Video marketing has become mission critical for brand builders online. Using video in your marketing campaigns has been noted to increase the likelihood of people to purchase a product. Over 50% of marketing professionals say video offers the best ROI of any type of online content.

YouTube is still the largest online video-sharing platform. If you are making use of video for your branding efforts, you’ve probably already started using YouTube. On YouTube, views are a vital metric for measuring success. Read on for tips on how to get free views for YouTube (and one bonus trick).

1. Use keywords in your title

Before coming up with your video title, do a thorough keyword search of terms relating to your video. Using the results, come up with a short and descriptive title using the keywords and phrases that people would be likely to type into a search engine. The keywords should be naturally placed in your video title. You can use YouTube’s Keyword Suggestion Tool to help you approximate the number of viewers searching for your key phrase every month. Using keywords in your title will help viewers find your both on Google searches and from suggested videos.

2. Include thorough descriptions

You should ensure that all your videos have a thorough written description. The description also plays a part in helping your video be found. You can use original copy or a transcription from the video to help more people find their way to you. Your description should also include the relevant keywords you found from your keyword search. The keywords should come in the first few sentences of your description. Avoid having your key phrases hidden under the show more tab. Include a valid URL to your company website in the video description as well.

3. Annotation links to your other videos

Annotations are a great way of to get views on YouTube. These in-video overlays allow you to place links to your other YouTube videos directly over your video. Using YouTube annotations makes you look professional and is an easy way to keep viewers glued to your channel, moving them from one video to another. When you have a new video that you’re trying to pick up views for, go ahead and add annotation links to your popular videos and try to push some of the traffic along to the new video and get views.

4. Build up your subscriber count

When you build up a sizable subscriber count, you have fans on hand waiting for your next video to come out. When someone clicks on the subscribe button, it means they like your videos and are therefore likely to want to watch your next video. The more subscribers you have, the more views you will pull off right away, without having to do anything after uploading your video. This is because your videos will appear on your subscribers’ home pages. They will also receive email notifications that you have uploaded your latest video, with a link to view it. You can gain subscribers by uploading great content and asking your viewers to subscribe.

Note: Buying subscribers can be a way to jumpstart your subscriber count and increase organic growth.

5. Trending topics

Hopping on a trending topic is a great way of grabbing views for your YouTube channel. Whenever something is happening in the news, there are people going online to find more information about it. When you have a video related to these trending topics, it will also show up in the searches, and you will bag yourself a huge number of free YouTube views. One way of doing this is making a response video where you come up with an original take on something that is happening in the public sphere.

That doesn’t mean you should go out and news jack – if the connection is forced, people might be more annoyed than entertained. However, if there’s a trend that works with your channel brand, it’ll be great for you to jump on it.

6. Connect your website to YouTube

If you have a company website, you should add a link to your YouTube channel on your website, as well as on your other social media pages. Majority of people visiting your website and social media pages are already interested in your business or brand, and therefore, driving traffic from you site to your YouTube channel is likely to pick you up a couple views and subscribers. You can also use your website to promote your videos by embedding videos into your blog posts and other pages on your site. You can also make use of various YouTube widgets that can be easily added to WordPress and other types of websites.

7. Reach out to influencers

Reaching out to YouTube influencers is another great way of getting your videos in front of the right people and expanding your online audience. Influencers are people who have gained a large following and can influence their followers to take action. You should find influencers who are related to your topic and are likely to share a similar audience with you and introduce yourself to them. Once you build a relationship with them, encourage them to mention you or include an annotation to your channel in their videos, allowing you to reach their huge audience.

Bonus trick

Buying views is an effective way of jumpstarting organic growth of your video’s view count. For a new YouTube video, the first 1,000 views are the hardest to get, especially when your channel is not well known. When you buy views for your new video, more people are likely to organically watch it because of the influence of the bought views, which make your videos appear more popular and authoritative to unfamiliar viewers. The best part about buying views is that the investment is low and the ROI makes sense if you purchase from a high-quality provider.

Interested in learning more about where to buy views? Check out our reviews of our top 10 recommended websites for buying views.