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In this post you’re going to learn how to get more YouTube subscribers in 2020.
In fact:
These are the exact strategies I used to grow my channel from zero to 263K
subscribers:
Backlinko YouTube subscribers
And today I’m going to show you how I did it…
…and how you can do the same thing.

1. Use “Power Playlists”

2. Publish LONG Videos (10+ Minutes)
3. Promote Videos In Your End Screen
4. Branding Watermark = Subscribe Button
5. Focus On Quality… Not Quantity
6. Reply To EVERY Comment
7. Write a Compelling Channel Description
8. Funnel People to “Subscriber Magnets”
9. Use an Awesome Channel Icon
10. Create a Channel Tagline
11. Heart Awesome Comments
12. Make a Killer Channel Trailer
13. Create Videos That CRUSH Watch Time
14. Embed YouTube Videos In Blog Posts
15. End Videos With a Strong CTA
16. Promote Your Channel In Ebooks, Webinars, Presentations and Lead Magnets
17. Optimize Your Channel Page
Bonus #1: “The Social Media Preview”
Bonus #2: Include a Subscribe Link in Your Channel Art
1. Use “Power Playlists”
“Power Playlists” are like regular playlists… but better.

Here’s exactly how they work:

You see, most playlists are organized by topic.

Power playlists
But Power Playlists are different.
Instead of topics, Power Playlists are organized by outcomes.

Here’s an example from my channel:

"Higher Google Rankings" YouTube playlist
As you can see, the title of that playlist is an outcome:
Backlinko's Power Playlist title gives an outcome
Which makes people MUCH more likely to watch my playlist… and subscribe.
And that leads us to…
2. Publish LONG Videos (10+ Minutes)
Yup, this goes against conventional wisdom.
But stay with me.
We recently did the largest YouTube ranking factors study ever.
YouTube Ranking Factors study
In that study we analyzed 11 factors that might help video rank in YouTube’s search
engine.
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And we found something surprising:

Longer videos rank better in YouTube’s search results.

Longer videos tend to rank better in YouTube
For example, last year I published this video.

As you can see, my video is almost 14 minutes long:

Backlinko YouTube video length
And that’s one of the main reasons that it ranks in the top 5 in YouTube for the
keyword: “backlinks”:
YouTube SERP for "backlinks"
3. Promote Videos In Your End Screen
Here’s the deal:

The more of your videos someone watches, the more likely they are to subscribe.
The question is:
How do you get people to watch 2, 5 or even 10 of your videos?
Promote another video in your End Screen.

Here’s an example from my channel:

Next video in YouTube endscreen

This simple “Next Video” has led LOTS more views and subscribers:

Backlinko – End Screen – Extra views and subscribers

Here’s how you can do the same thing:
First, include 10 seconds of time at the end of your videos specifically for your
End Screen.

Here’s what mine looks like in the raw video file:

Backlinko – End Screen template

Then, use YouTube’s End Screen editor to add a link to a related video:

Backlinko – End Screen editor

That’s all there is to it

4. Branding Watermark = Subscribe Button

This is the ultimate YouTube subscriber hack.
You probably know that you can add a Branding Watermark to your videos.
Branding Watermark
This watermark lets viewers subscribe to your channel inside of your video.
Subscribe button as branding watermark
Unfortunately, most Branding Watermarks are completely ignored.
For example…
I once added this watermark to all of my videos:
Backlinko – First watermark
And it did absolutely nothing.
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So I decided to try something new.

Instead of a watermark that looked cool…

…I used one that looked like a normal YouTube subscribe button.
Backlinko – Latest watermark
And it worked!
My new watermark generated 70% more subscribers than my old one.

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