Are you looking for free YouTube subscribers? You don’t need to buy subs for your channel. Our organic strategies get you the following you need without spending a dime. Implement this plan, and you’ll see immediate results.
Can I Buy YouTube Subscribers?
We get it. The thought of shelling out a few bucks for more YouTube subscribers is appealing. It sounds like a low-effort strategy to success, but the reality is it’s not going to work. There are plenty of vendors on Reddit and underground marketing sites like BlackHatWorld offering you subscribers for a nominal fee. Don’t do it.
Put down your credit card and read this article instead. We’ll give you organic methods for building your YouTube audience, and it won’t cost you anything. The reason why buying followers is a bad idea might not seem obvious at first, but you’ll soon figure it out after wasting your money.
Buying followers will lift your subscriber count, but it won’t do anything to boost engagement levels on your videos. Engagement is everything on YouTube. It’s how the algorithm determines you’re content adds value to the platform and your community.
Buying followers doesn’t mean you get video views on your content. You could purchase a million followers and not see your view count or engagement metrics improve. If you get video views from your new followers, it will look suspicious when you have tens of thousands of video views but next to zero comments or likes on your videos.
Those results are a surefire way to raise red flags with your audience and the algorithm. You could ruin your reputation on the platform or, worse, receive a ban for your transgressions. Don’t bother with buying subscribers. You can build your audience organically with our strategies.
15 Strategies to Get Free YouTube Subscribers
If you’re new to YouTube, you’re probably chasing the goal of acceptance to the YouTube Partner Program. As a member of the YPP, you have the chance to make money from publishing content on the site.
To qualify for the YPP, you’ll need at least 1,000 subscribers to your channel. That might seem like a lofty goal when starting out, but it’s achievable and easier than you think. Here are 15 organic strategies to help you on the road to 1,000.
(These strategies work for any account of any size. Whether you have 10 subs or 10,000, these strategies will help you grow your audience).
Strategy 1 – Conduct Keyword Research for Hashtags, Video Descriptions, and Titles
Did you know YouTube is the second-largest search engine on the internet? Some people think it’s just a rumor, but it’s true. So, learning to implement search engine optimization strategies on your YouTube channel will help improve the visibility of your content on the platform. The YouTube algorithm operates in three parts.
It has an algorithm governing the recommended video, an algorithm managing upcoming videos, and another controlling the home page. By implementing SEO tactics in your content, you have a better chance of the algorithm identifying, categorizing, and serving your content to the right audience.
Keywords are the foundation of SEO on YouTube. You get more attention on your content by integrating the right keywords into metadata in your video titles, descriptions, and hashtags. Use a keyword tool like SEM rush or Google Keyword Planner to locate keywords with high search volume but low competition.
Add these keywords to your video descriptions, titles, and hashtags. The algorithm looks at these keywords, using them to classify the relevancy of your content. This one strategy alone will attract more attention to your content.
Strategy 2 – Ask Viewers to Subscribe to Your Channel
If you watch the top content creators, they all use the tactic of asking their audience to like, comment, and subscribe to their channel. It’s an old sales tactic, and it works. “Asking for the close” give your viewer a request to take action, and it’s incredibly effective.
Don’t look at it as “sales sleaze.” Your viewers will appreciate it, and they’ll smash the subscribe button. There’s also a good chance they’ll hit the like button and leave a comment. It’s a psychological play, and your viewers understand why you do it without being resentful of you for asking them to take action.
Ask, and you shall receive. After you see the results from using this single tactic, you’ll never have doubts about using it in your content strategy. Give it a try. It’s better if you make a verbal request as it seems more personalized to the viewer, but you can leave text on the screen requesting them to like, comment, and subscribe.
Strategy 3 – Use Teaser Content
Use teaser content to entice people to smash the follow button. When you finish your video, give your audience a teaser clip of your next video or drop a hint on what’s coming next. Your audience will hit the subscribe button in anticipation of your next video.
Hype the video and give your audience reasons why they need to subscribe to ensure they don’t miss it. It’s a great organic strategy to capture more subs. If you’re using this tactic, you will have to have a good handle on your content strategy and publish your videos on time and to expectations.
The worst thing you can do to your subs is to promise and fail to deliver. If your audience waits for your next release and it’s not up to par with their expectations, they might dislike the content or unfollow your channel. Build the hype, but keep it realistic.
