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Hi, my name is Asus Ramirez. For the last decade I've ran a successful YouTube channel, now with over 2 million subscribers. Most recently, I started a video podcast and had to start with a brand new channel from scratch. Unfortunately, this time I'm starting a channel with the knowledge of creating a successful YouTube channel. So far, I've published 10 episodes, each receiving over 1000 views on YouTube of course, not counting the place from the audio-only podcasting platforms Not huge numbers, but not bad, considering this is an entirely new show and I'm still learning how to be a good podcast host. But I've had relative success because I understand what YouTube wants, and that is two simple things a high click-through rate and a high retention rate. That's it. You can spend a lot of time worrying about other metrics and analytics, if you like, but in my experience from growing in my original channel, I can tell you that these two metrics are responsible for more than 80% of my traffic. In case you're new to YouTube, analytics are the numbers that give you insight into how a video or channel is performing. They are the tangible evidence of your audience's behavior and engagement. They tell you who's watching, where they're watching from how long they're watching, how they're interacting with your content, are they commenting, liking and a whole lot more. Now, why are these metrics important? Well, imagine you're sailing a ship. The metrics, the analytics, are your compass, your map and your weather forecast. They guide your journey, helping you understand where you're doing well and where you might need to adjust your course. Without them, you're sailing blind. In the context of YouTube, these metrics help you measure the success of your content. They allow you to understand what's resonating with your audience and what's not. They guide you in making informed decisions about your content strategy, helping you create more content that your audience loves and less of what they don't. The downside is that YouTube provides hundreds of individual metrics in the analytics. Luckily, not all metrics are created equal. Some are more important than others and, in my opinion, most creators should only focus on just two Click the rate and retention rate. That's it. I can guarantee that if you just focus and improve on these metrics, you will get more views and your videos will get recommended to more people. It's really all I focus on to make sure my videos get seen by a larger audience and what got me to over 2 million subscribers on my original channel. But why these metrics that have hundreds of others. Well, it's simple if you think about it. Youtube is a business, and they make more money the longer people stay on their platform, so they reward videos that can do that for them. In other words, youtube promotes videos that more people want to watch for a longer period of time. The best part about all this is that you can do that by creating good content, no need for tricks or misdirections. Let's dive in and explore each of these metrics in more detail, and I'll give you a few tips to improve them. Let's start with click rate, also called CTR. Click rate is the percentage of people who see your video in their YouTube feed and decide to click on it. It's essentially a measure of how enticing your video appears at first glance. So if your video gets shown to 100 people and 10 click on it, that's a 10% CTR. Why is this important? Well, think about it. No matter how fantastic your video is, if people aren't clicking on it, they won't watch it. Ctr means your video is effectively grabbing people's attention and makes them curious enough to click. If your video has a high CTR, youtube interprets that as a sign that viewers find your video appealing. As a result, youtube is more likely to recommend your video to other viewers, increasing its visibility. So how can you improve your click-through rate? First, and perhaps most important, your video's thumbnail needs to be compelling and it must accurately represent what your video is about. So in the context of a podcast, I would avoid repeating the same thumbnail for all your guests. This doesn't get anyone to click and it's not compelling. If you use the same thumbnail for every episode, even if you change the guest's photo, I can almost guarantee your videos are not getting a lot of views. Think about it this way why would you expect anyone to be excited or intrigued to click on the thumbnail if they've seen it a thousand times before? Each of your guests is unique and they bring something special to your show. That's why you have them on and you must convey that in the thumbnail. Think about it this way If I'm the biggest fan of your show, how will I know if I watch an episode if the thumbnails are all the same? Even if I want to click, I may not, because I might assume I've already watched that episode. The thumbnail is encouraging me not to click. So please do not use the same thumbnail for all your shows. I cannot stress this enough. Make each thumbnail unique and exciting and, if you have the money, hire a designer and even spend some money on thumbnail A-B testing platforms for YouTube. I constantly test to see what thumbnails get the most clicks. I do it on both my channels. I cannot recommend this enough. If you can't afford a designer, then use free platforms like Adobe Express to design the thumbnail yourself. Adobe Express has a ton of templates and cool features like AI generation, background removal and so forth. Also, consider mid-journey to generate engaging images using AI. Do whatever you need to. There's no way around it. You cannot have a successful YouTube podcast with bad thumbnails, and I'm sure you can find someone who is the exception to the rule, but that doesn't mean it will also apply to you. There are many other factors that play with the people who are the exception. Also, you've already spent a ton of time and effort recording and editing the podcast. Don't let it all go to waste because of a bad thumbnail. If you need inspiration, look at your homepage. See what YouTube is recommending to you. Words are that those videos have a high CTR and good thumbnails. Or you can search for a topic or a guest and analyze