YouTube 4000 Watch Hours: How To Get it?

YouTube Monetization requirements: One of the main factors is getting 4000 watch hours in the last 12 months.

Are you working for the same to achieve this watch time?

Then, you’re in the right article to learn how to increase your watch hours on YouTube with the following strategies.

There are different ways to make money on YouTube, such as advertising, Affiliate marketing, etc.,

However, Advertisements (YouTube Partner Program) are the primary source of income for many of the creators.

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But YouTube holds the hammer to make money from it. The requirements are:

• To have 1000 subscribers.
• At least 4000 watch hours in the last 12 months.
• Must follow the YouTube community guidelines, Terms &conditions.

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Now, you understand why this 4000 hours of watch time is essential for the creators to break the barrier.

YouTube 4000 Watch Hours

Have you ever wondered what exactly are these 4000 watch hours on YouTube?

The audience’s time spent watching your channel videos is called watch time, and it should reach 4000 hours to enable monetization.

For example, let’s say your channel started in January. So, within the next 12 months, once you reach 4,000 watch hours, you can make money from the YouTube partner program.

Also, note here: you must not only meet these requirements for the first time. You’ve to satisfy these continuously.

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Let me explain:

1. Firstly, you reached these requirements and enabled monetization on your channel.
2. Secondly, if you fail to meet the 4000 watch hours in the last 12 months (let’s say only 2500 hours), even though you’re already enabled in the YouTube partner program.
3. Finally, YouTube will take you down from the partner program.

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Yes, YouTube introduced these requirements for the creators to publish and engage with their platforms continuously.

So, take the current date and calculate the last 12 months’ watch hours. If it’s 4000, you’re good.

Can I quickly achieve these requirements? Follow the tips and tricks below.

How To Get 4000 Watch Hours on YouTube

In a nutshell, follow these techniques to quickly achieve better watch time results. Let’s examine each point one by one.

Step 1: Create Longer Videos

The content is king, and there is no compromise in that. However, making longer videos helps the YouTube algorithm love your channel.

A recent study from Briggsy, a reputable source in the field, found that videos with longer duration tend to rank higher on the YouTube search engine than shorter videos.

Above all, it does not mean you can fluff on the video to make its length longer.

As I told you in the above point, “Content is King,” and you have to maintain valuable content throughout the video without making the audience uncomfortable.

Ultimately, audiences spend more time on your videos when the content reaches the best length, automatically increasing the watch hours on the channel’s.

Check out the video below to understand what is the perfect video length.

Step 2: Do Video SEO

You have to organically increase your channel views and traffic to increase your YouTube watch hours.

But how to do it organically? That’s where YouTube Video SEO knows the door!

Firstly, video SEO is nothing but optimizing the video’s meta information so that it is easily understandable to YouTube’s algorithm.

Hence, it can pick up your video based on users’ searches and activities and show it to the audience. This automatically drives views and more watch time.

Moreover, after I apply SEO strategies to my channel videos, I’m continuously gaining traffic.

Let me show you below EXACTLY the same steps I followed.

1. Find Keywords

The first and foremost step is to find the target and related keywords for your video.

In other words, for which search intent do you want your videos to pop up on YouTube?

For example, I created a video related to “Top 10 YouTubing Tools,” the core keyword I found here is “YouTube Tools.”

But the question is, how do you find the keyword?

Different free and premium keyword finder tools are available on the Internet. These tools let you find and use the best keywords for your video, along with their search volume, competition level, performance score, and related keywords.

The one keyword finder tool I followed from the beginning of my career is TubeBuddy.

It’s a free YouTube video SEO management tool that helps cover most things, especially keyword research.

2. Optimize Meta Information

Once you find the core keyword, it’s time to apply it in a few places.

The places you need to apply your core and related keywords are:

• Video Title: Start the Title with the core keyword. You can also use TubeBuddy’s AI title generator to create the best Title.
• Video Description: Add more than one keyword to your description, and in addition to that, add the related keywords. But ensure it comes naturally to the description.
• Timestamp: The timestamp is part of the video description. However, injecting the keyword in the timestamp label helps your videos rank higher in Google search results and achieve YouTube 4000 watch hours.
• Video Tags: Add more than one keyword in the video tags. Also, see what YouTube tags your competitor is using and try to imitate that.

Apart from that, when you share the video on social media and other places, use those target keywords in the text places.

3. Optimize Thumbnails for YouTube Watch Hours

Thumbnails are the user’s first engagement point, next to the Title. Even if the video is not clicked, the thumbnail must still be catchy.

If the video gets more clicks, that is also due to thumbnails.

As a creator, you must use catchy thumbnails that drive the audience to watch your videos.