Strategy 4 – Verify Your YouTube and Google Account
You need to verify your account if you’re new to YouTube as a creator. Without completing channel verification, you’re limited to publishing videos with a maximum length of 15 minutes. Verifying your creator account allows you to publish videos up to 12 hours long or 256GB in size.
Visit www.youtube.com/verify on a desktop computer or laptop to register for verification. You can’t complete this action through a mobile device like your smartphone or tablet. It only works through the desktop client.
Strategy 5 – Engage with Your Audience
At its core, YouTube is just another social media platform. So, it complies with all the other rules surrounding creating content for social media accounts. The best way to rapidly grow an audience on any social media platform is to ramp up your audience engagement.
Engagement metrics such as comments, likes, and replies are key to notifying the algorithm that your content is worth promoting on the site. Interact with your audience. If you implement strategy 2 in the post and ask your audience to engage, capitalize on the engagement you generate.
If someone comments on your post, give it a heart and leave a reply. When you interact with a viewer, it’s similar to sending them a personal text. They’ll receive a notification of your engagement through their email account, and they might decide to keep the conversation going.
If other viewers see you answer questions in the comments and heart their posts, they’re more likely to jump in on the community fun. Take your engagement seriously and do everything you can to keep the conversation moving.
Strategy 6 – Brand Your Channel
As an aspiring social media influencer, you must consider yourself a brand.
Choose a Compelling Channel Icon
If you’re an independent creator, think of a logo for your channel. Visit a site like Fiverr and have a graphic designer create a logo that resonates with your YouTube channel and its theme. Your logo should be clean. Think of the Nike Swoosh or Mcdonald’s Golden Arches. These logos are iconic because they are easy to remember.
Create a Channel Banner
Viewers who click your channel and visit your profile are greeted by your channel banner. Your banner needs a clean, on-brand design optimized to display across all devices. Your channel banner should give the audience an idea of what kind of content they can expect from your videos.
Write a Captivating Channel Description
Your channel description appears on the “About Page” of your YouTube channel. You get 1,000 characters to capture your audience’s attention and convince them to subscribe. Take time to write two or three drafts for your description and get input from others to decide the best choice.
Change to a Custom URL
When you start your YouTube channel, you get a generic YouTube URL. Visit your YouTube Studio and change it to a custom URL featuring your channel name. Select the “Customization” tab in the menu on the left side. Click “Basic Info” and scroll to the “Channel URL” tab. You’ll need at least 100 subscribers to qualify for a custom URL.
Strategy 7 – Create a Trailer for Your Channel
When you open someone’s channel, you’ll see an intro trailer for their channel above the “My Videos” section. If someone subscribes to your channel, you can choose to serve them your top-rated video in this space.
If the viewer doesn’t subscribe to your channel, you can choose to leave a trailer for them to watch. The trailer should describe the content they can expect when they hit the subscribe button. Use the trailer to give them a personalized message that they can relate to.
Strategy 8 – Use Branding in Your Thumbnails
Thumbnails are critical to your success on YouTube. Look at the top creators on the site, and you’ll notice a common theme. For instance, science podcaster Lex Fridman uses a black background with a picture of the person he’s interviewing on the left. On the right, he has their name on the top in white. The podcast number is below it in green font, and “Lex Fridman” is in shades of blue at the bottom.
Keep your thumbnails consistent; it’s how your subscribers identify your content on their “Subscriptions” page. If you publish different designs for your thumbnails each time, your audience won’t get the visual cue they need to open their video. Thumbnails are 1280 x 720 pixels, make sure you use as much of the space as possible, but don’t clutter it.
Strategy 9 – Use Platform Tools
YouTube offers creators several tools to keep viewers on their channel. The YouTube algorithm aims to serve users the content they find interesting to keep them on the site. The algorithm doesn’t want the viewer to leave your video. They want to help you retain that viewer.
The platform offers retention tools to keep the viewer interested in your content, so use them. End screens and video cards are a great way to keep the viewer watching your content. If they watch several of your videos in a row, they’re more likely to get value from your content and hit the subscribe button.
End screens and cards are vital tools to retain your viewer. The end screen is a still image appearing at the end of your video, asking the viewer to like, comment, and subscribe with notifications. As the end card appears, the viewer is presented with video cards, i.e., thumbnails of other videos related to the one they just watched.
