YouTube, currently one of the most successful and most popular audio-visual platforms and has the entire world at its palms. There are approximately 2 billion people on the platform consuming content. There are about 500 hours of content uploaded every minute. The more you think about it, the more you come to realize the true power this platform holds.
YouTube has turned out revolutionary for consumers and producers. People who literally started from the slums grew to fame with the help of YouTube and are now living completely changed lives.
There are all types of content available on the platform; however, they do make sure that nothing obscene is shown in the videos they publish. Videos revolving around nudity, violence, harassment, drugs, scams, and hate speech are highly censored or banned from the platform for the most part. Your video takes a big hit if it includes such content.
Even if your video talks about these issues, there are high chances that your video would be demonetized, and no advertisements would run on it so you could earn. YouTube takes these things with extreme seriousness.
How does YouTube work?
YouTube is an audio-visual platform, mainly focusing on the visual content uploaded by the people and the people. YouTube is just a medium through which these videos come to your access. The platform has information about everything. This is why it is the second most used search engine in the world, after Google.
YouTube has its own algorithm, which we will talk about later in this article. That helps you go from one video to another. You do not have to search for every video specifically; for example, you can search one video to research about music and its history.
After that, you will constantly get similar recommendations on your home page and the video player’s side. The algorithm is designed in such a way that the most relevant videos are recommended to you. This is how a user jumps from one video to another in this endless sea of videos.
These recommendations are based on the user’s search history on the platform and his or her interests and likes and dislikes, which YouTube analyses regularly to get the aptest content for you. Videos that are doing well with views and the like to dislike ratio are the ones that are mostly recommended and pushed ahead by YouTube.
This also helps when you search for a particular subject, and the video that appears at the top is ranked one. This ranking completely depends upon the views, like to dislike ratio, and user’s subscription.
What is Ranking?
The term “Ranking” simply means where your video is ranked under that particular genre or category. Which page will your video appear on? How many times will it be suggested to the audience? Where will it appear on the search bar predictions? All these things come under and are directly connected to a video’s rank.
Suppose the video is highly ranked, which is the top 5. In that case, it will be one of the first few results when a user types in a topic related to the video. It will be in many more recommendations.
Your video must keep getting recommended in the sidebar for suggestions when a user watches some other video because suggestions get the highest number of clicks on the platform and drive in major traffic.
Ranking can boost your channel and your video to completely different heights. You could be on this platform for years with little to no success, and you could have that one video someday that blows up and ranks the highest, which will change the entire ballgame for you and your channel’s growth.
What affects the ranking?
Views –
The most obvious one. Views matter the most. It shows the user and the YouTube system that a large audience is already interacting with this content. Therefore, it will suggest it to more users repeatedly. Users also judge a video and how helpful it would be based on the number of views a video has. Views show that many people interacted with the video.
If it was helpful to such a big audience, then it could turn out to be helpful for other users too. The YouTube algorithm will also push a video with higher views on the search bar predictions, recommendations, and search result page.
Like/Dislike Ratio –
After views, this is the most important thing since this is the first thing that the user comes across when he clicks on your video. Suppose your video does not have a good like to dislike ratio. In that case, the user will instantly click off because it will be clear that this video was not helpful for most of the audience. Suppose your video has more dislikes than likes.
In that case, it clearly shows that the majority did not appreciate your video, and YouTube will stop pushing it more because the algorithm will show that this video is not turning out to be helpful.
How important are views for ranking?
Whether you are an individual-based channel or a company-based channel, views are always going to be your concern. This is what defines success on this platform. Higher views, higher ranking, more people watch it, higher revenue, and more sponsorships and adverts. If you want your videos to rank higher, you need your video to attain more views.
Need views to get more views
As the saying goes, “To earn money, you got to have money.” This is a vicious cycle because you need to get views to get your videos suggested to more people. Then the YouTube algorithm would start pushing its rank higher. You have to prove to the system that your video appeals to whichever user clicks on it and performs well. Only then would the system help you push it further, which is how your rank would go higher.
If you ever search for any topic, you would always notice that the search results will always be placed in ascending order. The video with the highest views would show up first. This is called ranking. When the first noticeable thing about your video is its views, then the ranking system would certainly make it a priority that the users get to see the video that has already received good attention and feedback.
Views and Brands
YouTube is a business that makes a major profit from brands and other companies that run advertisements on their website. This is why you will notice that anytime you click on a video, the ad plays first. Brand appeal is one of the things that YouTube considers its highest priority.
Therefore, year after year, they have made their policies stricter. No brand would like to associate itself with a video that talks about sensitive issues because that would incur backlash at some point. Brands only associate themselves with videos that are completely clean and therefore appealing to all kinds of audiences. You will also notice that a video with a higher rank and a lot of views would certainly have a lot of adverts as well.
The cleaner your content is, the more it is pushed by YouTube, and then the brands run their ads. Your video gains more traffic since YouTube would push the video further so that the brand’s advert could gain more attention too. A clean video that is brand-friendly and has a decent amount of views would rank considerably higher than a controversial video with no ads. It would be best if you had the balance.
Views and Popularity
You have to build a base on YouTube before your videos regularly rank high. Anybody can have one viral video, but to last long on YouTube, you have to consistently gain views and subscribers so that all the content from your channel is ranked higher. This is how you will notice that the Trending section might also feature your videos.
The search bar prediction would also have your channel and videos in its suggestions. You have to keep in mind that your videos need to be policy and brand-friendly so that you get the maximum push.
Getting views is not the most important thing; getting views consistently is what matters; otherwise, only one of your videos would get ranked higher, and your channel would be left unexplored by the audience. Suppose your channel and your videos are doing good in numbers and are gaining traffic regularly. In that case, YouTube will also start recommending it to more people.
Conclusion
Ranking can truly make or break your channel. Your content could be top-notch, but you will not gain a newer audience quickly, and your growth will be very slow until it gets highly ranked. Views are very important for ranking, and YouTube’s algorithm would notice a video performing extremely well independently.
Then, YouTube would promote it further through suggestions, recommendations, search results, and search bar predictions. You have to make sure that your content does not violate any terms and conditions so the brands could associate themselves with the platform and your channel. Do put out good quality content so that the like to dislike is always maintained; it is important.
