Ask any YouTuber and they will tell you that generating significant views and subscribers isn't easy. But with the right strategy and tools, any video creator can build an engaged subscriber base when they understand what those subscribers want to watch.

Appealing to an audience to watch content you are passionate about making is just the first step, you need to know how to reach them and get your videos discovered. Our guides to how to guide more views on YouTube will give you the best tips to succeed on the platform.

Getting Views

How To Get More Views on YouTube

Getting thousands or even millions of YouTube subscribers is a dream for most creators. In the articles below, we'll show you how to turn casual viewers into long-term fans. 

Subscribers

YouTube Subscribers

Do you want to make money on YouTube? Millions of creators are earning a very good living from monetizing the platform and uploading content that drives huge views and engagements. Whether that YouTube income is from advertising revenue, merchandise sales, or brand deals, or subscriptions, we keep you updated with best practices and ideas.

Monetization

How To Make Money on YouTube

Want to see how your channel is performing? Read these YouTube analytics articles to discover what's working and what isn't. You'll learn how to identify which videos have the most Watch Time, clicks, audience retention, revenue, and more.

Analytics

YouTube Analytics

Watch Time is arguably THE most important metric on YouTube right now, and creators won’t be able to monetize their content without 4000 hours of it. But what is it and how can creators increase the amount of Watch Time their videos attract? We keep you updated on the best practices around Watch Time, and how you can increase how much your video content generates.

Watch Time

YouTube Watch Time

YouTube Shorts content is set to explode! 

All the latest tips, tricks, and rock-solid advice you need for this new feature.

YouTube Shorts

Do you know how to do keyword research so you understand what videos people are actually searching for on YouTube? Do you know how to create a custom YouTube thumbnail? Do you know how to create a Playlist on YouTube?

vidIQ has a ton of tips that will help every creator maximise their video content. We publish content every week to keep you up to date with all the best practices.

Tips & Tricks

YouTube Tips & Tricks

At vidIQ we have incredible insights into what viewers are searching for on YouTube. Not only can we confirm the top keywords being searched for, we can also show you how you can leverage that interest to create content around trending topics and tentpole events. That's going to give you a clear edge over other creators!

Insights

YouTube Insights

Your In-Depth Guide to Building a Successful YouTube Channel

If you're a content creator, especially on YouTube, you already know that thumbnails are one of the most crucial elements of your video’s success. It’s often said that a video’s thumbnail acts like the storefront window—your one chance to grab a viewer’s attention as they scroll through endless video options. But let’s be honest: not everyone has the time, skill, or resources to make high-quality, professional thumbnails.

—designed to take the pain out of thumbnail creation. With our tool, you can generate stunning thumbnails in minutes without any prior design skills. Whether you’re a seasoned YouTube creator or just getting started, we’ve made it easy for you to stand out from the crowd with clickable, high-converting thumbnails.

For a deeper look at how our tool works and how it can make your thumbnail creation easier than ever, 

. See for yourself how our AI-driven tool helps you create professional-grade thumbnails in minutes:

Why YouTube Thumbnails Matter More Than You Think

There’s no denying the role that thumbnails play in driving your video’s success. 90% of top-performing YouTube videos have custom thumbnails, and that’s no coincidence. Thumbnails are the first thing viewers see, and they can make or break your click-through rate (CTR). An eye-catching thumbnail could be the biggest differentiating factor in your video’s performance.

A well-designed thumbnail draws attention and encourages users to click

Thumbnails give viewers an instant idea of what your video is about.

Engage Audiences Before the Video Even Starts:

 You can intrigue, entertain, or captivate audiences simply with your thumbnail, setting the stage for higher engagement.

But what if you’re not a designer? That’s where our tool comes in—eliminating the need for graphic design skills while delivering professional results.

For most creators, designing custom thumbnails can be a frustrating process. Here are a few of the biggest hurdles:

Tools like Photoshop or even Canva often require design knowledge, and learning to use them can be time-consuming.

Manually creating thumbnails for every video might result in inconsistent branding, which can confuse your audience.

Creating a single thumbnail can take up to an hour or more, depending on the complexity of the design.

The last thing you want is to waste time struggling with design when you could be creating more content. That’s why we developed a solution that automates the entire process—AI-powered thumbnail generation that’s quick, effective, and customizable.

Introducing vidIQ Thumbnail Tool: AI-Driven, Fast, and Foolproof

Imagine this: You’ve just finished creating a fantastic YouTube video, and now you need a thumbnail that stands out. What if you could generate a professional-quality thumbnail in less than a minute?

