Learning from YouTube Analytics #ThingsIDidNotKnow

Yesterday evening I had my first ever conversation with someone in Google/YouTube about my channel. I did not know this but I have an Account Manager who helps YouTube content creators once they reach a certain number of subscribers and the number of watch minutes exceeds a threshold. I was surprised to find that my Account Manager knew a lot about my channel and she had plenty of advice about how to improve the channel to get more views and subscribers. 

One of the main things we discussed in over an hour's conversation (in a Google Hangout - another first for me) was about how viewers find my videos. 61% of my views come from Google and/or YouTube searches which brings the viewer directly to my video. Another 29% comes from "Suggested Videos" - they are from the suggestions that appear at the end or at the side of a played video. This means that hardly any are coming through my channel or my website.

Also of interest to find out was what the people were searching for when they landed on my video's page - here are the top ten searches terms from the last 365 days:

1. gantt chart (2.6%)
2. gantt chart excel 2013 (1.9%)
3. standard deviation excel (1.5%)
4. how to embed a youtube video into powerpoint 2010 (1.2%)
5. gantt chart excel 2010 (0.8%)
6. how to make a gantt chart (0.5%)
7. how to make a gantt chart in excel 2010 (0.5%)
8. gantt chart excel (0.5%)
9. how to calculate standard deviation in excel (0.5%)
10. how to create a gantt chart in excel 2010 (0.4%)

While the overall percentages for each is small, it does give a strong indication that Gantt Charts are very popular. My most popular video is How To... Create a Basic Gantt Chart in Excel, which accounts for 896,897 out of 7,725,778 views. I was also informed that the Search Algorithm searches through the metadata tags, video title, and video description (in that order) so it is therefore important to make sure that these items are as optimized as possible.

One of the first things I plan to do is to create a custom thumbnail template for all my videos - my Account Manager showed me some sample channels where faces and large type made all the difference, especially for searches. Lots more to do!