You can choose the videos you want to present to the viewer. As you close your video, give a verbal cue to the viewer to click on the card and watch another video. To add end screens, click “Content” in the Creator Studio menu, and select the video to add to your end screen. Tap the end screen box on the right of the screen and add a Subscribe button to the video.
Strategy 10 – Build Playlists
Playlists are another fantastic retention tool offered by YouTube to creators. Building a playlist gives your viewer a similar experience to watching Netflix. The algorithm serves the viewer another one of your videos directly after the video they’re watching finishes.
Playlists are ideal if you post content consecutively, building on one video after the next, such as a three-part series of videos comprising a specific topic. For instance, if you have a camping channel, you could publish a playlist of parts one, two, and three of your trip, and the algorithm consecutively serves the viewer. Playlists are available in the “Playlists” tab on your channel.
Strategy 11 – Showcase Your Content Strategically
Using the layout tab in your YouTube Creator Studio, you can add up to 12 sections to your channel homepage. This function allows visitors to your channel page to view your best content up front when arriving on your channel page.
The sections also allow you to showcase your playlists, giving your viewers immediate value when they land on your channel page. For instance, if you have a language-learning channel, your playlist sections can present language-learning tips as the viewer lands on your YouTube channel.
If you don’t know which sections to add to your channel page, start using the “Popular Uploads” tab. This feature selects your 12 top-performing videos with the most views. This strategy gives your viewer content that they are likely to enjoy, resulting in them smashing the subscribe button.
Strategy 12 – Keep a Consistent Publishing Schedule
Keep a consistent publishing schedule. It’s common for new creators to make the mistake of publishing too often. When you first start your channel, your brain is bubbling with ideas. So, as you start, you begin producing videos daily or every other day.
Unfortunately, some creators find the creative juices run dry, and they start scaling back their video publishing to a few times a week and then once a week before falling off the map altogether. When starting out on the site, stick to a publishing schedule you can commit to.
Remember, quality over quantity. If you commit to a once-a-week publishing schedule as a beginner, stick to that commitment. Your audience will expect you to deliver that video each week, and failing to meet your responsibility will result in losing subscribers.
Strategy 13 – Pull Subscribers from Other Social Media Channels
Do you publish content on other social media channels? If so, use it as a springboard to attract new viewers to your YouTube channel. It’s important not to drop links to your latest videos on other social media platforms.
YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are interested in keeping their visitors on the site. If you publish a link to your latest video in a post, the algorithm will suppress that post in search results to keep users from clicking it.
Rather create a 15 to 20-second clip of the video and post it directly to your social media accounts. Leave a caption describing the video and the name of your YouTube channel to incentivize the viewer to find the video on YouTube.
Cross-promoting your content on social media platforms is a great way to pull new subscribers from your followers and to get new viewers interested in your channel that doesn’t follow your social media accounts.
For instance, if your video clip lands on the Explore page on Instagram, millions of users will see it. A good portion of those users might decide to search for your video on youtube and subscribe to your channel.
Strategy 14 – Provide Incentive By Running a Contest
Many creators look at their analytics and find that over 50% of the people viewing their videos don’t subscribe. Run a contest to get a bump in engagement and attract new subscribers. Tell your viewer to stick around to the end of the video for information on how to win.
At the end of the video, give the viewer the chance to enter the contest by liking the video, subscribing to your channel, and tagging you on social media. Choose a prize that your audience will want to compete for. Cash is always a great idea, but you could use it as a way to offer a product from a related company you wish to sponsor you. If it does well, you could earn subs and a channel sponsor.
Strategy 15 – Collaborate with Creators
Are there other creators in your niche that you admire? Look for creators with a few thousand subscribers and ask them if you can do a “shoutout-for-shoutout” with them. Or, you could feature them on their video and do the same for them on your channel if you live close enough to each other.
Sometimes, you might have to pay the creator a small fee for the service if you don’t have a large enough audience to offer them value for the deal. Reach out to the creator through their “About” page details.
How To Get Free YouTube Subscribers – Key Takeaways
You don’t need to buy YouTube subscribers to grow your channel. In fact, doing so could damage your reputation or land you an account suspension. Grow your subscriber base organically using these 15 strategies. Be persistent with your execution. If you keep chipping away, you’ll eventually reach the point where viewers start flocking to your channel.