With our AI-powered tool, that’s exactly what you can do. From selecting the best frames of your video to adding text and visual elements, our tool makes the process seamless. Here’s how it works:

Creating thumbnails has never been easier. You only need to drag and drop your video into the tool. The AI analyzes your video content and automatically selects a few frames to generate multiple thumbnail options.

Drag and drop feature in vidIQ thumbnail tool

If your video is not ready yet, you can use the text box to describe the thumbnail you want and vidIQ's thumbnail tool will generate some great options for you!

Step 2: AI-Generated Thumbnails in Seconds

Once you upload the video, our AI gets to work. It intelligently scans the content to identify the best frames that capture the essence of your video. You’ll be presented with several thumbnail options—each tailored to draw viewers in.

Step 3: Make Changes with a Simple Command

If you want to tweak the design, it’s super easy. You can ask the AI to make specific changes, like adjusting colors, adding visual effects, or even changing the layout—all by typing simple commands. You don’t need to know anything about design. Just tell the AI what you want, and it will do the rest.

Text changes on output in vidIQ thumbnail tool

Customization is paramount when it comes to branding, and with our tool, you can easily add text, images, or stickers to make your thumbnail stand out even more. Drag and drop additional elements to finalize your design; you’re good to go!

Why Our AI-Powered Thumbnail Tool is a Game-Changer

Our thumbnail tool isn’t just another design tool. It’s built with content creators in mind and designed to save you time while maximizing the effectiveness of your thumbnails. Here’s why it stands out from the competition:

Thumbnails are generated in seconds, not minutes or hours.

The AI handles everything, from layout to final touches. You can trust it to create professional-quality thumbnails, even if you have zero design experience.

While the AI handles most of the heavy lifting, you can still customize elements like text, colors, and images to fit your branding.

Whether you're new to YouTube or an established content creator, this tool simplifies the process and ensures your thumbnails are consistent and high quality.

Thumbnails and SEO: Boost Your Video’s Performance

Did you know that YouTube’s algorithm takes thumbnail performance into account? When users click on your video based on the thumbnail, it signals to YouTube that your content is engaging. This, in turn, helps boost your rankings on both YouTube and Google.

With AI-optimized thumbnails, your videos are more likely to attract clicks, directly improving your CTR.

Clear, high-quality thumbnails not only look professional but also help ensure your video performs well on different devices.

The AI creates thumbnails that stand out in search results and suggested videos, helping to drive more views.

Get Started with the Ultimate Thumbnail Tool

Your YouTube thumbnails are the gateway to getting more clicks, more views, and more engagement. With our AI-powered thumbnail maker, you can create stunning, high-quality thumbnails in minutes—no design skills required. No matter what your niche is and how rich your YouTube experience is, this tool can help you get on the path to glory!

Graphic with text "Thumbnails In Seconds"

Create eye-catching YouTube thumbnails in minutes without learning any designing skills. Learn more about the ultimate thumbnail maker brought to you by vidIQ!


How To Make Attention Grabbing Custom Thumbnails on YouTube with vidIQ

Install our Chrome extension and we provide you with key insights into what the top creators are doing to drive growth, increase engagement, and create viral content

So for every video you view on YouTube (not just yours) you’ll now see the vidIQ Vision “widget” that ranks every video with vidIQ’s proprietary Score as well as shows you Key Performance Indicators, including:

Helps judge the likelihood of a video being promoted in Related Videos, Search, and Recommended Videos.

You’re now able to see Watch Time not just for your own videos but for any video you’re looking at.

See how many times someone on Facebook has Liked, Shared or included your video’s URL in a comment.

See how many times someone has included your video’s URL in a Tweet, as well as the actual tweets themselves.

WPM shows you how many words per minute a video has. According to our dataset (from 8k+ channels) the most successful videos have higher WPM (~220). In other words, the faster you talk & the more jump cuts you add the more engagement + views you’ll get (surprising, I know!). This would explain why Jenna Marbles talks so fast (people have short attention spans!).

YouTube recently started hiding video tags. We surface them. This is extremely valuable for brands (if I’m Pepsi I probably want to see what Coca Cola is tagging their videos with).

We tell you the best number of links to add.

We tell you whether your description is too short or just right.

Chrome users can install vidIQ Vision for free by clicking here

As we all know success on YouTube is about more than just views. There’s a lot of confusion about what metrics YouTube marketers should be paying attention to, so we developed vidIQ Vision to eliminate that confusion.

