You are consistently making and publishing the content on YouTube. But do people like and watch your videos? Audience retention is an important stat that tells you how much a person is interested in your video.
By knowing when people are leaving your video, you can take the necessary steps to increase audience engagement. But what are those steps that can keep your viewers engaged?
An entertaining introduction, chapters, captivating video topics, and script can help you improve audience retention. Besides that, keep the video short and concise to hook your audience.
Do you want to increase your YouTube audience? If yes, learn the useful strategies for high retention on YouTube videos here. But before implementing these impactful strategies, don’t forget to learn what audience retention is and why it is so important!
What Is Audience Retention?
YouTube retention tells how much of each video your viewers watch and is expressed in percentage. For instance, if you have uploaded a video of ten minutes and your audience watches half the video, then the audience retention will be fifty percent. Also, check the Get audio from YouTube.
Audience retention greatly affects your video’s ranking on the YouTube platform. Or, in simple words, it can be said that a video with high audience retention will appear higher in the search results. It is so because the retention time shows how much the audience likes your video, and higher retention means viewers are satisfied with your content.
Likewise, low audience retention indicates that people leave your video before reaching the end. Therefore, you must take steps to increase audience retention if you want to get more views.
What Is A Good Audience Retention?
When looking for a way to improve audience retention, it is good to know what is considered good. Audience retention of 50% or higher is considered to be good. If your video is longer than five minutes and the audience retention of the first 30 seconds is above 70%, you are doing great as you have hooked the audience.
Useful Ways To Get High Retention On YouTube
If you want to increase the audience retention, below are the ways you need to follow:
I. Add An Entertaining Introduction
The first 30 seconds of your video are pretty important. During that time, hundreds of viewers will leave your video. Therefore, to grab their attention and keep them hooked, you must grab their attention early. An entertaining introduction can keep the audience engaged.
II. Comparing The Videos
You must compare your videos and check the retention report. It will help you to know where you have achieved success. Furthermore, you must investigate which technique has made those videos successful and try to use that technique to structure the next videos differently. It will let people watch your video for a long time.
III. Using The Video Chapters
It is an incredible feature that keeps the audience engaged for a long time and is easier to implement. So, break your video into different parts. Therefore, the viewers can jump into the specific section, answering their query. Also, read the Erasing YouTube Content.
Many people think because of video chapters, the viewer leaves the video within the first 30 seconds. Suppose, instead of leaving the video, the viewer watches a section of 30 seconds and stays longer on your video. So, will video chapters not be a better idea to increase audience retention?
IV. Making The Videos Visually Engaging
You need to understand that your face, a camera, and good lights are not enough to create engaging content that keeps your audience hooked. Remember that viewers like visually changing content.
The success rate of videos with different scenes is higher than those with only a person talking to the camera. Therefore, try to add pop-up texts, different footage, and graphics in your videos to make them visually engaging.
V. Selecting The Video Topics With The Help Of Keywords
Keyword research plays a key role in improving audience retention. So, before selecting the video topics, you must research what your audience wants to watch. You can also use the autosuggest feature of YouTube in this regard. After finding the keywords, create videos related to those keywords.
VI. Keeping The Videos Short
A viewer watches three minutes of your ten-minute video and then clicks away. Compared to that, he completely watches another video of only three minutes. Whether it’s audience retention or your reputation, your viewer must watch the complete video in both cases.
If your videos are short, most probably, the person will watch your other videos. But if he leaves the video halfway, will he bother to watch your other videos? So, keeping the videos short is better if the lengthy segments don’t add value to your content.
VII. Using The Script
You must write the script before you make the video. Though it may seem simple and easy, it requires a few steps. When writing the script for your YouTube video, keep your audience in mind for which you are creating this video. Remember that your script’s message, language, and style matter most. So, keep that in mind when writing the script for videos.
VIII. Keep The Audience Hooked
Carefully structure your YouTube videos and tell your audience that you have amazing content for them that they will watch later on. This way, the viewer will stay until the end and completely watch the video. It does not mean there will be no valuable content for the audience throughout. But, it is just a way to keep them hooked till the end.
How Can You See The Audience Retention Report On YouTube?
YouTube keeps generating reports to keep you informed about audience retention. There are two types of reports (video-level audience retention reports and channel-level audience retention reports).
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Video-Level Audience Retention Report
It will give you the audience retention report of a particular video you are interested in. To get the report, sign into the YouTube Studio, select video, and choose the video of which retention report you want to see. After that, select Analytics from the left-hand menu, and last, select Engagement to get the audience-level retention report.
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Channel-Level Audience Retention Report
This report shows you the average audience retention rate of all the YouTube videos you posted. To check this report, sign into the YouTube Studio, choose Analytics, and select Engagement. There, you will get the audience retention report.
Advanced Strategies And Tips To Get High Retention On YouTube
Here are the advanced strategies and tips you can follow to keep your audience engaged and help you increase YouTube retention time:
- The first 15 seconds are important as most viewers decide whether to watch the video during this time. So, never use animated logos at that time; instead, place them when you have hooked the audience.
- Use the jump cuts, and this is particularly important for the vloggers.
- Add a little humor to your videos. Remember that if people laugh while watching your videos, they will not go anywhere.
- Your videos must have a reason for the audience to stay and watch your video. So, always use a different strategy to let your audience stay and watch.
- Videos with B-rolls keep your viewers engaged as they find the content engaging and fresh. So, try to add B-roll shots in your videos.
- Do experiments and try to add different interactive elements to make your videos more interesting
- Adding interesting visuals to your videos can also make them interesting. For instance, if you discuss a product, adding images and videos of that product will be effective.
Conclusion
Audience retention tells you the average percentage of a YouTube videos your audience watches. The videos with high audience retention tend to get more visibility on YouTube. Therefore, audience retention has become a major part of YouTube’s algorithm. So, if you want your videos to get higher ranks in YouTube search results, you must put efforts to improve audience retention.
Different helpful strategies include adding an engaging introduction and video chapters. In addition, you must also choose captivating video topics, use scripts to make videos entertaining, and, most importantly, keep the video short and concise to hook the viewers. Hopefully, these practical approaches will increase audience retention and let you get more views and subscribers!
