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

Have you ever chanced upon a YouTube channel with a large subscriber count struggling to pull in barely hundreds of views from most uploaded content? Well, chances are that particular channel may have bought subscribers.

While the ethical path to getting free subscribers on YouTube is definitely the best one, creators still fall prey to sensational promises of getting their subscribers boosted. A decision like that can have fatal consequences.

Why Buying Subscribers Will Ruin Your Channel

Maybe you’ve got a knack for storytelling, a skill you’re dying to teach, or a message you want the world to hear. But let’s be honest—when you’re starting, growing your subscriber count feels like climbing a mountain, and the temptation to take shortcuts is real.

quick ways to get free subscribers on YouTube

” are everywhere, offering what seems like a magical solution. But beneath the shiny promises lies a harsh reality: these shortcuts can wreck your channel, your reputation, and your chances of long-term success.

On the flip side, earning free subscribers the legitimate way is safer and sets the foundation for a thriving, loyal community that will support your content in the long run. In this blog, we’re diving deep into why buying subscribers and other unethical practices are bad for your channel and how you can avoid falling into these traps.

When you buy YouTube subscribers, you’re not gaining real viewers who care about your content. Instead, you’re paying for empty accounts, often created by bots or inactive users. While your subscriber count might look impressive at first glance, these fake accounts don’t watch your videos, leave comments, or build your channel as a whole.

Why is this a problem? YouTube’s algorithm thrives on real engagement. If your subscribers aren’t leaving the likes, YouTube will deprioritize your channel, making it harder for your videos to reach real viewers.

2. Violation of YouTube’s Terms of Service

 against artificially inflating your subscriber count or engagement metrics. Buying subscribers is a direct violation of these terms, and the consequences can be severe:

Google support doc on fake engagement policy on YouTube

 Your channel could receive strikes, limiting your ability to upload, livestream, or monetize.

 YouTube doesn’t hesitate to ban channels caught engaging in prohibited activities like buying subscribers or views.

 Once flagged, your channel could face long-term penalties, such as reduced visibility in search results or recommendations.

When you invest time and energy into creating content, the last thing you want is to lose everything over a risky shortcut.

Trust is everything on YouTube. When viewers sense that your subscriber count is inflated, their confidence in your authenticity takes a hit. Imagine stumbling upon a channel with 50,000 subscribers but only a few hundred views per video—something doesn’t add up, right?

A bloated subscriber count for the sake of social proof without corresponding engagement sends a clear message to your audience: you’re prioritizing numbers over genuine connections. This can turn off potential subscribers and even make brands hesitant to work with you.

One of the biggest misconceptions about buying subscribers is that it will kickstart your channel’s growth. Unfortunately, it does the opposite. YouTube’s algorithm evaluates your content based on viewer behavior—how long people watch, how often they interact, and whether they subscribe after viewing. Fake subscribers disrupt your channel’s metrics in several ways, such as:

Fake subscribers don’t click on your videos, so your CTR plummets.

These accounts don’t watch your videos, causing low retention rates.

As engagement metrics drop, YouTube stops recommending your videos to real users.

Instead of helping you grow, fake subscribers create a vicious cycle that pushes your content further into obscurity.

Buying subscribers isn’t cheap, and what do you get in return? Nothing of value. You’re essentially paying for a number on your channel that doesn’t translate into views, watch time, or meaningful interactions.

If you’re serious about investing in your channel, that money would be far better spent on tools, equipment, or education to improve your content. For example:

Subscribing to editing software to enhance video quality.

Learning SEO strategies to optimize your video titles, tags, and descriptions.

Every dollar spent on buying subscribers is a missed opportunity to build your channel in a legitimate and impactful way.

When you focus on shortcuts like buying subscribers, you miss out on learning the skills and strategies needed to grow organically. Building a channel takes time and effort, but it’s in that process that you develop the ability to create content people love, engage with your audience, and build a strong community.

Subscribers who genuinely love your content will watch every upload, leave thoughtful comments, and even share your videos with others.

Higher watch time and engagement signal to YouTube’s algorithm that your content deserves more visibility.

Instead of relying on short-term fixes, you’re setting yourself up for sustainable growth and opportunities, such as brand partnerships or monetization.

How to Grow Your YouTube Channel in 2025: The Ultimate Guide

How To Get Free Subscribers on YouTube the Right Way

If you’re serious about growing your YouTube channel, ditch the shortcuts and focus on strategies that work. These methods will help you attract real people and turn them into engaged subscribers who genuinely care about your content.

Focus on a specific topic or niche that serves a clear purpose (e.g., “Easy Vegan Dinner Recipes” instead of general cooking tips).

Offer unique value by sharing actionable steps, tutorials, or fresh perspectives.

Hook your audience in the first 10 seconds with a compelling intro that promises a solution or benefit.

Reply to every comment—this shows viewers you value their input.

Ask questions in your videos or polls to spark interaction. Example: “What topic should I cover next?”

Highlight loyal viewers by pinning their comments or shouting them out in future videos.

Use specific, keyword-rich titles that reflect what people are searching for

Write detailed video descriptions, including relevant keywords and timestamps to make your content searchable and accessible.

Create visually striking thumbnails with bold text and vibrant images to increase click-through rates.

YouTube SEO: How to Optimize Your Videos for Maximum Views

 Link to relevant videos to keep viewers on your channel longer.

Group videos by topic to encourage binge-watching.

Share polls, updates, or behind-the-scenes content to engage your audience outside of videos.

Set a regular upload schedule (e.g., weekly or bi-weekly) and stick to it.

Plan content in advance to avoid rushing or missing uploads.

Experiment with formats to see what resonates but always deliver quality.

Now, we get it. Doing all of this sounds like a monumental task and the allure of buying subscribers instead seems like such a better way to start instead on paper. But it almost always leads to long-term regret. So, focus on getting better at 

developing your skills and getting your channel monetized!

Hand holding remote pointed at TV screen displaying YouTube logo on dark wall background

Getting free subscribers might be difficult, but buying subscribers can permanently damage your channel. Read to know more!

The Free Subscribers Formula: Why Malpractices Harm Your Channel

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!

Woman meditating in yoga pose near waterfall surrounded by lush forest nature.

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!

Blue background with upward graph arrow and bold text "Per Video YouTube SEO" centered

"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!"

Dashboard showing 1,439 synced new comments under the Comments tab for social media monitoring

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.

Panelists speaking at SXSW Interactive 2013 conference in Austin, Texas, featuring laptops.

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!

Your In-Depth Guide to Building a Successful YouTube Channel

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

Introducing Per Video YouTube SEO and CSV Export

How To: Moderate Your YouTube Comments Like a Pro

SXSW 2013 Recap: YouTube’s Big in Social Enterprise

Welcome to vidIQ!