Hey YouTube channel owner, what is the most important metric you think every channel owner needs to be most concerned about?
The average number of viewers per post, number of subscribers, or number of likes, comments, and dislikes?
Well, whichever you think it is, you're definitely right, albeit partially because each of the three metrics we've mentioned above implies different things for your channel. And depending on the status of your channel, one could be more important than the other.
But the reason why most people cannot really tell which is most important to them is because they don't even know what their channel lacks the most.
For example, it is not uncommon to see a channel owner with less than 2k subscribers, an average engagement rate of 0.4%, and up to 500 viewers complaining about not having enough viewers, when he ought to be more concerned about his meager engagement rate and subscriber list.
But how is he going to know this when he has no idea what each metric means to his channel? To help solve this mystery, we decided to create this guide.
Comments to views ratio: how high is your engagement?
Just the way you're obsessed about increasing the number of viewers and subscribers on your channel, you need to work your socks off to increase the number of comments you're getting too.
Why? Because comments tell you where your channel is on an engagement front? And according to several YouTube analyses, the higher your channel engagements are, the better your chances of getting more subscribers (that which you're most obsessed about).
For starters, the reasonable comment ratio you need to be targeting should be 1%. That is, if your video generates 1k views, a good measure of a successful engagement rate would be 10 comments.
However, if you can't get up to this, 0.5% would still make a lot of sense for your channel's growth.
Likes to views ratio: how popular is your video
It is just simple logic that the more likes your videos are getting, the better your chances of getting more views for subsequent videos and ultimately getting more subscribers in the long run.
But how many likes do you really need to call a video popular? The clearest indicator of success when it comes to likes on YouTube is the likes to views ratio, which is 4%. That is a minimum of 4 likes for 100 views.
If you aren't clearing this average, then you really need to figure out why viewers, especially your subscribers, aren't hitting the like buttons.
You may not know, but prospective viewers sometimes check the number of likes/views on a post before deciding to click on the video or drop a like. But you can motivate them by buying YouTube likes for your new videos.
For starters, you can buy 50 YouTube likes for each of your new videos so as to convince prospective viewers of your content's popularity.
Views to subscribers ratio: how well is your channel growing
According to various research, the average views: subscribers ratio for any channel should fall within the range of 14-20%, meaning that if you have 100k subscribers, you should get a minimum of 12-15k views per post.
What this then means is that before you go ahead to type into Google's search box "how can I get more viewers on my YouTube channel," first ask yourself, "how many subscribers do I have at hand."
Perhaps for a newly launched channel, it makes sense asking Google how to get viewers since you don't have any at hand.
However, for an up and running channel, the first place to look if you aren't satisfied with your viewership is your subscribers' button.
This is because the first set of people that are supposed to view your content are your subscribers, or at least, a fraction of them. So, if you're getting a meager viewership despite boasting an enviable number of subscribers, then you need to look into how you can improve your relationship with your subscribers.
However, if you have a meager number of subscribers, it is not unheard of to see your posts attracting meager viewership. To improve on this, you just need to work more on getting more people to love and subscribe to your channel.
By default, subscribers are people that are pleased with what you're doing - many of whom, if given a chance, would view your content all day long.
