How to Grow Your YouTube Channel? (16 Strategies)

Ever since its launch in 2005, YouTube has been the number one entertainment provider in the digital world. Thus, it actually opened a new form of occupation as being a “YouTuber”. In 2024, YouTube is one of the most influential social media platforms in which you can become a huge success. First of all, it has great potential to grow your audience because it has approximately 900 million users! 900 million we say. Even though not every one of them is available to reach, still, it still makes a great number to reach, which includes your target audience as well. 

Secondly, we all know that YouTube has one of the best policies when it comes to monetization. Most of the users are actively trying to grow their channel because they want to earn money. Since being a YouTuber has become a full-time job, earning money has also a full-time responsibility for most YouTubers.

If you are channel, looking for ways to earn subscribers or a brand account that tries to reach its target audience, you both need strategies to grow your YouTube channel. Do not worry, we are here! In today’s article, we will delve into 16 strategies for growing a YouTube channel from the start to the top! So, let’s get started.

Why Is It Important to Grow Your YouTube Channel?

Once you start your YouTube channel, it is important to grow it effectively. Growing your YouTube channel can bring you a lot of benefits starting from money to raising awareness and credibility. Are you curious about them? Let’s learn together!

• Earn more money: When you grow on YouTube, your views and number of subscribers will also increase. Thus, you can actually earn more money with the increase in the views. Since YouTube pays you based on viewing, this can help you to raise your wage or salary from your new full-time job.
• Increase brand awareness: If you are a new brand and trying to create your brand identity, growing your YouTube channel can increase your brand awareness among your audience. People can learn more about your brand in this way.
• Increase credibility: As we all know, a high number of views and subscribers are important factors that decide a channel’s quality and credibility. When you grow your channel on YouTube, you can raise your credibility among your audience. 
• Increased traffic to other platforms: Once you grow your YouTube channel, people will be intrigued about your life on other platforms as well. By giving those links, you can increase the amount of traffic you gain. 
• New Customers: Growing on YouTube can gain you new customers if you are brand reaching for your target audience. When you become more visible on the platform, you will attract new customers and grow your business as well!
• Increased Visibility & Reachability: Increased views and subscribers will not only help you earn money but also make you more visible for the YouTube algorithm. Thanks to the increase in your channel, the algorithm will recommend you to other users who are interested in your content. This way, you can increase your visibility and reachability on YouTube.

What Counts As a View on YouTube?

In general, the term “views” is used to describe the number of times your video has been watched by the users or subscribers. When a viewer opens your video and watches it for at least 30 seconds, YouTube considers it as a view. Moreover, if the same user watches your video more than once, each replay is also considered as view. No matter where you watch it from, whether it is a laptop or a phone, again, each replay is a new view for the YouTube algorithm. 

Furthermore, when someone visits your channel page, you also earn a view. If you are wondering about it, you can resort to YouTube Analytics. There, you can find the Overview tab and see the statistics of your account in the last 28 days! 

If everything we do can be regarded as a view, why are they so important? Well, that’s the question for our next section!

Why Are Views Important on YouTube?

Before YouTube, people were relying on televisions to entertain themselves. There, people were making use of “ratings” to understand whether a program is qualified or not. Well, now, views can work the same as ratings, we can say. In a way, the number of views shows the people’s preferences, the things they enjoy and the things they do not consider as high-quality”. 

Thus, the YouTube algorithm considers views as a great metric for deciding upon a video. Based on the number of views, the algorithm chooses a video to recommend on the Home page or not. As a result, views are the ones that earn you money. So, we can say it is an endless circle. You need money, so you need views. Then, you grow on YouTube. Now, you get the views and the money. This circle can go over and over again. Overall, views are what makes you earn a living if you are a full-time YouTuber! 

How to Grow Your YouTube Channel?

As we mentioned above, in order to reach more people and earn more money, you need to grow your YouTube channel. That means, you need to get more views and subscribers so that you can become one of the leading YouTubers. Is it easy to do? Well, with strategic moves, yes! Here, we listed 16 effective strategies on YouTube. If you are looking for ways to grow YouTube channel, you are in the right hands!