Introducing vidIQ Vision: A YouTube Chrome Extension For Power Users

And it’s just the beginning. As with any gold rush, those with the best tools will ultimately win out.

Which is why at vidIQ we’re extremely excited to be building the most robust MCN tools in the industry.

YouTube is becoming an increasingly crowded marketing channel, and getting “easy” subscribers and views will only become harder as more brands and creators scramble to get in on the action. Creators are beginning to realize that an MCN is only as good as the tools they provide, and MCNs are looking to vidIQ to provide their creators with tools that give them a leg up, drive real growth, and help manage their increasingly large networks of channels.

For Networks, some of the benefits we provide are:

With vidIQ’s White Label Support, YouTube networks are able to create a personalized experience for their creators with assets that reflect the network’s unique brand and identity.

Our Network Manager allows YouTube networks to easily invite and onboard their creators in a simple, intuitive workflow. Moreover, networks are able to easily keep tabs on their channels to see how they’re performing.

For creators, if your network uses vidIQ you gain access to our entire suite of YouTube marketing tools that optimize every step of your workflow and help supercharge your YouTube strategy. You get:

Take the guesswork out of tagging and titling your videos – vidIQ optimizes your metadata for maximum reach.

Gain invaluable insights into your audience, discover your super fans, and connect with them to drive growth.

Reign in your YouTube channel with advanced comment moderation tools built especially for the enterprise.

Stay focused on what matters with unparalleled insights into audience viewing habits and engagement metrics.

Manage multiple channels, invite your team, and define workflows with tools that promote collaboration.

Save time, money, and your sanity by automating many of the YouTube marketing tasks in your daily routine.

At vidIQ, our agile team is constantly innovating and creating amazing features for YouTubers big and small.

If the recent deluge of investment in YouTube MCNs proves anything, it’s that online video has entered a feverish gold rush phase.

The Best YouTube Marketing Tools for Multi Channel Networks

Our YouTube comment moderation tool provides brands with enterprise level audience insight and control over interactions occurring around their videos – and today we’re making it even better.

With YouTube Comment Search, vidIQ users now have a powerful search tool that allows them to easily decrease comment spam, reduce illicit comments, or perform viewer sentiment analysis.

Combined with the ability to sort commenters by reputation, reply to comments from any of your YouTube channels, and unearth a viewer’s comment history, you now have a powerful arsenal of YouTube management tools at your fingertips.

If you haven’t already given vidIQ a spin, get started and start growing your audience

Engaging with your YouTube commenters is proven to increase your views by 4X – which is why we encourage all of our brands and creators to embrace the YouTube comments section rather than fear it.

Introducing YouTube Comment Search

Introducing YouTube Title Recommendations

It may come as a surprise, but 58% of YouTube viewers discover a video because of Search and Related videos. In other words, SEO must be part of your YouTube marketing strategy. While we already offer incredible tools to help optimize your videos’ tags, we get questions all the time asking how to title YouTube videos to help them go viral. Today we’re happy to announce our YouTube Title Recommendations tool, which makes optimizing your video titles easy.

These keywords are recommended on an ongoing basis, every week – as search trends change, your titles will never become outdated.

Use vidIQ to optimize the titles of your YouTube videos for SEO

Improving the SEO of your YouTube videos has never been easier. Get started with vidIQ and start growing your audience!

With vidIQ’s Title Recommendations tool you’ll receive a list of the best relevant keywords to add to your videos based on YouTube search trends, search volume, and metadata analysis.

Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the YouTube comments section, which is famous for its seemingly endless assortment of unsavory characters claiming “First!” post or bashing a video just to elicit a reaction from other viewers or the video’s creator. Seeing their comments section regress into an episode of Jerry Springer is every brand’s nightmare. Today, we’d like to provide some tried and true options in how to deal with YouTube trolls:

Faced with the prospect of dealing with illicit commenters, many brands and agencies choose to simply disable YouTube comments rather than playing moderator and dealing with the mess. This, however, is an enormous mistake! Engagement (and especially commenting) is factored heavily in whether your video appears in YouTube Search and Related Videos – if you block YouTube comments you will limit the viral potential of your video and cripple your SEO. In fact, there’s a direct correlation between videos that receive engagement from the owner of the video and views, as well as whether that video is likely to receive additional engagement in the future.

