YouTube How To:
Most Important Thing About Titles

I have watched many, many YouTube how to videos on what to do to make the algorithm love a video, and I have tried lots of their tips. What I am coming to realise is this:

It does not matter how good your video content is if you are a small channel, the only way to get ahead is to play the game and chase the algorithm.

One proviso, is that I am talking about my experience with YouTube shorts, which is one of the best ways to grow a channel from scratch at the moment. Longer videos require other techniques as well, but there is a lot of crossover.

The number 1 tip that seems to finally be working for my channel is this:

❗Write the title before even starting the video.❗

I spent months deciding on my stories, then trying to come up with titles that would grab viewers, and I was getting a steady viewership, but it had completely stalled in new subs and viewing number. In the past 2 weeks I have completely changed my strategy and my views have gone up considerably, so has my like count, as well as gaining new subscribers. I mean, it's nothing astronomical yet, but growth is growth.

This is my strategy:

Sunday, go to "What is popular on YouTube" playlist.
Look at the most successful topics.
Create click-bait titles for my five shorts for that week, based on various hot topics.
Decide on my overall story themes (first week I did Midsomer Murder parodies, this week comedy horror)
Come up with stories that incorporate the title somehow, but fit the theme.

An Example

One of the popular topics was Minecraft, so I came up with the following title: Minecraft Mystery?! 🤯 #shorts (1 min story) (Midsomer Murders Parody)

Note that the end of my title does not hide the true nature of my short, I do not want to lie to people and make them feel betrayed. However, it does count on the fact most people scan the beginning of the title first and don't bother with the end.

The story itself is a ridiculous murder in a craft shop in an old mine.

It technically fits the title and it's supposed to be funny, so will hopefully make them smile and even if they have been tricked, they won't mind that much.

Results

From getting anywhere from 10 to around 100 views on a vid, using this technique I managed to get all of last weeks vids to around 200 views, and some of my older titles are getting some more views too. I link to a different playlist at the end of Monday's vid and the playlist for the week from every other vid that week.

Of course it does depend on the topic, and sometimes I get it wrong. This week, Monday's vid, only has 40 views and I'm planning on changing up the title some more once I can think of how to do it, however, Tuesday's, is currently at 1,150 and still going up.

It’s a SCAM! Grifter Alert! 👿 #shorts (1 min story) (FUNNY Ghost Story)

Changing the title can work too - one of last week's vids did not do well overnight, so I changed up the title and managed to bring it up to the same level as the others. It's a bit of a game against the algorithm, if you haven't realised that yet 😉.

Conclusion

There are many factors in creating a good title, but getting the popular buzz words in there, seems to be a really, really important one. So far the one that gets the most traction for me is "Scam/Scammer". It is a sad fact of life that negative connotations get more hits. However, if I can get a bit of humour into someone's life using a click-baity title, I count it as a good thing.

We shall have to see how this continues to pan out.