Figure Out What Your Audience Wants

First things first, your audience is everything when it comes to YouTube. They are the ones who view your content, engage with your videos, and subscribe to you. Thus, you need to be sure that any video you share is aligned with your audience’s preferences. Whether you are taking a V-log or an unboxing video, first you should try to understand what your audience wants to watch. This way, earning views can become easier for you. 

If you are a relatively young, or new, channel who is looking for ways to grow YouTube channel, don’t worry. You can analyze your competitors’ audience and the type of content they share in your niche. If your audience is relatively small, you can look for other channels and create a plan for yours. This way, you can reach your target audience more easily and create content they can consume immediately. 

If you need another solution, then you should use YouTube Analytics. There, you can see a clear analysis of your audience based on your videos. Thanks to that, you can understand what they like and don’t like, where your audience is coming from, and so on. 

Create specific content

In order to grow on YouTube, you might need to specify your content tailored for your audience. In other words, you should create unique videos that will make your audience engage with you. It should be a video that they cannot find anywhere else, especially among your competitors. This way, you can grab their attention and turn them into a permanent member of your channel! For example, if you are a food channel, do not make those videos everyone makes, such as the most expensive vs. the cheapest, and so on. You can create your own unique videos based on the recipes you share.

Focus on quality

Quality is one of the most influential factors to grow on YouTube. We know quality is not easy to get and can be expensive. However, the quality of your videos is what will make your viewers watch you. Once you start earning your money on YouTube, we recommend you invest in your equipment quality. You can buy microphones and lights to make your videos appear more professional. Moreover, you can upgrade your camera and can create high-resolution videos. 

While you are improving the quality of your equipment, you should also focus on the quality of your content as well. The quality of your content is also crucial when it comes to content creation. You can invest your money in the necessary products that will make your video more engaging and interactive for your audience. Investing your money in your videos and equipment will make you earn money in the long run.

Interact with Viewers

Interaction and engagement are crucial if you want to grow your YouTube Channel. These engagement actions can be likes, comments, shares, being a subscriber, and so on.  If you want to grow a YouTube channel fast, the best thing is increasing engagement. How? Well, you need to interact with your audience. 

Your audience might leave some comments under your videos and content. When you like their comment, or answer them in the comment section, they will be more likely to engage with your other videos as well. If you want to increase the number of comments, you can create CTAs, call-to-actions, in your videos.

For example, some YouTubers ask their subscribers’ opinions about some dresses and lead them to the comment section. Moreover, they ask subscribers to leave a specific emoji if they liked the video. These types of CTAs can increase the number of comments you have, thus creating opportunities for interacting with your audience. In the long run, you can get more views, more subscribers, and a bigger channel! 

Optimize Your Content for Search Engines

Well, did you know that YouTube is the second most used search engine after Google? Based on the number of users and content uploaded there, YouTube is one of the biggest websites around the world now. That’s why growing there might be harder than it seems because of the competition there. 

You need to rank higher on results pages, and your videos should be recommended to many people. Do you wonder how to achieve that? Well, that means you need to perform YouTube SEO strategies so that you can grow on YouTube. Here are the strategies you can employ:

• Titles and Descriptions: After conducting a comprehensive keyword analysis, you can mention them in the titles and descriptions of your videos. Embedding them can help you rank higher in results.
• Mention keywords in your videos: Once you analyzed your keywords, you should mention them actively in your videos. This can help YouTube to understand your videos better and relate them to the words.
• Increase Engagement: Engagement is one of the most important metrics on YouTube. By increasing it with the strategies we mentioned earlier, you can get high engagement and increased views.
• Categorizing Videos: You should use categories to make YouTube understand your videos. This way, YouTube can recommend your videos to related people and related searches. 
• Tags: In addition to categories, you can add tags to your videos so that they can be more specific. This way, you can specify the context of your video, and thus, it can be visible on the related searches. 