More YouTube comments and more engagement results in more views, more subscribers, more comments, and more engagement

Probably the most obvious lesson that the owners of Amy’s Baking Company chose to ignore is the old Internet adage “don’t feed the trolls!” Ignoring a troll is a troll’s kryptonite – as a YouTube creator you should always err on taking the high road and staying out of a good ol’ fashioned flame war. Instead, focus your efforts on the commenters that matter. Identify influential viewers by looking into which commenters have the highest number of subscribers, and then respond to those users. These “influencers” are your most important viewers, and unlike trolls (who usually don’t have many subscribers) are actually worth your time! Many partnerships and cross promotional agreements between channels have been forged within the YouTube comments section, resulting in thousands or even millions of views.

Sort your YouTube comments by reputation and commenter influence with vidIQ

Instead of responding negatively to your audience, if you’re going to respond at all try being positive! A perfect example of this in practice can be found in the video Low Calorie Chicken Wraps Recipe by the culinary masters over at Being Fat Sucks. In a previous video, a viewer commented that one of the hosts had an uncanny resemblance to our good friend Severus Snape from Harry Potter. The comment snowballed into a frenzy, and every video with the Snape-ish looking host was spammed with YouTube comments about his appearance. Rather than responding negatively, the creators acknowledged their audience by having the host dress up as Snape in their next video. And guess what, their audience loved it!

Believe it or not, YouTube is a social network. In fact, it’s now the 3rd largest in the world (behind Facebook and Google+)! Adopting Social Media Best Practices will go a long way in setting the tone for your YouTube comments and creating an amazing community around your content. By rewarding constructive commenters with thoughtful responses you’ll create an environment that fosters positivity rather than thrives off the negativity that trolls love. Home Depot is a great example of a company that has done this extremely well. In the example below, a viewer expressed his frustration that Home Depot didn’t provide a link to the second part of the video. Home Depot acknowledged the commenter and replied immediately, currying the favor of their audience and increasing engagement.

Home Depot YouTube comments are an example of the best YouTube comments you can make as a brand

Know of another technique to successfully stymie YouTube trolls? Respond in the comments section below!

If there’s one thing that the Amy’s Baking Company PR trainwreck proved, it’s that trolls are legion.

A Lesson In YouTube Comments: Stay Calm, Keep Them On!

Our YouTube analytics tool provides incredible insight into how your viewers are consuming and engaging with your videos across Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. YouTube creators love our insights so much, they requested that we allow them to export our data so they can perform their own analysis on it; so today we’re announcing YouTube CSV Export! Simply click the “Download data as CSV” button on the Video Dashboard and slice and dice our data to your heart’s desire!

We can’t stress enough how critical SEO is to your success on YouTube. vidIQ’s YouTube SEO tool takes the tedium out of tagging and enables you to choose the best tags for your video, increasing your visibility within YouTube’s Search and Recommended Videos. One request from our users was that while they love our channel-wide tag recommendations, they’d really love the ability to optimize the last video they uploaded for SEO on a video-by-video basis. So as of today, you’ll be able improve your video’s SEO in the video detail pane and see video specific tag recommendations in one convenient location.

Find the best tags for your YouTube video automatically with vidIQ YouTube SEO

Growing your YouTube audience and increasing your views and subscribers has never been easier. 

Sign up for vidIQ and grow your audience today!

"At vidIQ, we’re constantly on the prowl for ways we can improve our product and help you grow your YouTube audience. That’s why today we’re announcing that we’ve made some impressive improvements to two of our most popular features: YouTube Actionable Analytics and YouTube SEO.

Introducing Per Video YouTube SEO and CSV Export

Trying to keep up with your YouTube channel’s comments and engage with your community can seem like an uphill battle.

To the brands that have pleaded with us to make their lives easier by building YouTube comment moderation and YouTube management tools to satisfy their needs; we hear you! This has been a huge area of focus for us, and we’re making our YouTube tools better every day. Here are some of our powerful features that are making YouTube comment management less of a headache for the enterprise:

No community manager has enough time to respond to every YouTube comment made on a popular video – community managers want a simple way to find their best YouTube comments by the viewer who has the most subscribers. To solve this, vidIQ allows you to sort your YouTube comments by reputation in order to discover and engage with your most influential viewers – these viewers are what we at vidIQ refer to as your Top Influencers. These top YouTube viewers are the ones who you want to connect with and encourage to evangelize your video.

Don't try to respond to every YouTube comment – sort your YouTube comments by reputation and only respond to influential viewers

vidIQ offers advanced comment sorting capabilities that allow you to narrow down your YouTube comments to a specific time period. Rather than having to visit each individual video’s page, vidIQ takes the tedium out of YouTube comment moderation by allowing you to view all of your most recent comments across all of your videos in one convenient location, saving you time.

