to filter out the best content according to the user’s interest.
#3 Content Quality
The main goal of YouTube is to grab attractive and engaging content to display ads. If you want to get your video ranked better on the search list, produce good quality content and upload with high-quality keywords and thumbnails. The thumbnails give an impression to the viewer and the search engine about the content of the video. The creator needs to make sure that the thumbnail used in the video depicts exactly what the video is about and not ‘click bait’ as mentioned before. Content is the major key to video marketing on YouTube.
#4 The ‘Not Interested’, Dislikes and Likes Feedback
When you watch various contents on YouTube, you have the option to like some videos, dislike a few of them and even avoid watching a specific video by clicking on the ‘Not Interested’ option. All these feedbacks provide a great amount of information to the YouTube algorithm to provide the best viewership experience.
Summary
YouTube is a platform that can also be used for marketing various products and contents and it is mandatory that users view the videos that are marketed by YouTube SEO. Ranking your video on the top list of YouTube can be very easy if you understand the YouTube algorithm. Understanding these factors will also help you in your video marketing strategies. If understanding YouTube SEO goes above your head, you can hire an SEO company that can handle all the marketing part of your YouTube Channel.