Customize your thumbnails

If you want to grow on YouTube, you should be focusing on creating attractive thumbnails. Thumbnails are like billboards advertising your videos in the realm of YouTube. That means, if they are attractive and engaging, they can attract more viewers and subscribers for your account. There are some strategies you can employ to create great thumbnails for your videos:

• You should use appropriate ratio sizes for the thumbnails, which are 16:9 aspect ratio, 1280×720 pixels.
• Your photos should be high resolution so that they can have a clear vision. 
• Your thumbnails should be clear and understandable, instead of having so many elements at once. 
• You should use bright and inviting colors. These colors can give a clear and attractive impression to your subscribers.
• Your thumbnails should include texts if they are necessary.
• You should have a consistent and systematic theme on your thumbnails. 
• There should be harmony between your titles and thumbnails. 

Use Hashtags to Boost Your Reach

Similar to many other social media platforms, hashtags are crucial for engagement and categorizing videos. On YouTube, hashtags are clickable. That means, when someone clicks on a hashtag or searches for it, they will see related videos that have the same hashtags. In other words, if you want to grow your YouTube channel, you should categorize your videos with hashtags. In this way, you can reach for more people, who are interested in your niche.

As you know, being visible on hashtag pages is really important for your visibility and reachability to your target audience. You should analyze the most used hashtags page and find the related ones to your content. Then, you can add them to your title and video description. Thankfully, you will reach more people and grow your YouTube channel quickly!

Embed your YouTube videos

You can grow your YouTube channel not only on YouTube but also outside of the platform as well. Instead of sharing the link to your videos on there and there, there is another way! You can embed your videos in a related website or blog you have. Having a blog dedicated to similar content on your YouTube Channel can help your audience learn from more mediums. That means, when you embed a video, they can watch it at the same time they are reading an article about it. Moreover, any traffic outside from YouTube can increase your engagement! 

Boost Your Engagement with a Call to Action

Well, sometimes asking for engagement is the best thing you can do to grow your YouTube channel. If you do not know how to use CTAs, call-to-actions, on your videos, you can ask for these actions:

• Like & subscribe
• Follow my partner’s YouTube channel
• Check out this other video
• Start watching my this playlist
• Join our e-mail list
• Follow me on Instagram/Twitter/etc.
• Don’t forget to buy our merch
• Visit our website
• Download my application
• Share this video with a friend
• Share your opinions under comments
• Ask a question
• Answer a poll

Someone might be enjoying your video a lot and waiting for your new videos. However, that person might completely forget or like that video. Thus, reminding those actions on your videos can be in your favor. This way, you can make a viewer your subscriber and increase engagement on your channel.

Host YouTube Live Streams

Live streams are one of the best ways to grow YouTube channel, which increases engagement and user interaction. By using Q&As, interactive games, and so on, you can interact with your audience actively.

However, did you know that YouTube promotes live-stream videos more carefully? Well, on YouTube, there is a special section prepared for live-stream videos. You might be thinking how can I even go up there, to that section? Thankfully, it is easier than it sounds. We have seen some videos, with 5,000 viewers or less, on the live-stream section. 

Moreover, since these are live videos, they are not supposed to be, or can’t be, perfect like your YouTube videos! Instead of stressing over not making mistakes, you can focus on having fun with your audience, engaging with them, and promoting your account on YouTube!

Check Your YouTube Analytics

If you are a YouTuber, YouTube Analytics is your best friend to grow on YouTube. That tool can enable you to see and analyze lots of metrics about your channel. Here’s the list of metrics you can analyze via YouTube Analytics: 

• Views: There, you can find which of your videos are watched most. This way, you can understand what type of content your audience likes.
• Subscribers: There, you can see which videos you share turn your viewers into subscribers. You can analyze those videos and implement the same strategies on other videos as well.
• Average View Duration: Not everyone watches your video to the last milliseconds. Unfortunately, some viewers leave a video after 30 seconds if they do not like it. This metric can show you which videos keep your audience engaged and which do not. 
• Real-Time Analytics: You can analyze what your videos do in their first 24-48 hours after they are published. This way, you can understand which strategies are working for your channel. If you have tried something new and see that it has doubled the views, for example, you can benefit from that strategy more in the future. 

