A clear understanding of how the YouTube algorithm works is crucial if you want to improve your rankings, attract and retain your target audience. Fortunately, unlike most other platforms, YouTube is quite open about how its algorithm works.

The YouTube algorithm strives to show the most relevant, personalized videos to its users. There are five different sections on the platform where videos are displayed: search, homepage, suggested videos, trends and subscriptions. By helping users find the videos they are most likely to watch and enjoy, YouTube’s algorithm strives to keep viewers on the platform for as long as possible and keep them coming back to the site regularly.

How does the YouTube algorithm work?

According to YouTube , the algorithm is basically “a real-time feedback loop that adapts videos to the different interests of each viewer.” Decides which videos are suggested to individual users. The goals of the algorithm are twofold: to find the right video for each viewer and to entice viewers to continue watching. For this reason, no search will return the same results. That is, each search will personalize the results with the data of the user’s previous usage. Search results are based on the following factors:

• Video metadata (title, description, keywords) and how well it matches the user’s query
• Video engagement (likes, comments, watch time)

And which are the parameters that most affect the YouTube algorithm, read below.

Impact of Metadata

To maximize your presence in YouTube search and suggested videos you need to make sure that your metadata is well optimized. This includes the title, description and tags of your video.

When optimizing your headline , put your keyword near the beginning. Keep the length under 50 characters and try to make it as attractive as possible to attract as many clicks as possible. Video description should be between 50 and 150 words long. Use the keyword 1 to 3 times and try not to use boilerplate descriptions. When optimizing your tags, use your target keyword first, followed by others in order of importance. Stay on topic, use 1-5 word phrases and keep them to 100-300 characters.

Good optimization can be an effective way to get more impressions. It’s all about how users react to the video, and YouTube’s algorithm will act accordingly.

Post often

The amount of videos and the frequency of uploads is an important factor in the YouTube algorithm. Especially YouTube’s Home page . (The home screen with a personalized list of new and interesting videos that appears when you go to YouTube). If you can increase the number of recordings without losing quality, it will definitely have a positive effect on your channel. The more videos you post, the better your chances of hitting the right chord.

However, always remember that quality content is the cornerstone of any YouTube content plan. If users recognize your content as useful and high-quality, you can be sure that the YouTube algorithm will too.

Relevance and performance

Just like on Google , YouTube search has a similar goal where it wants to show users the most relevant results for their queries. Videos are ranked in YouTube search by various factors, but the most important factors are relevance and performance.

Relevance means how well the title, description and content of the video match the user’s query. Performance is related to which videos users chose to watch after performing similar queries. The YouTube algorithm wants to give people more of what they liked in the past. The algorithm also takes into account engagement metrics, such as how long and how many videos users choose to watch.

Length matters

Another very important performance metric of the algorithm is the view duration. You’ll probably see a lot of tips advocating making your videos shorter or longer, but what’s really important is to make them as interesting and fun to watch as possible.

The duration of the view tells the YouTube algorithm how much the content has engaged users. In addition to duration, engagement around the video itself, such as commenting or sharing the video, is an important factor. Longer video viewing duration, preferably all the way to the end, and high engagement are the perfect recipe for greater visibility on YouTube .

Digital marketing requires a new way of approaching customers and new ways of understanding customer behavior. You can find more interesting articles on this topic on our blog.