4 essential tips to improve Audience Retention score on YouTube videos

A lot of YouTube vloggers push for, and create content with the primary objective of increasing the number of views on their YouTube channel, which they think boils down to the more the merrier. Sadly that has not been the case with YouTube videos since the past few years.

YouTube does not assign priority to videos or channels based on the number of video views, instead considers the average watching duration for the videos, which is the average amount of time spent by viewers on a certain video.

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This makes up for a qualitative approach instead of a quantitative one which simply considers video views as a metric. YouTube terms it as Audience Retention, and the higher your videos register on this metric, the better discoverability your videos achieve.

Let us look at a few ways to enhance your content’s performance by understanding how to improve Audience Retention score.

Playlists and Organization

Make good use of YouTube Playlists to organize your videos based on category, or any other characteristic to provide your audience with a structured viewing experience.

As you may notice in the above image, All India Bakchod organizes their videos based on the type or genre of the sketch, and that makes it easier for their audience to watch and continue to watch as many videos from their preferred category on their YouTube channel.

Let’s say you are a fan of AIB’s Honest Series. You can simply click on the playlist and continue to watch all of their videos at a stretch!

Always trim the fat when it comes to videos. Long intros are a strict no -no as they are off putting for the many fickle social media users out there.

Avoid misleading viewers with unrelated or exaggerated titles and thumbnails

A lot of content creators resort to such tricks to get viewers to click on their videos, but this makes up for a horrible Audience Retention score as the viewer clicks elsewhere as soon as they realize they have been tricked into watching something that is not as ‘entertaining, informative, or accurate’ as they thought it would be.

Always choose the best possible thumbnail and video title that has the potential to grab the audience’s eye, yet is not misleading.

YouTube is as helpful as it can be, as the company offers Audience Retention reports that could help you calculate a rise or drop in Audience Retention. If majority of audiences leave the video within 15 seconds, it could be attributed to your thumbnail and video title.

Link other similar videos within the video

In order to keep your audience interested, you can guide them to other similar content through cards within the videos that will help your audience navigate with ease.

At the end of every video, Pretentious Movie Reviews provide links to more videos from their channel.

Inserting such video cards at times when the audience is most likely to click away helps retain their attention to more content on your YouTube channel.

Keep keywords in mind when deciding the video title

Always do your research based on YouTube’s suggestions, and try to incorporate the keywords that your audience is most likely to search for. Such as, if your channel caters to movie buffs with reviews, trivia and other such content, you could use the YouTube suggestions for a suitable title.

These keywords will not only help you craft titles for your videos, but also help you use this insight for future videos to offer your audience what they are looking for.

These are some of the most helpful tips that could work wonders for the discoverability and Audience Retention score of your channel and videos, which will help you rack up video views effortlessly.