Use Chapters in Your Videos

Chapters or, as most of us know them, video timestamps, are clickable links that can help viewers to skip a part of a video and watch the related part. In other words, with timestamps, you can tag which topic is mentioned in which part of the video, and thus, people can find the part they like. 

Especially, if it is a long video, you should definitely consider adding those on your videos. Some viewers might leave your video if it is too long and not guided enough. Thus, you can consider timestamps as guides in a video for your viewers. Do not forget, the more you enhance the user experience, the more your reachability becomes.

Make YouTube Shorts

In 2021, YouTube has launched its new feature, YouTube Shorts! Everyone was curious about it and wondered whether it would be successful or not. Some people just used it to promote their newly shared videos in the beginning. However, in 2024, is it still the same? Well, we don’t think so.

YouTube Shorts has become one of the immersible parts of YouTube now. Some channels are even creating specific content just for YouTube Shorts. Thus, if you want to grow on YouTube, you cannot think of YouTube Shorts as a separate part.  

YouTube Shorts are promoted on the main page of the application and these are the first things people see when they open the YouTube application. Hence, creating content for YouTube Shorts and promoting your account can be your way to grow on YouTube. If you are not sure about how to create a shorts video, here are some tips for you:

• Shorts must be 60 seconds or less than 60 seconds.
• While uploading, make sure that your Shorts video is engaged to a “Related Video” on your channel, which will promote the video. 
• Find engaging and interesting parts of your videos and edit them vertically so that you can share them on Shorts.
• Make your video title less than 40 characters for a video.

Include End Screens

Thankfully, YouTube has lots of engaging and interactive tools, such as end screens and cards! These tools make your video more interactive for your audience and can actually lead them to new videos as well. These features allow you to promote your channel and other videos to your target audience. This way, when a video ends, they can find a more interesting one and click on them. This tool can help you to turn your viewers into subscribers!

End screens are, probably all of us see those on videos, a customizable feature of YouTube, which can help you to add a CTA, your recent content, and so on. End screens become visible at the end of videos, and thus, you can strategically lead your audience to engage with your new videos. So, if you want to grow on YouTube, you should use end screens more effectively than ever before!

Collaborate with other creators and brands

We see that type of promotion in every favorite YouTuber we love. They invite some people to their channel, they take a video for their channel and they collaborate with brands in their videos. Are they effective ways to grow YouTube channel? Definitely!

If you are collaborating with a channel that has higher subscribers than you, you can reach new and more people in the YouTube community. That means, collaborations can help you to increase your subscribe numbers, view numbers, and so on if the other party has a lot of subscribers.

Moreover, some brands can work with you for your videos. They might ask you to introduce them to your audience or use their product and show it subtly. These collaborations do not only promote your account, but they can also help you earn money. Instead of just gaining from YouTube, you can earn money by making collaborations with brands as well.

Run a Paid YouTube Ad Campaign

Well, advertisements are always an option and we can say that they work very well. In today’s digital world, advertisements on the platform itself are probably more effective than advertisements on the TV. Thus, if you want to grow on YouTube, you can resort to giving paid YouTube ads to promote your account. YouTube has a lot of advertisement options you can choose from:

• Display Ads: These ads are only available on the desktop version of YouTube and they are displayed at the right sidebar of the videos.
• Overlay Ads: These ads are also only available on desktops, and they are transparent ads that appear at the bottom part of the video. 
• Skippable and non-skippable Ads: Probably, everyone is familiar with this format. These ads can appear before, during, and after the video. Skippable ones can be skipped after 5 seconds. However, users must watch all of the advertisement if it is a non-skippable.
• Bumper Ads: Similar to the previous one, these pop up before a video starts. They are non-skippable videos that last for 6 seconds.
• Sponsored Cards: These are cards that can be placed within a video if the video is sponsored.