How to get More Views on YouTube Shorts (YouTube Algorithm Explained)

Key Takeaways

Let's say your short stopped getting views. It doesn't matter if it's stuck at 500, 5,000, or 25,000. Let's just consider it stopped. Why? As I've said in my previous videos, your short gets pushed through stages. It gets tested before it's ever exposed to a large audience. To go viral, you need performance. To understand if my short is good, I look at every metric. These are my viral benchmarks. Based on my analysis and experience, if your stats are below these, your short is underperforming. These can vary depending on niche competition, but they generally hover around these numbers. Average view duration, I always aim for 90% or higher. If it's a 15-second video, you really want over 100%, meaning people are looping it. Likes, you need 3% to 5% of engaged views, comments, and shares. You need around 0.1% to 0.5% combined. When you have a large audience, these are easier to hit, and your content gets pushed faster than a new channel. For new channels, data from nonsubscribers is crucial. That data tells the algorithm who else to find. High performance always equals virality. That is data proven. Now, what if your analytics are all above my benchmarks, but the views still stop? If your stats are high, it means that short has potential. Usually, this happens to small channels. You just need to let the algorithm cook the data. For a new channel, it usually takes 20 to 90 days to get unlocked. It won't usually happen with just one short. More shorts speed up the process, but you must deliver quality. You need that 30-day window of consistency to prove to the algorithm who you are and to collect data from viewer behavior.