In addition, you can add the target keywords to the thumbnail with big fonts. 

The reason is that users can understand they are searching for this. Also, the YouTube algorithm can read what is mentioned in the images. 

Yes, there are many tools available on the Internet to find what an image is and what is written on images. For your reference, refer to the Google Vision AI.

Also, I tried to do the A/B test on my thumbnail images using the TubeBuddy tool to understand how clickable they are.

These are the essential three things I followed in my videos to crack down on the opportunities to get more views.

This will ultimately increase your watch time on your YouTube channel.

Step 3: Create Categorized Playlists

One effective strategy for boosting watch time and reaching 4000 watch hours quickly on YouTube is to incorporate multiple playlists into your channel.

This not only helps to organize your content but also provides a seamless viewing experience for your audience, encouraging them to stay on your channel for longer.

Firstly, Playlists are used to provide some videos in sequential order for the audience to understand something. The second video must be the continuation of the first video, and so on.

The more you keep the viewers on your channel, the more search suggestions you’ll receive.

The playlist videos help to achieve that. For reference, take a look at the video below.

Recently, I decided to learn ReactJs for my software development. I found this fantastic playlist. The creator made around 70+ videos, and I watched all of them without skipping a beat.

The following benefits you’ll get when you create a playlist:

• Can able to achieve 4000 watch hours easily
• It helps to double the view counts.
• It helps to get more revenue as the videos are high.

Step 4: Connect with Live Streaming

Hosting a live stream on YouTube is another trick to build your channel’s credibility, views, and, undoubtedly, watch time.

AI technology is emerging, and it’s not good in all cases. YouTube’s guidelines and main policies are that people need to interact with creators and that creators need to provide solutions.

This one is not achievable on AI. However, the Live Streaming options are feasible for this case.

When the creator does a live stream, audiences can ask their doubts and wishes directly to the live hoster. This way, it builds credibility on the channel and YouTube.

In addition, live streams engage audiences for hours, not just a few minutes. If the live stream works perfectly for your watch time increases, you don’t need any other source.

Here are some of the benefits of doing Live Stream on your channel:

• Increases YouTube Watch hours
• It is a better position for channel ranking as the YouTube algorithm loves live content.
• It helps to drive more audiences when the live chat is more engaging, like talking to each side.

So, live streams are the best option for getting organic watch hours. If you’re already doing it, I recommend continuing it. Otherwise, start proceeding.

Step 5: End Screen & Card Templates

When you use the end screen and card templates to guide your audience to related videos, you promote your content and boost video engagement. This can lead to a significant increase in views and interactions, making your videos more successful.

End Screen templates suggest related videos and a channel subscribe button at the end of the video.

It grabs the audience and holds on to your channel to watch more related videos.

For example, when a user comes to watch the 10-minute video, and at the end, the end screen video (another 12-minute video) is more related to the topic, consequently, they will watch that video.

Likewise, for adding card templates. The functionality is the same as the End Screen for promoting other related videos, but not at the end, in the middle of the video, or anywhere else.

Step 6: Keep Posting Consistently

Whatever business it’s, consistency is the key to success.

But what is consistency on YouTube? 

The answer is posting videos regularly, engaging with audiences, and updating or feeding the content.

Does that mean I need to publish videos daily on YouTube?

No, YouTube does not require you to publish new videos every day. But whatever schedule you’re following, be consistent with it.

Let’s say, if you’re uploading new videos every monday, kindly follow the same for all the weeks.

Just posting one video and disappearing for months does not give you anything.

Moreover, YouTube promotes this 4000 hours of watch time to create the habit among audiences of consistently publishing videos.

Also, note that the quality of the video matters more than the quantity of the videos. So, take your time, schedule the videos, and start publishing them regularly.

Bonus Tips for YouTube 4000 watch hours

Start promoting the videos on other platforms, especially Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Promoting is not like sharing the video link alone. You can promote the videos in different forms; let me explain.

Reels

Instagram has an option and trending feature called Reels. When you cut the vital clip and start posting on Instagram, it grabs the audience’s curiosity and pulls them to watch the YouTube videos.

Text Content

All you have to do is convert your video into text format and post it on Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium, or even your Blog articles.

In this way, you can embed the YouTube video, which triggers the audience to your channel.

Promoting the videos on other platforms helps diversify your channel views across different mediums and helps build your social media profiles.

FAQ

Good things take time. So, concentrate on channel improvement initially rather than making money. Please understand the essential things to increase YouTube watch hours. Here, I wind up. Let me know in the comments section if you have any doubts.

Related Articles:

• 20+ Experts YouTube Tips for Beginners
• StreamYard Review: The Live Streaming Tool

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