The Entire Longform Algorithm Explained in 300 Seconds... — Transcript

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1. 0:00When you start a new long form channel,
2. 0:01the first thing that happens is YouTube
3. 0:02reviews your account to figure out if
4. 0:04you're a real person and you're worth
5. 0:05pushing out. If your channel looks empty
6. 0:07or suspicious, YouTube has no reason to
7. 0:08trust you yet and won't push your videos
8. 0:10out anywhere beyond search. To avoid
9. 0:11[music] this, you need to make your
10. 0:12channel look legit from the start. Warm
11. 0:14it up, brand it personally, use an older
12. 0:16[music] trusted email, and enable
13. 0:17third-level feature eligibility. The
14. 0:19less your channel looks like spam, the
15. 0:20more willing YouTube is to push your
16. 0:22content out beyond just search. YouTube
17. 0:23is way more forgiving with long form
18. 0:25than shorts. If you're not getting into
19. 0:26the browse feed, your video's either bad
20. 0:28or your channel just looks [music] like
21. 0:29spam. After you upload your first video,
22. 0:31YouTube immediately transcribes
23. 0:32everything you say, scans your
24. 0:34thumbnail, and classifies your content.
25. 0:35The algorithm is trying to figure out
26. 0:37what your video is, who's it for, and
27. 0:39whether it's safe to push. Then over the
28. 0:40next 24 to 48 hours, it continues
29. 0:42[music] to build a profile on your
30. 0:43content, with the main thing being your
31. 0:45target audience. During this time,
32. 0:46YouTube isn't really pushing your video
33. 0:48out anywhere. It's just reviewing your
34. 0:49data. That's why it takes a couple days
35. 0:50before reviews start coming in on the
36. 0:52first video of a brand new channel. This
37. 0:53is where the metadata becomes the most
38. 0:55important thing. YouTube's entire goal
39. 0:56is to keep viewers on the platform for
40. 0:58as long as possible. on YouTube means
41. 1:00more ads watched, and more ads watched
42. 1:02means more money to YouTube. So
43. 1:03naturally, the algorithm's job is to
44. 1:05find the videos that specific viewers
45. 1:06would enjoy the most. To do that, it
46. 1:08needs to know exactly who your video is
47. 1:09for. If the algorithm can't figure out
48. 1:11your target audience, it would rather
49. 1:12push out someone else's content it
50. 1:14actually understands, rather than
51. 1:15risking showing yours to the wrong
52. 1:17person. Like I said before, you really
53. 1:18need to focus on your metadata here.
54. 1:20Your title needs to clearly tell YouTube
55. 1:21what the video is about, and then tags,
56. 1:23chapters, [music] and timestamps all
57. 1:24give the algorithm more context. Your
58. 1:26thumbnail matters too because YouTube's
59. 1:27AI is actually reading it. It scans your
60. 1:29faces, objects, and text. The clearer
61. 1:31everything is, the faster it matches
62. 1:33your video to the right people.
63. 1:34Typically, channels that write vague
64. 1:36titles and leave descriptions empty are
65. 1:37forcing YouTube to guess. And once
66. 1:39again, YouTube doesn't want to take the
67. 1:40risk showing it to the wrong person.
68. 1:42Once the data is collected and the
69. 1:43target audience is determined, YouTube
70. 1:45starts testing your video through browse
71. 1:46to collect initial data and decide
72. 1:48whether to keep pushing it or not.
73. 1:49Similar to shorts, the algorithm pushes
74. 1:51out your videos in kind of waves.
75. 1:53YouTube is testing your video against
76. 1:54small groups and watching how they
77. 1:55respond. If they respond well, YouTube
78. 1:57slowly ramps up impressions. Then
79. 1:59depending [music] on how the next group
80. 2:00responds, it either keeps ramping up,
81. 2:01slowing down, or plateaus. And before
82. 2:03you guys ask me about why my studio
83. 2:05looks so much better than yours, I use
84. 2:06New Studio, which is by far the best
85. 2:08Chrome extension [music] if you want to
86. 2:09take YouTube seriously. So how do we get
87. 2:10YouTube to push your video as much as
88. 2:12possible? Well, this comes down to the
89. 2:13stats. There's three stats you need to
90. 2:15be focusing on, with the first being
91. 2:16click-through rate. This is the percent
92. 2:18of [music] people who saw your video in
93. 2:19their feed and actually clicked on it.
94. 2:20Every person who sees your video in
95. 2:22their feed is considered an impression.
96. 2:24Picture it like this. Every single
97. 2:25impression on YouTube is like a slot.