the top videos. Again, those videos probably have high CTRs as well. And here's something very important to remember. This has worked well for me. Don't write long paragraphs in the thumbnail. People will not be able to read them, especially on their phones. I rarely use more than three words and those three words need to be impactful and further entice people to click. Don't just repeat the title on the thumbnail. If you're going to add words to your thumbnail, then make it complimentary to the overall packaging. Keep it all easy to read and engaging. Also, it's extremely important to note that misleading thumbnails or titles may increase your CTR in the short term, but they can harm your retention rate in the long run. We'll get into retention rate in a moment, but just realize that you cannot click bait people and expect to have a successful YouTube channel. You need to deliver on all the promises your thumbnail and titles make. In talking about titles, this is the other essential component for getting a high CTR. An engaging or intriguing title can help increase the number of people who click on your video and please avoid this mistake. I see this one often on video podcasts on YouTube. It weighs valuable real estate putting the episode number in the title, especially in the beginning of the title, for example, a title like Episode 23, mark heaps on artificial intelligence and the creative industry. This title wastes the first 10 or so characters on something that will not encourage anyone to click and is information that just doesn't matter. Who cares what episode number it is A good show is a good show. Then I mentioned the guest's name, which is important, for sure, but unless you're dealing with a person who is very well known, their name is probably not important enough to be in the beginning part of the title. Instead, use a short, engaging title to get people to click. Something like the truth about AI getting creative with mark heaps. The title now gets to the point immediately. It sparks intrigue and it can all be read with just a quick glance. This is actually the title for my first YouTube podcast episode, which received over 3,000 views. These are not huge numbers but relatively speaking, they're good, considering it was my very first podcast episode on a new channel and in that context, I think it did very well and I'm very confident that a good thumbnail and a good title were important contributing factors to the success of this first episode. Again, don't let all your hard work recording and editing your episode go to waste because you didn't have a well crafted title. If you need to spend time researching titles, maybe your guest has been on other successful podcasts and you can take inspiration from those titles. If you see a YouTube title that you like, make note of it and come back to it when you need inspiration. Now I haven't talked about what a good CTR actually is, because that depends on the size of your channel. For example, a 7-10% CTR on my channel with 2 million subscribers is great, while those same percentages on my podcast channel wouldn't be as good. My videos get served to a lot fewer people in the podcast channel, so the CTRs would generally be higher. I recommend looking at the average CTR per video and use that percentage as a baseline. Then try to increase the CTR by a few percentage points on your videos and, by the way, you can go back and change the thumbnail on older videos to help increase your CTR. You can definitely revive and get views on older videos by creating new thumbnails and even new titles. Let's now discuss the other important metric to look at, which is retention rate. How long do people on average watch your video? For example, if on a 10-minute video, most people watch 5 minutes, you'll have a 50% retention rate. The higher the percentage, the more valuable YouTube will see your content and the more people it will promote it to in search results and recommendations, thereby reaching a larger audience. If people click away from a video as soon as it starts, then YouTube assumes your content is bad or misleading. This is why clickbait doesn't work. If you don't deliver on your promise, people will click away and YouTube will punish you by not promoting your video to a new audience. But how can you increase retention rates? First, the content itself needs to be engaging. It needs to grab the viewers' attention and hold it. In other words, you need a good show. The structure of your video can play a big role. A compelling opening can hook viewers, so avoid long intros. People will click away if you have introductions that add no value. Just because you paid some guy on Fiverr to create an introduction for you doesn't mean you have to play it on every episode, especially the analytics show. People click away before it ends. Also, you'll note two numbers that YouTube finds important Overall retention rate and the retention rate of the first 30 seconds. Pay attention to the 30-second retention rate. This shows how well your video is hooking the viewer If this number is less than 60%, then that means your hook is not working well. I would spend a lot of time getting this number as high as possible. Odds are that if people stick with you for 30 seconds or longer, they'll listen to or watch most of the video. If you are losing the majority of people before 30 seconds, then you should be concerned. Look at the intro. Is it long? Is it boring? Is it delivering on the promise of the title and thumbnail? It could be multiple things. Whatever it is, try changing your introduction into a fine one that constantly gets you a high retention rate. Also, look at the overall retention rate. If only one or two percent of your viewers make it to the very end, then you know that your show might be too long-winded and you might need to edit it a bit so that at least half of people make it to the end. The point is that the longer people watch, the more YouTube will recommend your video. At the end of the day, you must create content that people want to watch, and this is what YouTube wants. Focus on that and use retention rates to help you make informed decisions about how you craft your show. Again, my name is Esus Ramirez. I hope this information was useful to you. Thank you so much for listening.
