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You’re starting out as a content creator on YouTube and have been learning how to use YouTube Studio, YouTube Analytics, the whole lot to optimise your content. However, your growth on the platform seems to be stalled and you can’t pinpoint the reason. This is probably because you have been making some common mistakes when leveraging the data.
The good news is you are not alone, and this is a struggle that many creators face. You can learn from these mistakes and fix them accordingly. In this blog. We’ll give you an insight on what mistakes you might be making and how to avoid it.
Focusing on the wrong metrics
Having a comprehensive understanding of all the metrics on YouTube is important, but tracking certain metrics is more important than the others.
Vanity Metrics provide you with only surface level data that is not very reliable for optimising your content. For example, the “Views” metric shows you the number of people that have watched at least 30 seconds of your video. Views are important, but they don't necessarily indicate how engaged your audience is. Same goes with “Subscribers”— a high number of subscribers does not necessarily mean high engagement on your content.
Actionable metrics, on the other hand, give insights that are directly related to the success of your channel. For example, 'Watch Time' shows you the total time a viewer spends looking at your YouTube video. This gives you an idea on what part of your content is most engaging and what to focus on for future videos.
Another example of an actionable metric is the Impressions Clickthrough-Rate. This metric shows you how many people click on the thumbnail of your video when it appears on their suggestions. This will give you an idea on how engaging your thumbnails, video titles and descriptions are.
You can also track Average View Duration and retention rates to understand how engaging your video is and how long it usually holds the attention of your viewers'.
The focus should be on the metric which show you the quality of how your video is performing.
Not leveraging Audience demographics
Understanding your audience demographics like gender, location and age, is crucial when it comes to creating content that resonates with your viewers. So if you’re overlooking or not giving enough time to analyse your audience data, you might not be able to create content that engages your viewers.
Suppose your niche is beauty and wellness and your demographics data shows that you have a high number of female viewers aged 18-24. By analysing this demographic data, you can tailor your content to appeal to this age group.
You can use audience demographics along with engagement and watch time metrics to get a more holistic understanding of your audience. You can look for patterns in your data to identify what types of content appeal to specific demographics. As a content creator, it is imperative to remember that you are creating videos for an audience. If you don’t identify who your audience is, you will not be able to come up with content that your audience finds relevant and interesting.
You can check out our blog on Audience Metrics for a better understanding of your audience.
Not optimising your content for SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is important on YouTube to help your content get discovered by viewers who are interested in your topic. If you are not optimising your videos titles, descriptions and tags for the search engine, the visibility of your videos can suffer.
Keyword research is important when it comes to SEO. You can use the research tab on YouTube Analytics to look up the keywords that your target audience is searching for. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, TubeBuddy, and VidIQ can also help in identifying relevant keywords and phrases.
Let's say you're a fitness content creator and you're creating a video about weight loss tips. After doing keyword research, you may discover that keywords like "how to lose weight fast" and "best weight loss tips" are popular among your target audience. By incorporating these keywords into your video's title, description, and tags, you can increase the likelihood of your video showing up in search results for these keywords.
You can use a mix of broad and specific tags to increase the probability of your video appearing in search results. To rank your video higher in the search results, you should include closed captions as well.
Moreover, you should also focus on delivering high quality content that your audience has been searching for, and enjoys watching.
Visit our blog on YouTube SEO for an in-depth idea on this topic.
Not setting goals
Without a set of proper goals or objectives you have no clear direction and are going into the process of creating content blind.
By setting goals, you can ensure that your content is aligned with your overall strategy and that you're making the most of your resources and time. Setting goals will also let you make informed decisions about your content strategy. You can set specific goals using the SMART method, which lets you improve on metrics under your control. Our blog on setting goals discussed the process in detail.
Let's say you're a fashion content creator and you want to create a series of ‘how to apply makeup’ videos to drive more traffic to your website. Your goals for this content might be to:
Increase website traffic by 20% within 3 months
Increase engagement on your YouTube channel by 50% within 6 months
By setting these clear and specific goals, you can track your progress and success using YouTube analytics. You can see how well your audience is engaging with your videos, and use this information to optimise your content strategy and achieve your goals.
Not leveraging time stamps
Say, you just posted a video about how to make lasagna. The video is 20 minutes long, and covers everything from how to make the sauce to how to layer the noodles. Instead of making viewers sit through the entire video to find the information they're looking for, you can use time stamps to help them navigate the content more easily.
Time stamps are clickable links in the video description that allow viewers to quickly jump to a specific section of the video. When used correctly, time stamps can improve the viewer experience, increase engagement, and help improve the overall performance of your video
You could add timestamps to your video description like this:
0:00 Introduction
1:30 Making the sauce
5:45 Cooking the noodles
By adding time stamps to your video description, viewers can easily click on the section they're interested in and jump straight to it. This can improve the viewer experience and make your content more accessible and user-friendly.
This simple change can get you more views and higher engagement because viewers will keep coming back to the video to refer to different timestamps.
Not leveraging end screens
If you are using YouTube to promote your business, not leveraging end screens can result in missed opportunities for engagement and traffic on your channel and website.
End screens are clickable overlays that appear at the end of your video, and can be used to promote your content, drive engagement, and increase your subscribers. When used correctly, end screens can improve the viewer experience, increase engagement, and help improve the overall performance of your video.
Let's say you have a fashion channel and you just posted a video about your favourite outfit pairings. At the end of the video, you want to promote your other videos and encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel. By adding end screens to your video, you can achieve these goals. You could also add end screens to your video to promote your other videos or encourage viewers to subscribe.
Not analysing your data regularly
If you are checking your analytics only once a month, you will not find any patterns in your data and end up with no concrete ideas for improvement.
One of the key factors in having a successful channel is to keep yourself updated about the performance of your channel on a regular basis.
While it's important to create high-quality content, it's equally important to understand how your content is performing. By not consistently analysing data, you may be missing out on opportunities to optimise your content, increase engagement, and grow your channel. Keeping yourself updated will play a major role in growing your channel over time.
Conclusion
Competition for attention is always high on YouTube. Every content creator knows that avoiding these common mistakes can be the deciding factor between a flourishing channel and a forgotten one. By avoiding common mistakes and truly understanding the wealth of data and metrics available to you, you can transform your channel from a mere blip on the radar into a thriving community of engaged viewers — ultimately, growing your brand.