98. 2:27There's a limited amount of slots in a
99. 2:28given feed. So YouTube is pretty
100. 2:30selective with where they give a video
101. 2:31that has a low click-through [music]
102. 2:32rate an impression when they could give
103. 2:34an impression to a video that actually
104. 2:35has a high click-through rate and it's
105. 2:37proven that people are willing to click
106. 2:38it. It's much more valuable for YouTube.
107. 2:40Your click-through rate is determined by
108. 2:41your thumbnail, your title, and your
109. 2:43idea. This is the first thing a viewer
110. 2:44even sees, so you really need to focus
111. 2:46on this. Your goal is to make your video
112. 2:48the most appealing to click on out of
113. 2:49every other impression on their feed.
114. 2:51But the best way to stand out is being
115. 2:53in a niche that has a ton of viewers
116. 2:54willing to watch. To help with that, I
117. 2:55have a playlist of a bunch of viral
118. 2:56niches I find and I'll be constantly
119. 2:58updating it. These are niches I would
120. 2:59use myself. A lot of you guys were
121. 3:00asking me how I found my niches, so if
122. 3:02you're wondering, majority of these
123. 3:03niches were found with Algrorithm. What
124. 3:05percent should you be shooting for?
125. 3:06Well, the average CTR on YouTube sits
126. 3:08around 4 to 5% and anything below 3,
127. 3:10YouTube definitely won't push it. The
128. 3:11next stat the algorithm focuses on is
129. 3:13the retention graph. This is by far more
130. 3:15important than CTR. You want this graph
131. 3:16to be as flat as possible, as high as
132. 3:18possible, and the initial dip to be as
133. 3:19small as you can manage. The graph will
134. 3:21always go down over time because viewers
135. 3:23just naturally leave, no matter what you
136. 3:24do. If you're losing too many viewers at
137. 3:25the start, your hook is bad. graph is
138. 3:27too steep, your storytelling and video
139. 3:29idea is bad. But after the algorithm
140. 3:31pushes your video in the browse feed for
141. 3:32a bit, it starts being shown in the
142. 3:33suggested feed. This is the sidebar when
143. 3:35someone's watching another video.
144. 3:36YouTube really only pushes your video in
145. 3:37the suggested feed after it tests it in
146. 3:39browse first because the suggested feed
147. 3:41is much more dependent on your target
148. 3:43audience. So YouTube naturally waits
149. 3:44until they have more data before showing
150. 3:46your videos there. These impressions in
151. 3:47the suggested feed are much more
152. 3:49valuable to YouTube because their goal
153. 3:50is to keep people on the platform for as
154. 3:52long as possible. Now, these two stats
155. 3:53are the most visible things you can
156. 3:54improve. Beyond that, the algorithm
157. 3:56tracks a ton of different things.
158. 3:58Engagement, what the comments are about,
159. 3:59likes, shares, subscriptions gained or
160. 4:01lost, returning viewers, viewer
161. 4:03satisfaction surveys, [music] not
162. 4:04interested clicks, search terms, whether
163. 4:06your video started a session, whether it
164. 4:08ended it, and what the viewer did after
165. 4:09watching. And there's three things I
166. 4:10said at the end all fall under session
167. 4:12time. If your video makes someone spend
168. 4:14more time on YouTube, this is the
169. 4:15strongest signal you can send to the
170. 4:16algorithm. This is why linking your
171. 4:17viewers to a playlist or another video
172. 4:19at the end helps so much, even if it's
173. 4:20not related to you. You can see this in
174. 4:22action on my videos. The first long form
175. 4:24video on my channel went viral. One of
176. 4:25the reasons for that is because at the
177. 4:26very end, I linked viewers to a playlist
178. 4:28with a bunch of viral niches. This
179. 4:30playlist got tens of thousands of views
180. 4:31and because my video, even though it was
181. 4:32relatively short, I got viewers to spend
182. 4:34more time on YouTube and the algorithm
183. 4:35rewards that. As you continue to post
184. 4:37more videos and start getting traction,
185. 4:39you start to build an audience. YouTube
186. 4:40shows your next videos to people who
187. 4:42watched your previous ones first, so you
188. 4:43always have a solid seed audience going
189. 4:45in every upload. But if you're
190. 4:46struggling finding ideas, once again,
191. 4:48you can use Algrorithm for this. You can
192. 4:49actually integrate with Claude and
193. 4:50you'll be able to instantly analyze all
194. 4:52your competitors through using it. So
195. 4:53check it out. If you want a free
196. 4:54personalized channel review or need help
197. 4:56with anything, join the Discord.