How to Get Free YouTube Subscribers to Grow Your Channel

We can’t tell you how many times we’ve been approached by marketers who want to get more reviews, followers, likes, and subscribers who haven’t just come out and asked for them first. Sure, the Subscribe button is right there, but viewers need to be reminded.

You’ve put time and energy into creating content you’re proud of, right? If you’re not asking viewers to subscribe to your channel in every video, it may seem as though you don’t value your content. And if you don’t value your own content, why should your viewers?

Already asking viewers to subscribe? Great! To get more viewers to take you up on it, be sure to continually show them why your channel is worth following. And, set up YouTube cards and end screens to do the asking for you.

It should go without saying that you have to create engaging, interesting content if you want people to subscribe to your channel. This includes doing things like adding visuals to your content and including cards and end screens, but it doesn’t end there.

You also need to create content with a target audience in mind to keep it relevant to the exact audience you’re trying to reach. To keep your message on track, it helps to outline what you’re going to talk about and the key points you want to cover. You don’t have to script your video word for word, but having an outline is incredibly helpful.

Your video should include these sections:

• Hook: Think “newspaper headline.” The hook should be short, catchy, and pique curiosity.
• Intro: Intros are optional, but if you choose to include one it’s exactly what you would think. You share who you are, what you do, and why people should care.
• Body: This is the main message you want to convey to viewers. It should be original content and include examples and proof.
• Call to Action: What do you want viewers to do after they’ve watched your video? That’s your call to action.

The only way to build a genuinely engaged and active YouTube subscriber base is by engaging with your audience. This is as simple as following those who follow you, responding to comments, and even asking questions of viewers (or answering their questions) in your videos.

The more engaged you are with your YouTube subscriber base, the easier it will be to fine-tune the content you’re creating to make it everything they want. This will lead to happy subscribers who want nothing more than to buy whatever it is you’re selling—and tell their friends about you, too!

Posting a video here and there isn’t going to build your subscriber base. You have to be consistent. Not just with your video posting schedule, but with how you engage and the content you cover.

Viewers want to know that if they subscribe to your channel they’re going to get the content that they want to view. This extends to your video topics, format, and how often you decide to post. Viewers won’t take the time to figure you out. You need to present a cohesive, organized channel at the outset.

Before you start producing content and trying to get more subscribers, decide what your channel is going to be about, how often you’re going to add new videos, and who you’re targeting with your message.

Optimizing your videos and channel is mandatory. Not only does it help your content rank higher on YouTube, but it will help you make sure that your content is reaching the people you want. Here are some ways to optimize:

Title

Using an exact match keyword at the beginning of your video’s title can help with rankings because it tells YouTube’s search algorithm as well as viewers what your video is about. Higher rankings typically lead to more views and subscribers.

Description

Like titles, video descriptions are an excellent indicator to YouTube and viewers that your video is what they’re looking for. To optimize your video descriptions, you’ll want to include keywords, timestamps, links, and more.

Timestamps are helpful to viewers who may only be interested in a certain section of your video. Linking lets you showcase other related videos or drive traffic to your website.

Video Tags

Video tags are descriptive keywords you can add to your video to help viewers find your content. While your video’s title, thumbnail image, and description are weighted more heavily than video tags, tags can be particularly useful if your video’s topic is commonly misspelled.

Create a YouTube Channel Trailer

A channel trailer gives viewers insight into what your channel is all about. You can highlight your brand, the types of content you post, and your video release schedule. Since there are more than 31 million YouTube channels, it’s important that your trailer is engaging and entertain to really have an impact on new visitors to your channel.

Make Your Channel Visually Appealing and Engaging

In addition to creating a channel trailer and optimizing your videos so they’re easier to find on YouTube, you’ll also want to make sure that your YouTube channel itself is interesting and engaging. This includes using interesting channel art as well as adding a channel description that includes keywords within the first 100–150 characters of your channel’s description. And don’t forget to include a call to action!

Include Sections and Playlists

If you’re a YouTuber who posts a lot of videos, it will make you and your viewers a lot happier if you organize them into sections and playlists. You can then feature them on your homepage and optimize the playlists using keywords, titles, and descriptions.

If you want to build a large audience quickly, you’re going to want to promote your videos on other platforms. This means sharing your YouTube content on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, or wherever your target audience hangs out.

Source: twitter.com

Since your goal is to get more subscribers to your YouTube channel, we recommend creating shorter teaser videos that you promote natively on each platform and provide a link to the full video on YouTube.

In addition to social media, here are a few ways you can share your videos to increase your reach and get more YouTube subscribers for free.

Forums and Blog Comments

Forums and blog comments are great places to include a link to your YouTube video. But, it’s easy for this tactic to get spammy fast. If you’re only commenting when you have something to link to, other commenters or forum members are going to get sick of hearing from you.

Link Building

Link building is one of the best ways to increase rankings and domain authority for your webpage and it works wonders for increasing your YouTube subscribers, too. Seek out high authority websites that are related to your content and approach them to link to your YouTube content as a benefit to their users. You can also collaborate with other YouTube creators to create reciprocal posting opportunities.

Influencer Marketing

Influencers typically have highly engaged fan bases that make them particularly well-suited to help you drive traffic and increase your own subscriber base. When an influencer shares your YouTube content with their followers, their followers are more likely to pay attention. Interested in partnering with an influencer to boost your YouTube subscribers? Here are some free influencer marketing tools to help you find just the right one.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is another great way to reach a lot of people all at once. If you have an email marketing list, be sure to add your Youtube channel link to your email signature. And, you can use your email newsletters to highlight specific videos!

At the end of the day, YouTube is a search engine (the second largest search engine in the world, in fact). That means YouTube SEO is important. And SEO starts with keyword research.

You can use free or paid keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner and SpyFu. Or, go full SEO nerd and get an all-in-one SEO tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs to find the best keywords for you to target. Using these tools will not only help you find target keywords but also related keywords that will give you ideas for new content.

Look for keywords that have high search volume but low competition scores to find keywords that people are searching but aren’t already saturated with content.