Are you looking for increase viewer retention on YouTube videos? Let me tell you how. It can be so frustrating when you put up a video, it’s getting views, and then you see that, actually, most of the people viewing it aren’t watching more than ten seconds of it.
Before you rip it down, there are a few things worth trying to see if you can increase user retention. Obviously, this isn’t foolproof, some videos just aren’t going to make it no matter what you do, but it is worth experimenting to see if there’s anything you can do.
9 Ways To Increase Viewer Retention On YouTube Videos
Here are the 9 ways to increase viewer retention on YouTube Videos
| Sr. No. | Ways To Increase Viewer Retention On YouTube Videos |
|---|---|
| 1. | Titles |
| 2. | Thumbnails |
| 3. | Visually Appalling |
| 4. | Drop Off Annotation |
| 5. | Subtitles |
| 6. | Check Your Competitors |
| 7. | Edit The Video With The YouTube Editor |
| 8. | Make A New One |
| 9. | Link To a Different Video |
1. Titles
First off, check your title. Is there any way it could be confusing? Over on my bodypainting channel, I had a video called “Beginner tips for liquid latex”, and it had terrible retention; I renamed it to “Liquid Latex Safety Tips” because it was a video talking about how to use liquid latex safely, not actually work with it to create anything, I got fewer views on it, BUT the retention rate went way up. Even if you think there’s no way that your title could be misunderstood, try rewording it.
Even though the new title on the liquid latex video was working fine, albeit with a lower view count, I experimented with variations of the new title to see if it would improve.
Basically, make sure that the title you’ve given your video accurately describes what the video is about.
Related Reads: Beginner SEO Tips For Youtube
2. Thumbnails
Like the titles, the thumbnail should represent your video; if you’ve done a video for a smokey eye tutorial and you’ve used a random image of a Smokey eye that you found online, change it to a picture of the smokey eye, you’re doing in the video, even if it means having to do a screen grab of the final look from the video. If your thumbnails is misleading, then you’re probably getting a lot of clicks because viewers think they’re getting one thing, and once the video starts, they’re getting something else, so they click away.
3. Visually Appalling
When you create a video, no matter how good your script is, no matter how good your content is but if you cannot make it more visually appalling then you won’t get the result you deserve. You have to make sure your vision is shown in the best possible manner which is simple to understand and appalling to view. You can create animation, different types of informative elements or sounds which will make the user wanna see more. Don’t go for big videos all the time, tryna keep it short and with correct information.
4. Drop Off Annotation
When you look at your analytics retention, you might notice that there is a clear drop-off point. Go and check out what happens at that point in the video that could be making viewers drop off. If you manage to work out what it is then you could try using an annotation just before the drop-off point making reference to it, for example, “Sorry guys, off on a tangent, word vomit stops at XX:XX” and make that a link to that point in the video so that people can jump ahead to wherever you think is a good spot to pick back up.
5. Subtitles
Some YouTubers have strong accents, or speak very fast or quietly, or have bad mics, or put the music up too loud, and it’s a struggle to hear them. If you think there’s any chance that people are dropping off because they can’t hear or understand you, add subtitles so that people can read along. Not everyone will want to read them, and some people won’t notice the option to have them on, so if you’re pretty sure that’s the issue, stick an annotation telling them that there are subtitles available.
6. Check Your Competitors
One thing you have to make sure you do is keep an eye on your competitor and compare it with your content in order to improve yourself. You might miss out on some pointers or some aspects which might make your video much better. Can also understand where you falling short in order to make it better. Check your competitors and see what they are doing differently and what you can do better in order to grow.
7. Edit The Video With The YouTube Editor
YouTube finally has its own little editor so that you can do some basic editing on videos that you’ve already uploaded. If you found a spot where people are dropping off in the analytics retention chart, you could cut that chunk out of the video. That way, your video will still keep all it’s views and any position it’s managed to gain in the search results but will be missing that off-putting part of the video.
8. Make A New One
If there’s really no way of salvaging it, then you could make a new one. Leave the old video up and add in a link to the beginning informing people that you have a fancy new version of the video.
While this isn’t going to improve the old videos retention, in fact, it’ll probably make the retention even worse, it’s still going to guide users to a video on your channel. At least the viewers are going to still end up on one of your videos and not someone else’s.
Once you feel like the newer video has earned a decent spot in the search results (chances are the older video will outrank the newer one for a while), then consider getting rid of the old one if it’s not getting that many views.
9. Link To a Different Video
If you don’t want to/can’t make an updated version of the badly performing video, then you could put in an annotation link that goes to a related video on your channel. Again, you want to make sure that the annotation pops up near the start of your video.
Even though the content you are linking to isn’t exactly the same as the one you’re linking from, hopefully, some viewers will click through to it.
Related Reads: YouTube Video Ideas
Conclusion : increase viewer retention on youTube videos
I hope that the above ways have increased the retention rate on your videos.
Apart from these ways, make sure to post genuine and interesting content on your YouTube videos to keep you audience hooked with your content. You can also try adding some suspense, giveaway at the end of video or provide the users with some discounts and the promocode for the products user in your video.