Some of the best YouTube marketers we’ve encountered prefer to reply to comments from a personal channel vs. their brand’s channel in order to reveal the human behind the brand and prevent their brand from engaging in distracting conversations. With vidIQ you can reply to comments from another YouTube account, making YouTube play nice with large brands.

Although YouTube already supports threaded / nested comments (which Facebook just introduced for Pages), they don’t provide you with the ability to easily find every comment a viewer has made or a viewer’s YouTube comment history. We do. Knowing the context of a viewers’ comment and whether or not you’ve had other interactions with that user in the past is critical, especially if you have more than one community manager.

See all YouTube comments by a specific user to see the user's comment history

Introducing Real Time YouTube Comment Moderation

No longer will you need to wait for a YouTube comment notification email to arrive – manage and respond to your YouTube comments in one place with vidIQ’s live comment dashboard.

YouTube real time YouTube comment moderation tool

To learn more about these features and others, visit vidIQ and grow your YouTube audience today!"

To further enable our users to build a community around their content, we recently announced Real Time Updates, which will allow you to use vidIQ’s advanced YouTube comment moderation tools to manage and grow your YouTube audience on a split-second basis.

How To: Moderate Your YouTube Comments Like a Pro

"And just like that we’re back from SXSW 2013!

During SXSW 2013 interactive, geeks from all walks of geekdom (myself included) descended on Austin like wildebeests at a watering hole. From Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal’s humorous and inspiring keynote on performance anxiety, to a presentation I attended by Thomas Pickens on Developing Meds in Space to Save Lives on Earth, there was an impressive array of discussions on technology and science that spanned every topic imaginable. Trying to document all the sights and sounds of SXSW here would be a nearly impossible feat, so instead I’d like to concentrate on an overarching theme I noticed during my time in Austin; YouTube is the next big thing in social enterprise.

Out of all the panels I went to see, nowhere was this more apparent than at the B2B Social Marketing: Blazing New Trails panel I attended where the VPs and Directors of Social at Salesforce, Xerox, and Cisco spoke about their craft. Since their inception, Facebook and Twitter have dominated the social conversation, so it was interesting to see that a majority of the time spent on this panel (and elsewhere) was around YouTube strategy. At this juncture, it is clear that VPs of Social and CMOs have Facebook and Twitter figured out; social media management software and audience development tools for these platforms have existed for quite some time (I’m looking at you, Buddy Media / Wildfire Interactive!) and the best practices are well documented. However, YouTube is still very much the Wild West, and marketers are scrambling to understand this platform as brands rush to double down on original video content.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in YouTube search, which, if you’re Salesforce, dictates how 60% of your content is discovered, according to Jamie Grenney, VP of Social and Online Video. SEO hasn’t necessarily been a factor in traditional social media marketing, but it has emerged as The Great Differentiator between winners and losers on YouTube. Which is precisely why we are investing heavily in YouTube SEO.

We couldn’t be happier to be innovating in this space at such an exciting time; our tools and best practices act as a democratizing force that empower YouTube marketers and ensure they won’t miss out in the scramble for YouTube.

For every similarity that exists between YouTube and Facebook / Twitter, there are drastic differences that present unique challenges.

SXSW 2013 Recap: YouTube’s Big in Social Enterprise

Over the past 8 years my passion has been online video.

I’ve lived and breathed it for my entire professional career — and I’ve loved every minute of it. This has always been the most exciting area of technology for me, and there hasn’t ever been a more exciting time than now. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I was graduating from college, going to work at Macromedia, and founding Viddler at 22 — since then the online video industry has changed a bit (to say the least). YouTube grew from relative obscurity to become the 2nd largest search engine in the world, and a critical destination for brands to develop and engage with their audience. Bettering this audience development experience for brands and helping them manage their YouTube presence and increase their views and subscribers has been my focus for the last year, and we’ve built something truly amazing. The best part? Now we get to share it with the rest of the world! Today we’re announcing vidIQ is coming out of beta! And we’re excited!

While we have your attention, we would like to give our thanks to a few people, whom without their help, vidIQ would not be launching:

The hundreds of brands, networks, and YouTube creators who have been giving us feedback every step of the way. The thousands of people who have signed up for our beta and have been patiently waiting until this moment. Our world class investors who believed in us very early on and continue to be an incredible source of expertise and guidance. For YouTube on having an awesome developer relations team and continually making APIs available for our team to build amazing things with. We feel extremely blessed to be innovating in this space and encourage you to sign up and check out vidIQ for yourselves!